Opposing Styles of Supervision - Research Paper Example

 McGregor's Theory Y and X McGregor's Theory X says that an average person dislikes work and will avoid it as much as he/she can and therefore most people must be forced with the threat of punishment to work towards organizational objectives whereas Theory Y says that there are people who show strong commitments towards their work and need rewards for boosting their performances further (Douglas Mcgregor - Theory X, Y, 2010). Theory X and theory Y point towards the necessitate of using contrasting management styles in an organization.

In other words, a supervisor should change his strategies judiciously so that each employee will get the message that good works will be complemented whereas poor performances will be punished. For example, suppose an employee is reporting late continuously. The supervisor should give some punishment to that employee in order to motivate him to change his behavior. On the other hand, suppose another employee stay back to complete a work even after the regular time, he should be complimented. In the first case, the employee belongs to the X category whereas in the second case, the employee belongs to the Y category.

Suppose the supervisor failed to punish the employee X. X will repeat his mistake till he gets any warning or punishment from the supervisor. He may think that the organization is not much serious about late coming and therefore he can continue his behavior without any problems. Same way suppose the supervisor failed to notice the good work of Y. Y will think that he may not get any compliment or reward for his better works and there is no point in continuing that behavior. On the other hand, if the supervisor, complement the better work of Y, then he will get more energy to repeat such good works in future also.

Autocratic Supervision vs. Participative Management “Authoritarian supervision, in general, is characterized by the relatively high degree of power wielded by the supervisor over the workgroup. Democratic supervision, on the other hand, is characterized by a sharing of power through participative decision making” (Sales, n.d, p.275). In autocratic supervision, management makes all the decisions without seeking any inputs from the employees whereas, in participative management, the organization welcomes and respect the opinions of the employees while taking any decisions.

It is difficult for a supervisor to remain autocratic or participative all the time. Based on the demands of the situation, the supervisor should change his supervising strategies. For example, suppose a supervisor wants to prepare an estimate for a particular project. It is better to seek the opinions of the employees about the possibilities of completing that project in the most feasible manner in order to prepare competitive estimates. It is not necessary that the supervisor may aware of all the options available for the completion of that project.

The employees can advise the supervisor about the easiest and cheapest ways of completing a project so that the organization will be benefitted at the time of the preparation of the estimate and also at the time of execution of the project. On the other hand, suppose the organization wants to schedule some overtime work for finishing off some urgent work.