From the Historical Collection of the work of Dr. Clare W. Graves
- presentations, papers, recorded transcripts, notes-
William R. Lee                                                                                                                      August 2003

How Should Who Lead Whom To Do What? ^*  

 Paper delivered at the
YMCA Management Forum
of 1971-1972

by Dr. Clare W. Graves

Department of Psychology
Union College
Schenectady , New York

Gradually research is dispelling a long-standing belief of managers – the belief that proper training enables the manager to function effectively in most any kind of situation. Both research and experience have shown:

That - time and again, managers who are outstandingly successful in one situation perform abysmally in another.

That – administrators guided by the good results of, say, sharing responsibility with a group of subordinates are frustrated by their failure to replicate those results with another group of associates.

That – what is lacking is a way of making the specifics of each situation reveal the clues upon which appropriate management action can be based. (Seilers, 1968)

As a result of such contradictions and because of the lack, many managers have become disenchanted with what behavioral scientists have to say about managing for effective performance. They feel, and not unjustly, that the left hand of the behavioral scientist is contradicting what the right hand is offering – that we are derelict because we have not supplied that which is lacking, namely, some way to make the specifics of each managerial situation open for appropriate action. This particular kind of confusion, these apparent contradictions arising from behavioral science recommendations are in need of clarification. Such is the aim of this paper.

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