Douglas McGregor (Heil, Bennis & Stephens, 2000) referred to this as the X and Y theory of collaboration. One can think of X represented by workmen’s arms crossed in defiance and representing a lack of action, and Y as in the response, “why not”, a more open-minded and reasonable attitude of cooperation. Mary Parker Follett (2005/1926) illustrated the difference in the X and Y theory by explaining that workmen were more likely to follow leaders integrating orders through a give-and-take and response-and-action dialogue management style. A leader needs to understand that the same individual belongs to many different groups (organizations and systems), which may cause a conflict in the individuals’ actions and stance. This is exacerbated, says McGregor (Heil, Bennis & Stephens, 2000) because the individual has an emotional connection of varying levels and degrees with other individuals in his or her variety of groups.

Shawn M. Nichols

Shawn M. Nichols

Shawn M. Nichols

Individual human aspects include an innate intelligence, the ability of the subject to be immersed in the context, and the desire and commitment for further knowledge.

Groups are a replication of an environment in which The Real Issues are played at, to further a potential sense of confidence or fulfillment. Working groups even limited in their scope, cover many aspects of human relationships with a focus on fulfillment, avoidance of fears, and prior wounding.

Shawn M. Nichols

Industry will always outpace humanity, said Douglas McGregor (Heil, Bennis, & Stephens, 2000). True words in an industrialized age and even more so in a computerized, Internet era. Initial ideas for and assumptions one hundred years ago did not often focus on the individuals’ motivation or their sense of dignity. Workers are a group of people clutching at the last vestiges of humanity in an inhuman world. Business and social spheres that ignore the individual in a particular context create a dehumanizing environment where individuals’ behavior may become erratic or uncertain.

Shawn M. Nichols

A leader must acknowledge that members of a group become part of the collective leadership, playing in and out of a leading role as individuals with suggestions, complaints, and directing pivotal change within the group dialogue. This may change the role of the named leader into a follower or participant. Leaders are often determined by their family, financial power or acumen, with attendance at select schools that teach the mechanics of leadership. These people become the stewards of process often at the expense of reflection, intervention and paradigm change. Opposing forces are the individuals affected by the laws and cultural manipulations that become the change agents through and because of their lack of initiation into a proscribed atmosphere of “running the shop”.

Historically, students and initiates are the force for shaking status quo management’s strong beliefs. While there exists an incipient level of arrogance in that student group also, the dialogue is usually well informed and fresh. Their arguments and proposals can force reflection into a management.

It is because of the mutating role of a leader within a process group that one must rethink the traditional positivistic methods of leadership. One must start to think of leadership as an umbrella concept containing elements of any good societal or cultural process and system.

Shawn Nichols, MA, CC
doctoral student

shawnnichols.com

Religion also encompasses ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and mystic experience. The term “religion” refers to both the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction.“Organized religion” generally refers to an organization of people supporting the exercise of some religion with a prescribed set of beliefs, often taking the form of a legal entity (see religion-supporting organization). Other religions believe in personal revelation. “Religion” is sometimes used interchangeably with “faith” or “belief system,”^[3] but is more socially defined than that of personal convictions.

Courtesy of Wikipedia.com Courtesy of Google Images. We all have our views and our preachers do not necessarily speak for us. But do they represent the common belief within that religious group.?

Presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) defended his longtime pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, on Tuesday, even as he repudiated some of the pastor’s inflammatory sermons. But Wright’s comments likely come as no surprise to those familiar with black liberation theology, a religious philosophy that emerged during the 1960s.

Black liberation theology originated on July 31, 1966, when 51 black pastors bought a full page ad in the New York Times and demanded a more aggressive approach to eradicating racism. They echoed the demands of the black power movement, but the new crusade found its source of inspiration in the Bible.

“God’s presence in the world is best depicted through God’s involvement in the struggle for justice,” says Anthony Pinn, who teaches philosophy and religion at Rice University in Houston. “God is so intimately connected to the community that suffers, that God becomes a part of that community.”Courtesy of NPR.com