Mary Parker Folletts strategy as practice and leadership Essay

Mary Parker Folletts strategy as practice and leadership - Essay Example Micromanagement and establishing rigorous control systems to ensure performance were also part of the scientific management approach which led to conflict between management and employees (Mullins 2004). Follett was indicating that management involves acknowledgement of a variety of factors pertaining to worker characteristics that are inclusive of psychological needs and motivations and the sociological condition, thus defying scientific management’s effectiveness. Follett was attempting to illustrate that in order to create functional strategy and improve organisational performance, managers must develop leadership traits, avoiding the process of over-managing workers and instead seeking followership rather than command and control systems. This management philosopher, quite ahead of her time, saw organisations as complex organisms that required interaction between disparate manager and employee personalities and differing psychological tendencies in order to maximise employ ee productivity and commitment. This essay performs a critical appraisal of Mary Parker Follett’s assessment of the organisation, in order to outperform competition focusing specifically on the concepts of organisational complexity, the structure and purpose of complex adaptive systems, the impact of Follett’s viewpoint on leadership obligations and compares this to the practice perspective in real-world organisations. Based on the research on contemporary strategic management. (Mullins 2004).