Greater Engagement Means Greater Productiveness
Participative management gives everyone in the company a say in running the show. That might sound like you’re giving away control. But you’re not! You’re grasping a way to engage your people and make them feel part of the team.
In these uncertain times, participative management helps make companies more resilient. You’re developing your people, bringing out their leadership potential, and helping retain talent. It might feel like a stretch. But you’re still in charge.
So, What is Participative Management?
Participative management is an ‘open’ management style, in which managers choose to invite their team into decision-making processes. All the members are given information regarding company decisions and are enabled to give their input before a final decision is made.
Some definitions say this is akin to democratic leadership. We’ll come back to this assertion later. For now, if someone talks about participative management in their business, don’t necessarily expect to find a less vertical, more equal structure! What you can expect, though, is people at different levels being empowered and encouraged to contribute to managing the business.
The operative word here is ‘contribute.’ In companies that adopt this style, typically people still have formal management roles. The difference is, they attach importance to taking feedback from colleagues across the business and seeking their input.
It’s a similar situation in a workgroup. A participative manager still manages, but here’s the thing. They ask for input from team members and take their viewpoints into account, to find workable solutions to business problems. In the process, they build connections with team members, and people feel engaged, valued, and appreciated. So, everyone wins. But the boss is still the boss.
People cite Microsoft founder Bill Gates as the classic example of participative leadership, taking suggestions from colleagues and teams. In his time as Chairman and CEO, he famously understood the importance of valuing team members’ skills and knowledge. But he didn’t give up the reins, by any means.
What Are Examples of Participatory Management?
1. Consultation
As the name suggests, this means managers consulting their team members. This can be within a work team, or companywide. They invite them to give their individual input before making decisions and implementing operational changes. Employees provide creative ideas and, as appropriate, suggest innovative solutions that help leaders consider different perspectives before embarking on the final decision.
We’ve seen this done to great effect recently with companies moving to hybrid working after the pandemic and consulting employees about what worked best for them. Consultation is also an important part of restructuring businesses. It’s crucial to listen to your people, to help them internalise the impending change and come to terms with it.
2. Joint Decision-Making
Some decisions are straightforward and obvious. But sometimes they’re more complex, particularly where you need to consider different subgroups of employees. A typical area is embracing equity, diversity, and inclusivity. We’ll mention EDI again in our next example, commitment to values. Staying with joint decision-making, managers and leaders encourage employee feedback and invite them to be actively involved in the decision-making process.
Joint decision-making is of course a key part of problem-solving. Individuals are welcome to share ideas as well as take responsibility for decisions the team makes. This approach can be seen commonly in project teams and specialist work groups, where the individuals each have significant expertise and experience, but the leader has overall charge. Hugely successful visionaries, such as Bill Gates, are authoritative leaders. But they know participative management when appropriate will enable them to get the best from their team.
3. Commitment to Values
Participative management plays a role in companies living out their commitment to their stated values. Examples include:
- Embracing equity, diversity, and inclusivity
- Supporting employees’ mental health and wellbeing
- Pledging to sustainability
- Supporting the local community and other important stakeholders
Participative management makes the company’s commitment to these values real and visible, by involving employees in establishing and owning the work culture.
4. Employee-Owned
In this example of participative management, other individuals besides the leaders own a piece of the business. The employees take part in policy decision-making and are important stakeholders, not just giving their labour. In employee-owned companies, the leadership team’s day-to-day management style isn’t necessarily that democratic. But knowing it’s employee-owned, makes people feel better about it.
What is the Importance of Participative Management?
If participative management is part of everyone’s day-to-day employee experience, it creates an environment that makes people feel genuinely valued. It gives employees equity, with opportunities for everyone to develop, whoever they are. Participative management makes room for people to grow and gives them chances to implement their ideas. This contributes significantly to improved employee engagement and retention.
In project teams, participative management means teams feel supported in developing innovative and diverse ideas, and have better morale. Individuals feel more personally involved in achieving goals, meeting deadlines, and developing solutions. They have greater motivation, and job satisfaction.
What Are the Features of Participative Management?
According to the ManagementStudyGuide.com business education portal, participative management has the following features:
1. Ethical Dimensions:
Participative management has ethical dimensions based on morals, principles, and values. Everyone’s treated equally when it comes to companies’ decision-making, based on empowering employees, sharing responsibility, and appropriate delegation of authority.
2. Proper Channels of Communication:
Participative management fosters effective two-way communication. It’s not only management that decides what employees need to do. As we’ve said, employees are encouraged to participate and give ideas and suggestions to make business processes better and more efficient. They are allowed to share their problems, views, ideas, and feedback with their managers.
3. Employee Empowerment:
Team members feel empowered by having a chance to participate in management processes. It’s good for our mental health to be encouraged to come up with our views. Thankfully, for most people, the days are gone when employees were bossed around by their managers. Now they’re treated more like co-workers. Having a say in decision-making gives team members a sense of higher status.
4. Recognition of Human Dignity:
In participative management, all employees are treated equally, irrespective of their roles, when it comes to giving ideas and suggestions. Employees feel less like the servants of their masters. Instead, they’re recognised as the company’s most precious assets.
5. Greater Job Satisfaction:
We spend most of our lives at work, so it’s vital to find fulfilment in our jobs. Commitment from the business, valuing people’s contribution, and co-determining company policies are some of the features of participative management that give employees psychological satisfaction.
These features we’ve looked at so far are ‘soft’ benefits, with no obvious return on investment. The other features in our list show up in the bottom line.
6. Innovation and Increased Efficiency:
Group problem-solving and openness to new ideas generate fresh innovation, beyond the ‘safe’ options. There’s also more knowledge sharing among team members and managers. People come up with ideas to increase efficiency, improve product and service quality, and cut operating or production costs.
7. Timeliness:
Better communication between managers and workers and between colleagues across business areas means loopholes or flaws can be addressed promptly.
8. Employee Satisfaction and Motivation:
Empowering employees increases their ownership and stake in their work. This leads to greater efficiency and productivity. Hence, there’s less absenteeism and reduced employee turnover. It also pays dividends in attracting talent to the company.
9. Less Need for Supervision:
Participative management fosters a greater focus on self-management and stimulates individuals to widen their skill sets. And the bosses’ time is freed up for more productive work.
10. Prompt Settlement of Disputes:
Increased communication paves the way for fewer grievances and quicker resolution of disputes, often on the spot. Union and management relationships also benefit and are strengthened.
11. Hiring Flexibility:
Training people in different skills increases your flexibility in hiring. Improved coordination among team members also offers a comfort zone for ‘newbies.’ This empowerment can lead to increased efficiency, better productivity, improved morale, and job satisfaction. But remember, adopting participative management will change the business culture. So, implementing it could be challenging. This is particularly so if the previous prevailing management style was bureaucratic.
What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Participative Management?
There Are Several Advantages of Participative Management
Here’s a quick recap:
#1 Delegating Power
Giving team members some autonomy will help keep them motivated. When managers decide to delegate a part of their responsibilities, they’re encouraging the team to be personally accountable. This motivates them to think about how to do the job better and contribute to the decision-making.
#2 Motivating Teams
Participative management inspires employees to demonstrate their individual commitment. As they feel more responsible, their focus, motivation, and involvement increase. They’re able to align their personal mission and vision with that of the company.
#3 Fostering Collaboration
For companies to work together well, you need effective and productive relationships between employers and employees, and within teams. The more everyone communicates, cooperates, and collaborates, the more relationships develop and foster growth and profitability. Encouraging mutual trust goes a long way to build businesses.
Know what you’re getting into! Participative management does have some downsides.
Here Are Some Disadvantages to Be Aware of
#1 Hard To Manage
Participative management brings a collaboration and teamwork culture. But it can be difficult for managers to handle different types of employees. Some folk may be uncomfortable speaking up, so prefer to avoid being involved in participative decision-making.
#2 Conflict Potential
When you bring different people together, there’s always a chance of conflicts arising due to different opinions, attitudes, working styles, and the rest of it. While giving their opinions, one employee may want to put their suggestions into practice, while others seek to devalue them. Fostering a participative culture in this situation takes considerable effort from managers.
#3 Need to Know
Once you welcome employees to participate in specific areas of your business, they become well-informed about the different aspects of the company. Security issues may arise if rogue employees seek to use sensitive company information for their personal benefit, which could negatively affect your business position.
#4 Training Costs Money
You can’t be sure every employee will be ready to work in a participative workplace culture. Some might prefer a more traditional environment, where they just get on with the job. You might need to provide coaching, to convince them to embrace the new way.
What’s the Theory Behind This Management Style? And is Participative Leadership a Leadership Style in Its Own Right?
The short answer is, not necessarily! Here’s why.
In the beginning, we said that some definitions of participative management maintain it’s much the same as democratic leadership. Others see it as a bolt-on to other leadership styles. Keep an open mind, and read on.
Democratic leadership was one of the three leadership styles categorised by the social psychologist Dr Kurt Lewin in 1939, along with authoritative and laissez-faire. On the eve of WWII, it was another world. Business leaders’ and managers’ thinking was much less flexible than now, about ways to manage people and get maximum productivity.
As we explore in our article on Management and Leadership Styles, Dr Lewin published his theory in an era when the old Classical Management Theory was still the prevailing wisdom. It might be overstating it somewhat, but in those very different times, authoritative leadership in business was seen as strong and desirable. Democratic leadership was viewed as power-sharing and risky, while laissez-faire leadership came close to handing over the keys to the business.
Things Have Changed Considerably Since Lewin…
Since Lewin’s time, as societies and cultures have changed, a host of other ideas about management and leadership have emerged and had their impact. Now, in 2023’s uncertain climate, business leaders recognise that to make the best of their situation and grasp the opportunities, yes, they need to lead but also bring their people with them. And that means flip-flopping between management styles while staying present, being self-aware, and remaining in control.
Tannenbaum and Schmidt created waves in management circles in 1958, when they published their article How to Choose a Leadership Pattern in the Harvard Business Review. They proposed a ‘Manager-oriented’ to ‘Team-Oriented’ continuum linking Lewin’s leadership styles.
When they updated their article in 1973, they suggested a more complex continuum, in which the area of freedom between managers and non-managers was being constantly redefined by interactions between them and external forces acting on the business.
Tannenbaum and Schmidt concluded that successful leaders know which behaviour is the most appropriate at any time. In our context, this includes judging when to bring in participative management – and when not to.
And Finally – How to Build Participative Management Into YOUR Business Culture
in 2021, Kaya Ismail wrote in Reworked.co, the digital publication covering the digital workplace, that participative management had suffered under the new remote workplace ushered in by the pandemic. This was mainly through the lack of candid, spontaneous communications typical of an on-site office setting.
Ismail suggested the following steps to redress the balance:
- Hear your team’s concerns: Listen to their thoughts and ideas, and factor them into your decisions.
- Create virtual spaces for thought-sharing.
- Encourage personal accountability.
Businesses have now either returned to their on-site workplaces or settled for hybrid working. Whichever mode you’re in, remote or in-office, one thing is clear. To implement participative management successfully, first, you need to designate and empower decision-makers to drive the broader team’s participation and prevent it from becoming a free-for-all.
Listening to employees and colleagues and involving them in the decision-making process through participative management isn’t easy. It requires an inclusive mindset, good communication skills and the ability — and inclination — to share power. You can do it if you put your mind to it!
Action: For even more useful content on team building, check out our ultimate guide on Team Building Skills.
