MARY PARKER FOLLETT 1

Mary Parker Follett and

The Emergence of Humanistic Management Theory

Taylor Howell

University of South Florida

 MARY PARKER FOLLETT 2

I. Introduction

The early 20th century saw the necessary arrival of modern business management models and

theories to meet the needs of an industrial age. As managers became responsible for the

operations of more employees than ever before, they needed strategies for ensuring efficiency in

the work of every employee so that the organization as a whole sustains unity and productivity.

These theories of management, which include classical scientific, humanistic, quantitative,

systemic, and contingent, remain pertinent in management practice today. The classic scientific

approach, put forth by Frederick W. Taylor in 1911, was the first school of thought to become

widely accepted in industry. In brief, Taylor’s theory sought to maximize worker efficiency

through scientifically finding the most optimal methods to perform a certain task and having

managers personally teach, rather than direct from afar, the workers most suited for that task.

While the scientific approach to management took off in the industrial world, another theory was

developed around the same time, but would not see adherents until the 21st century—Mary

Parker Follett’s humanistic approach to management.

Follett’s theory in many ways directly contradicts Taylor’s system. Employees are not

“mere cogs in the machine of industry,” but instead are complex people with goals,

responsibility, social networks and expertise (Moran & Morner 2018). If managers empower

employees by giving them more responsibilities and distributing knowledge, the company will

begin to operate as a collaborative team instead of as an impersonal institution with disparate

parts. Follett was neither a manager nor an employee for a prominent company; this along with

her gender made her not very prominent among economists in her life time. However, her life

experience as a highly educated woman, teacher, and social worker for various non-profit
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organizations gave her both the practical knowledge of the condition of working class people and

the empirical knowledge to develop sound management theory.

II. Biography

Mary Parker Follett was born in Quincy Massachusetts in 1868 and died in the same state in

1933 (Gibson et al, 2013). Although she suffered from a tumultuous home life during her early

years, her parents were wealthy enough to afford an extensive education for Follett, in which she

excelled. When Follett graduated from Thayer Academy, she went on to Harvard Annex for

Women. One year, she studied at Newnham College at Cambridge University in England where

she learned from Henry Sedgwick. Back at Harvard, she taught history for a brief time and

graduated with an AB degree in economics, government, law, and philosophy (Gibson et al,

2013). Follett’s extensive education was extremely rare for women of her time. “In the 1880s,

less than 2 percent of women aged eighteen to twenty-one enrolled in college” (Tonn 2003,

p.38). Her studies included coming into contact with Gestalt Theory, which she writes about in

her book, Freedom and Co-ordination (published 1949). “What the organism does, its unified

activity, depends not on the constituents alone, but on how these constituents are related to one

another” (Follett 1949). Such a philosophical foundation has bearing in her theory of

management, as we will see in the next section.

After university, Follett devoted her life to social work, community service, and starting new

organizations to support working class men. She started social work at the Roxbury

neighborhood of Boston, where, as an informal educator to a wide range of people, she

discovered that diversity is a strength that can enrich a community or organization. Follett wrote

that:
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Instead of shutting out what is different, we should welcome it because it is different and

through its difference will make a richer content of life… Every difference that is swept up

into a bigger conception feeds and enriches society; every difference which is ignored

feeds on society and eventually corrupts it. (as cited in Smith M.K 2002)

Follett’s commitment in adult education and social infrastructure as a means to democracy

underpinned her work, writings, and relationships for the rest of her life. In 1908, Follett became

chairperson of the Women’s Municipal League’s Committee on Extended Use of School

Buildings (Smith M.K 2002). This organization aimed to make public schools into community

centers when not school season. The aim was to integrate different organizations like youth

groups, trade associations, and churches to “overcome civic apathy” (Smith M.K 2002). This

initiative succeeded and spurred the creation of many more community centers in the years to

follow.

Although Follett’s access to the political arena was limited due to her gender, she

explored the mechanics of power and authority through personal interviews with “men who

participated in the life of the House of Representatives” (Whitney 2013, p.448). Her unusual

method (for that time) of gathering information through approaching men of great governmental

power along with historical and inductive inquiry culminated in her book, The Speaker of the

House of Representatives in 1909. Follett later shifted her political attentions to the plight of

industrial workers when in 1917 she became a member of the Massachusetts Minimum Wage

Board and served as vice-president of the National Community Center Association (Smith M.K.

2002). Her experience in learning about democratic leadership and power drawn from local

groups fueled her ideas in her 1918 book, The New State. She became a popular lecturer for her

unique ideas about business and leadership, but “with the continuing rise of scientific
 MARY PARKER FOLLETT 5

management and reaction to the social obligations that her views placed upon organizations her

calls for a more ‘human’ approach to administration got less of an audience” (Smith M.K

2002). By the time Follett died in 1933, her humanistic approach to management fell to the

wayside in favor of scientific management, and would not be revived until decades later.

III. Management Theory

In some ways, Follett’s humanistic approach to management is similar to elements of

Fredrick W. Taylor’s ideas. For example, both Follett and Taylor dismiss the notion that

managers achieve optimal leadership through bullying, coercing, or directing their employees

like tyrants. Taylor believes workers would be more industrious if managers taught them in a

personal, friendly manner the best way to accomplish tasks.

And each man should daily be taught by and receive the most friendly help from those who

are over him, instead of being, at the one extreme, driven or coerced by his bosses, and at the

other left to his own unaided devices. (Taylor, 1911)

Follett’s explanation of “power with” instead of “power over” takes Taylor’s suggestion to its

furthest extreme and displaces the presumption of the manager’s authority entirely. “In a society

that embraces “power with,” individuals approach problem solving in a way such that creative

solutions that lead to positive and shared outcomes are reached” (Whitney, 2013). According to

Follett, authority did not come from an innate ability but rather from expertise or responsibility

of the task to be performed. So, employees do not actually serve the manager, but rather the

common goal of the company. Shifting authority from a hierarchy to a system based on

functional responsibility shifts power dynamics:

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We find authority with the head of a department, with an expert, with the driver of a truck

as he decides on the order of deliveries. The dispatch clerk has more authority in

dispatching work than the president (Follett, 1949).

The humanistic theory puts more value into competent workers and giving them room to bring

their strengths to the company rather than making employers micromanage employees. It also

breaks down static hierarchy and makes authority situational depending on the problem that

needs to be solved.

Another discrepancy between Taylor and Follett is the nature of the worker himself.

Taylor assumes that workers are naturally lazy and will exploit the system to get the most value

out of the least amount of work possible, in what he refers to as “soldiering” (Taylor, 1911). By

contrast, the humanistic theory puts greater faith in the motives and ability of workers. Simone

T.A. Phipps argues that Follett infused spirituality into management practice that had become

cold and inhuman with the scientific movement. Follett’s moralism can be seen in her assertion

that “an order given in a disagreeable manner is viewed as an attack on receivers’ self-respect,

and an invasion of one of their most inner sanctuaries” (Phipps, 2011, p. 274). Follett’s

recognition of the psychological inner life of the individual worker was revolutionary for her

time and heavily contradicted conventional attitudes of dismissal toward workers’ self-esteem.

Follett knew that fostering workers’ self-esteem would encourage them to invest their ideas and

energies toward the company’s goals.

Follett believed that employees should be motivated at work because she placed great

importance on the power of collaboration and conflict resolution. Drawing from Gestalt theory,

Follett found that the best businesses were those whose disparate departments and members ran
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smoothly like one organism. Morgen Witzel explains this concept further in A History of

Management and Thought:

When people work together they combine their thinking through a process of adjustment.

… No department exists in isolation, nor is the organization just a set of departments; all

the departments are bound together by this constantly changing cycle of action and

adjustment. (2012)

Unlike other theorists, Follett viewed conflict as a positive driving force for change. In her book,

Co-ordination and Control, she recognizes three kinds of conflict resolution: domination, in

which one party gets its way at the expense of another, compromise, in which both parties make

unsatisfying sacrifices, and “integration” in which both parties work together to come up with a

satisfying third option (Follett, 1949). In order to achieve regular integration problem solving,

constituents must constantly practice proper discourse. First, they must “reveal all differences in

opinion and stance on issues to all of the relevant parties” (Whitney, 2013). Then they must find

the significant points and break down the demands, interests, and facts of the situation. “This

exercise allows parties to fully examine multiple dimensions of their demands” (Whitney, 2013).

Diversity is a key component to integration because it invites different knowledge bases and

more creative ways to approach problems.

IV. Implications for Libraries

The humanistic theory is rooted in the basic principle that managers and employees ought to

work closely together. According to Shawn L.Berman and Harry J.Van Buren III, “as managers

have shown an increased desire for labor flexibility that has been enacted through various

employment practices, managers and organizations have moved further away from Follett's call

for increased integration and participation from all members of their organizations” (2015, p.
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45). This is especially true in large companies with strict hierarchies. Because libraries vary

wildly from large county-wide systems to small, rural, single-branch institutions, this observation

may ring true for only some libraries. All libraries are more customer-service and community

outreach oriented than conventional companies which are focused on production. This means

that the humanistic approach to management fits the librarian profession in spite of

contemporary changes. Libraries are very goal driven and usually have a mission statement

inspired by the American Library Association with specific policies to reach tangible goals.

Employees and managers alike are united under the mission (serving the informational needs of

the community) and therefore strict hierarchies are delineated. Of course, chain of command still

exists, but that varies from library to library. Librarians value teamwork and diversity because

they recognize that integrating the voices of all departments (such as circulation, reference and

programing) is necessary for the organization to flourish as a whole. Follett’s humanistic theory

is a good reminder that, for the moment at least, most companies employ people deserving of

responsibility, respect, and adequate pay. Getting workers to be motivated in their work by

integrating their ideas and knowledge-authority is still and will always be a sound management

technique.
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References

Berman, S. L., & Van Buren, I. H. J. (2015). Mary Parker Follett, managerial responsibility, and

the future of capitalism. Futures, 68, 44–56. https://doi-

org.ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/10.1016/j.futures.2014.08.013

Follett, M. P. (1949). Freedom & co-ordination : lectures in business organizations. Routledge.

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Moran, B. B., & Morner, C. J. (2017). Library and Information Center Management, 9th Edition.

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Phipps Simone T.A. (2011). Mary, Mary, quite contrary : In a male‐dominated field,

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practice. Journal of Management History, (3), 270. https://doi-

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community-creative-experience-and-education. Retrieved: 9/6/19].

Taylor, Frederick W. (1911). The Principles of Scientific Management. New York: Harper Bros:

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Tonn, J. C. (2003). Mary P. Follett. [electronic resource] : creating democracy, transforming

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Whitney Gibson Jane, Chen Wei, Henry Erin, Humphreys John, & Lian Yunshan. (2013).

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Witzel, M. (2012). A history of management thought. Routledge. Retrieved from

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