Folletts Management Views in the Contemporary World - Coursework Example

Follett’s Management Views in the Contemporary World Name: ID: Course: Tutor: Institution: City and State: Date: Introduction Management is one of the most important concepts and field of study in the modern world. Different organizations around the planet rely on the expertise and abilities of their managers to attain success and survive in the modern world. Over the years, scholars have looked at various issues concerning management. These issues include the work that a manager should do, the skills that he or she should have as well as the various specific fields of the concept such as strategic, project and operations management. One of the most revered and important scholars to have contributed to the discourse on management is Mary Parker Follett. During her career, Follett developed some of the most influential theories and principles pertaining to the field of management. Despite having died more than half a century ago, her views, theories and principles are still relevant in management today, as they inspire leaders of corporations and different organizations. Some of Follett’s managerial principles dealt with the concept of leadership as she developed various ideas on the kind of people who should lead others and the defining qualities that they should have. One of Follett’s most significant ideas is the claim that “knowledge and expertise, rather than managers’ formal authority deriving from their position in the hierarchy, should decide who would lead at any particular moment” (Jones & George 2013, p. 44). Based on this claim, Follett developed a concept of management in which managers are normal people are selected to lead depending on their abilities. Interestingly, Follett’s views seemed to contradict ideas developed by other managerial experts of the time. The concept of management being a cooperative effort particularly contradicted the ideas of Henri Fayol and FW Taylor. Though Fayol and Taylor were more popular than Follett at the time, an analysis of the views of the three scholars indicates that Follett’s ideas on management are more suitable for the contemporary business world. Follett’s Views on Management Mary Parker Follett was a political scientist who had a late career in management in the United States. By the 1920s, Follett was a popular figure in the world of management across the United States, with her ideas becoming popular despite the fact that they contradicted views by popular scholars such as Henri Fayol and FW Taylor. Unfortunately for Follett, her influence was curtailed by the times in which she lived. Firstly, the business world of the early twentieth century was a man’s world where women struggled to gain any recognition (Robinson 2005, p. 30). Though Follett managed to become a popular and respected figure, she still lived in the shadow of other mean dealing with the field of management. Follett’s views also lost momentum when the Second World War started and companies shaped their operations in manners that suit the times (Robinson 2005, p. 30). Follett’s views on management were unique because they emphasized the importance of democracy and cooperation in the workplace. Interestingly, she applied similar views in other fields apart from management such as political science and education. Mary Follett argued that the organization was a smaller version of the human society in the way that it brought different people together (Kuznetsova 2013, p. 1557). For the organization to succeed there needs to be a way of motivating people on all levels of administration. This motivation inspires the people to define the roles in which they fit and shape the directions of their lives. Based on this perception of the business organization, Follett claimed the cooperation and coordination were the two main factors that held a company in one piece. Within business organizations, cooperation and coordination manifested themselves through the principle of “power with” rather than “power over”. The idea of leaders in an organization exercising power with their subjects rather than over them forms the basis of the claims Mary Parker Follett made that the knowledge and expertise that people have should play a larger role in determining who leads a group of employees at any one time. For Follett, merit and ability should be the key determinants of leadership and note the formal authority that is attached to the hierarchy in a company (Derksen 2014, p. 150). Since companies engage in many projects, it would be ideal for each of these programs to have a specific leader chosen because of his or her knowledge and ability. This would ensure competence and efficiency in each project (Derksen 2014, p. 150). Though the manager would still retain his or her seniority, he or she would be a subordinate to the other leader on technical matters pertaining to the project. Accordingly, the manager in such a situation would be exercising his or her power along with other experts rather than over them. This idea matched other views of Follett which were centred on concepts such as cooperation and democracy. Fayol on Management Henri Fayol was a French management expert who lived between 1841 and 1925. During his lifetime, he published several books on management, with his ideas and arguments falling firmly in the classical school of management. According to Fayol, the role of the management in a company was to handle five key functions (Robinson 2005, p. 32). The functions were planning, controlling, coordinating, commanding and organising. In addition to these five crucial functions, Fayol also developed fourteen principles pertaining to management. He believed that these principles were the key guiding rules for managers and that adherence to them would guarantee success for the administration in any organization (Robinson 2005, p. 32). Modern scholars note that Fayol’s ideas on management emphasized the concept of command and control. Indeed, the main difference between Fayol’s and Follett’s views is that the latter advocated for cooperation in the office as power is shared along with the responsibility that it comes with. Contrastingly, Fayol pushed for a despotic style of management where the manager exercised full authority and therefore bore all of the responsibility (Robinson 2005, p. 32). Accordingly, the manager had the power to make all of the decisions and effectively exercised power over his or her subordinates by giving them express instructions to follow. The scrutiny of Fayol’s ideas of management indicates that his ideas were markedly different from the claims of Mary Parker Follett. One issue on which Fayol differs with Follett is the division of power. The main idea in Mary Follett’s statement is that managers should not always be in-charge of the employees in a company, especially when some of the workers have better knowledge of the project that their colleagues are working on. In such cases, the manager of a specific project should be the person with the highest level of expertise on that particular issue. Contrastingly, Fayol argued that organisations should have a strict division of labour whereby employees in a firm specialize in one area of expertise and remain within it (Parker & Ritson 2005, p. 180). This division of labour means the manager of a company remains at the helm at all times even when other workers have a better understanding of the work that the firm is carrying out. One impact of this approach is that the company’s structure retains its order and the management remains stable and constant through all operations of the firm (Parker & Ritson 2005, p. 180). However, the hierarchical manager of the firm is not always the best fit for all situations and having him or her remain in charge at all times could have a negative effect on the company’s operations. Fayol’s views also differ with Follett’s on the issue of unity of command. In Follett’s statement, the key argument is that a company should choose the manager by analyzing the context and determining the best fit for the situation. One effect of such an approach is that the different managers could use varying methods of leadership. The changing approaches to leadership could have negative effects on the employees as they use different methods to carry out their work depending on the person in charge. Alternatively, Fayol’s principles of management stated that companies should have a unity of command. According to the scholar, unity of command within a firm refers to a situation where all of the orders that the plan that the employees are executing is determined by a single leader (Spatig 2009, p. 180). This principle differs with Follett’s because it rejects the idea of a company having multiple managers, some of whom are determined by the project or nature of operations. This is because the change in managers would become a hindrance in the establishment of a unity within the command. Accordingly, Fayol’s principles advocate for a single voice in command that maintains one direction within a company thus ensuring that there is a form of continuity. Despite these differences, Fayol and Follett seemed to concur slightly on the involvement of employees within some managerial processes. In one his principles of management, Fayol explained that the management in a company should involve employees by allowing them to deal with some of the problems that the firm is facing and develop solutions to the issues themselves. Such involvement would act as a motivating factor for the employees because they would feel valued and well utilized by the firm. This idea is similar to the claim that Follett made because both arguments involve the incorporation of a firm’s workers in the management and leadership process. However, there is a slight difference in this involvement. Follett’s idea sees the involvement of employees by creating a system that allows them to become managers in some situations, while Fayol’s principle pushed for the workers to become a part of the problem solving process, a role that would require them to make contributions based on their expertise. Accordingly, both ideas push for the involvement of a company’s employees in some aspects of a firm’s managerial processes, albeit to different extents. Taylor on Management Like Mary Parker Follett and Henri Fayol, Frederick Winslow Taylor is also a significant and influential figure in the field of management. FW Taylor lived in the United States between 1856 and 1915 and became involved in management when working for Midvale Steel Company (Robinson 2005, p. 32). Taylor’s approach to management emphasised control and planning in a manner that was largely despotic and dictatorial. He believed that management was a discipline focused on specific rules and orders that the subordinates of a manger had to follow (Zuffo 2011, p. 37). Initially, Taylor worked at the Midvale Steel Company as a subordinate. In 1878, he gained a promotion to the position of foreman and promptly tested out the principles that he had developed for management (Robinson 2005, p. 32). In this position, he employed his dictatorial approach to management and achieved significant success. Indeed, Taylor’s management principles were befitting of the time in which he lived and they yielded positive results for many companies, earning him significant popularity. The dictatorial approach that Taylor applied to management differs largely with the methods that Follett preferred of cooperation and democracy. Taylor’s arguments differ largely with claim that Follett made because he preferred a dictatorial approach to management. One of the key differences between the two scholars emanate from the fact that Taylor believed that workers were only supposed to follow the orders that the managers issued (Mahmood, Basharat & basher 2012, p. 516). This differed sharply with Follett’s statement, which advocated for workers to take part in the management of the company by taking charge in situations where they were better informed. Instead, Taylor argued that workers were simply there to carry out the direct orders that the managers issued. This argument was similar to the division of labour that Fayol pushed for, albeit in a more direct manner (Robinson 2005, p. 32). Indeed, Taylor even went as far as to claim that workers were supposed to act and not to think, because the managers did all of the brainstorming that a company needed. Application of the Principles in the Contemporary Business World Follett’s principles of management are more appropriate for the modern world for several reasons. Firstly, modern companies engage in a variety of projects and operations that cannot be organized by a single manager in the company. Though top level management may remain stagnant and fixed, mid and lower level management requires a more fluid structure that caters for the dynamism of the twenty-first century (Latham & Pinder 2005, p. 487). Many scholars have noted that the views that Taylor had were draconian and dictatorial. The idea of workers only implementing ideas and not having a say of their own would hardly fit in with the structure and nature of business organizations in the twenty-first century (Evans & Holmes 2013, p. 88). Similarly, Fayol offered an approach that limited the involvement of employees in the management process of a company. Even though Fayol allowed the involvement of workers in some managerial functions, this role was heavily limited within the scope of his principles (Smith & Boyns 2005, p. 1330). Research indicates that employees become motivated when their leaders entrust them with some authority and responsibilities as is the case with Follett’s approach (Latham & Pinder 2005, p. 490). Accordingly, Follett’s approach is unique in the way that it strikes a balance between the control of a company and the motivation of employees and this makes it suitable for the twenty-first century. Conclusion Follett, Fayol and Taylor are some of the most influential managerial experts who lived in the twentieth century. Their views influenced managers from their era in various ways. Follett’s principles of management differed from those by Fayol and Taylor in various ways. Fayol and Follett differed on issues such as the unity of command and order. While Fayol advocated for a single leader to sustain the company’s orientation and direction, Follett believed that managers should be determined by expertise and knowledge meaning that different projects would have varying leaders. For Taylor, his dictatorial approach to management differed with Follett’s because he opposed to the involvement of employees in managerial issues in anyway. Contrastingly, such involvement formed the basis for Follett’s views. With the dynamism that is present in the business world of the twenty-first century, Follett’s views have proven to be more appropriate as they account for the needs of both the employees and the company. References Derksen, M 2014, ‘Turning men into machines? Scientific management, industrial psychology, and the “human factor”’, Journal of the History of the Behavioural Sciences, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 148-165. Evans, C & Holmes, 2013, Re-Tayloring management: scientific management a century on, Gower Publishing, Farnham. Jones, GR, & George, JM 2008, Contemporary management, McGraw-Hill/Irwin, Boston. Kuznetsova, NV 2013, ‘Mary Parker Follett: The prophet of management’, Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research, vol. 17, no. 11, pp. 1555-1559. Latham, GP & Pinder, CG 2005, ‘Work motivation theory and research at the dawn of the twenty-first century’, Annual Review Psychology, vol. 56, pp. 485-516. 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