The Road to Empowerment: Seven Questions Every Leader Should Consider
I have read most of the articles that was given to us, I am particularly interested in discussing one of the articles that was given to us for reading. That article is “The road to empowerment: Seven Questions Every leader should consider.” I would be discussing this article with reference to Chapters on Motivation and Empowerment from the textbook and also, with extra information that I have garnered from external sources.
First, I would like to comment on the notion of mechanistic and organic approach towards empowerment. This notion reminds me of “The Burns and Stalker Study” . The study was an analysis of 20 industrial firms in the United Kingdom and the effects of the external environment on the pattern of their management and economic performance. Burns and Stalker identify two divergent systems of management practice and structure – the ‘mechanistic’ system and the ‘organic’ system. In their study, they have mentioned that the mechanistic system is a more rigid structure and more appropriate to stable conditions and in contrast, the organic system is a more fluid structure appropriate to changing conditions. The definition of mechanistic and organic is very much similar to what the authors of the article have depicted.
The study of Burns and Stalker has a very important conclusion and resonated with what the authors of the article have mentioned. There are immediate stages between the two extreme systems which represent not a dichotomy but a polarity. The relationship between the mechanistic and organic system is not rigid. An organization that displays both relatively stable and relatively changing environment may move between the two systems. This has further reinforced the authors’ idea of integrating mechanistic and organic empowerment. As mentioned in the textbook, the workers’ flexibility must match the flexibility of the environment, which I agree very much with.
With this similarity, I cannot help but insinuate that the success of
First, I would like to comment on the notion of mechanistic and organic approach towards empowerment. This notion reminds me of “The Burns and Stalker Study” . The study was an analysis of 20 industrial firms in the United Kingdom and the effects of the external environment on the pattern of their management and economic performance. Burns and Stalker identify two divergent systems of management practice and structure – the ‘mechanistic’ system and the ‘organic’ system. In their study, they have mentioned that the mechanistic system is a more rigid structure and more appropriate to stable conditions and in contrast, the organic system is a more fluid structure appropriate to changing conditions. The definition of mechanistic and organic is very much similar to what the authors of the article have depicted.
The study of Burns and Stalker has a very important conclusion and resonated with what the authors of the article have mentioned. There are immediate stages between the two extreme systems which represent not a dichotomy but a polarity. The relationship between the mechanistic and organic system is not rigid. An organization that displays both relatively stable and relatively changing environment may move between the two systems. This has further reinforced the authors’ idea of integrating mechanistic and organic empowerment. As mentioned in the textbook, the workers’ flexibility must match the flexibility of the environment, which I agree very much with.
With this similarity, I cannot help but insinuate that the success of