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How Leaders Learn
book

How Leaders Learn

by David Novak, Lari Bishop
June 2024
Beginner
288 pages
5h 55m
English
Harvard Business Review Press
Audiobook available
Content preview from How Leaders Learn

Chapter 16 Round Up on People

Learn to trust in positive intentions

I’m a Theory Y leader all the way.

Back in 1960, Douglas McGregor, a management professor at MIT, described two leadership outlooks on human behavior in his book The Human Side of Enterprise. Those who fell into the Theory X category believed that employees had to be coerced, controlled, and threatened to do good work or take responsibility. Those who fell into Theory Y believed that people were generally creative, ingenious, and ready to take on responsibility, if they were treated accordingly.

I believe in running an organization based on the assumption that 99.9 percent of people want to do good, not bad or even mediocre, work. I trust in their positive intentions.

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781647827557