MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Modes of management - styles
generally flow over to dealing with the staff. That does not mean
I am an angel because I have my moments the same as
anybody else. (Interviewee D)
Decisions tend to be taken by individuals with minimum
consultation and then somebody complains that they should
have been consulted, there is a row and you say "well, I didn't
have time." And, I guess as a consequence of those effects,
there tends to be a sort of personification of power, really, and
that individuals mark out their own territory and are insistent that
they make decisions within that territory. They then ward off
anyone who is interested in expressing a view. They see it
rather as a challenge than a help (Interviewee L)
To some extent this is corroborated by the Equality and Diversity
review which reported staff observations about the ‘questionable
attitudes’ of a few senior officials. On the other hand, adopting a
consensual approach is also mentioned by managers as being
important:-
I learned a long time ago that if you are 4' 11½”, there's no point
in screaming and shouting. You have to find some other
mechanism. My style would be very different. (Interviewee G)
That's all fine and dandy but you also get the petty jealousies
and all the rest of it. They are just things that you have to try
and manage and try and pull people together all the time and
some of that is down to trying to develop a style that is inclusive.
(Interviewee B)
In one case, this is linked to a more relaxed, theory Y, approach:-
In this department we have always tried to have a fairly
consensual way of running things….It is being fairly hands off. I
have been quite happy to let staff, when the staff are doing a
reasonable job along the lines that I want, particularly as we are
coming from different backgrounds -- at the beginning of merger
the word culture was bandied around frequently and I think
people had different ways of doing things. My feeling was if the
end result was what I wanted, I wasn't too concerned about how
they got there so I tended to let people carry on and try and
develop as we have gone along (Interviewee F)
An inclusive approach was demonstrated in some departments by the
way in which the Departmental Strategic Plan was formulated:-
Each Department has to go away and draw up its own strategic
plan on whether it is fit for purpose, what changes needed to be
made to make sure that it was fit for purpose and we launched
this at a meeting of the employees. And we told all the
employees that they would all be involved. They all got a copy
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