The Many Theories of Management
For hundreds of years there has been a mystery on how managers can receive the best
performance from their employees. Many “management experts” have based their careers
on developing, researching, and testing the theories related to management. To properly
define management a person needs to look at the origin of the word which is manage.
Manage is defined as “to exercise executive, administrative, and supervisory direction of a
business.” (Merriam-Webster) Now when you look at the definition of management it is
more specific to the business world. That definition is “the conducting or supervising of
something (as a business).” (Merriam-Webster) When I think of what makes a great
manager or even just an effective manager I look at how they control, problem solve,
monitor, plan, organize, and budget for their employees and the company.
The purpose of this paper is to asses the various views on theories of management, their
effectiveness or lack thereof and the experiences Ive had in my career.
Three Theories on Management
Although there are over 250 different theories on management I have narrowed my
research down to three. This will extremely difficult because there are so many different
and exciting theories to explore but for the benefit of time I can only use three. The three
theories that I have chosen are, Theory X, Theory Y, and Path-Goal Theory. I feel like
these theories are known and widely used by many managers. Although they are known
they are also each others opposites. I will begin by assessing each theory, comparing them,
