(or on the folly of rewarding A while hoping for A)
“Do you guys have email addresses?” our waitress asked. It was Thursday, and my colleague and I were partaking in 60-cent Boneless Wings Day. After delivering a sarcastic “No” I inquired why she was asking so bluntly. She wanted us to enroll in the Buffalo [...]
A few weeks ago I got into a conversation about whether situational leadership was more appropriate for top-level or front-line leadership. I argued that situational leadership is most appropriate for front-line leadership. To be more specific, I believe that the front-line is about management and situational leadership is about how to manage, not necessarily lead, [...]
Often managers are called to be more than just managers; they’re called to be leaders. Recent literature continues to blur the line between management and leadership. However, one theory stands out because of its potential to make clear cut distinctions between leaders and managers: Transformational Leadership theory.
Transformational Leadership is a relatively new approach to leadership [...]
Systems thinking is the understanding of how things influence one another within a whole. In nature, systems examples include ecosystems in which various elements and creatures work together to survive or perish. In organizations, systems consist of people, structures and processes that work together to make an organization healthy or unhealthy.
Systems thinking is one way [...]
Theory of Constraints (TOC) is an overall management philosophy introduced by Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt that is geared towarding help organizations continually achieve their goals. The theory contends that any manageable system is limited in achieving more of its goal by a very small number of constraints and that there is always at least one [...]
In the 1950s Kurt Lewin created a new discipline of management: change management. Managers and leaders had always been tasked with instigating and facilitating transitions, but Lewin’s work represented the first well-researched theoretical model describing the change process. Lewin believed organizational change happened in three stages: unfreezing, change and freezing.
The unfreezing stage involved overcoming inertia [...]
The two-factor theory (also known as Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory) was developed by Frederick Herzberg. The theory states that there are certain factors in the workplace that cause job satisfaction, while a separate set of factors cause dissatisfaction.
Two-factor theory distinguishes between Motivators (e.g., challenging work, recognition, responsibility) which give workers satisfaction, arising from intrinsic conditions of [...]
Theory X and Theory Y are theories of human motivation created and developed by Douglas McGregor at the MIT Sloan School of Management in the 1960s. The theories describe two very different attitudes toward workforce motivation. McGregor felt that companies followed either one or the other approach.
In Theory X, management assumes employees are inherently lazy, [...]
Bureaucracy is used so often in such negative terms, most who use it forget its roots. Bureaucracy in its ideal sense, according to its most influential thought leader Max Weber, can be a positive term. At the time, the ideal bureaucracy was a more rational and efficient form of organization than the available alternatives. According [...]
The Hawthorne Studies were conducted from 1927 to 1932 at the Hawthorne Works plant outside of Chicago. Elton Mayo, a scientific management researcher, wanted to examine the impact of work conditions on employee productivity. Mayo first examined the physical and environmental influences of the workplace and eventually moved into the psychological aspects and their impact [...]
About
David Burkus is the editor of LeaderLab, a community of resources dedicated to promoting the practice of leadership theory. He is an executive coach, a sought-after speaker and an adjunct professor of business at several universities.