Theory X & Theory Y

Theory X & Theory Y


Douglas McGregor one of the forefathers of management theory developed a philosophical view of humankind with his Theory X and Theory Y in 1960. His work is based upon Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs. Theory X & Theory Y have been widely used to understand employee behavior in an organisation.

The distinct aspects of the two theories have been explained below :

Theory X

• Employees are considered to be lazy by default and dislike work.
• Employees must be coerced, threatened to work.
• They seek security above all else.
• They must be directed or controlled in order to meet the objectives
• They dislike additional responsibility

Theory Y

• Employees are self-motivated and tend to seek responsibility
• Organisation is easy to steer towards strategic goals because of acceptance from employees
• People are creative and have the imagination to come up with breakthrough innovations
• Work is natural and is distributed easily
• Managers tend to have liberal control due to natural growth

Let me add some theories of my own based on experiences with my previous employer.

My job as manager operations was to delegate work to 36 skilled technicians and achieve targets set by my superiors. Managing 36 technicians was the most important part because they were the ones who worked on the shopfloor and any weak link led to major breakdowns.

I had come across shopfloor workers of both the theory X type and Theory Y type.

All organisations have a grey scale area where they will find employees of both the kind. While the employees of Theory Y kind help in driving the organisation achieve its goals, the Theory X kind tend to pull them back.

Often the reasons for the existence of Theory X kind of employees is 

1. No ambition
2. Resistance to change
3. No additional rewards for additional work
4. Lack of control over employees

Such traits had been witnessed while I was working with my previous employer. 

However there were some people of the Theory Y kind who always came up with new ideas. Who always looked at the next assignment as soon as one got over. Who did not find the need for self-motivation. Who always aligned themselves with the organisation's goals.

Such a commix of people will always be present in any organisation. A complete eradication of Theory X people is not possible but a right balance is required to steer the ship.