Management was once conceived as being like engineering, a very analytical, rational and mechanistic function whose sole aim was assembly line efficiency. In the early world of management, workers were seen as pawns or parts in a machine, not as people. The manager was a machine operator, the organization a machine. Management was a very masculine occupation conceived in terms of narrowly masculine values. The backlash against management in the seventies and eighties contrasted this image with one of leadership portrayed as inspiring and people focused.
Business & Management
