What is a management philosophy?

I'd say that it's a collection of beliefs on the best way to manage available resources, utilizing them to achieve the highest valued outcome.

Management philosophy can be either an individual or corporate approach as to the management of departmental employees. It is an individual thing only if the manager has free reign to run his or her department the way they think is best...and it is a corporate thing if the manager is strictly tied to a specific corporate managing structure. IMO it is far better to have the former because it allows free thinking and the development of new approaches, whereas the latter prevents free thinking and promotes automaton, cookie-cutter, our-way-or-the-highway type rigidness that actually strangles any creativity (along with productivity) on the part of the manager.

Managing philosophies can range from micro-managing, the in your face, "What are you going to close today?" kind of high-pressure hogwash to a much more productive (and relaxed I might add) "I hired you to do a job, so go do it". To me, the management philosophy of a company is a direct reflection on it's hiring, training and mentoring practices. If a company takes the time to hire the right people, train them intensively and mentor individual growth, then it can adopt a free-reign, relaxed (and much more productive) management philosophy. If a company hires just about anybody breathing, has no or very little training and does nothing to mentor growth, then it will lean more toward the cookie-cutter, non-trusting, micro-management philosophy that we see so much of today.

You can read a lot about a company by observing how it's employees are managed. This has been my experience over the last 30 years in business.

In my experience, management "philosophy" (as distinct from management "style") is the set of assumptions and expectations one has about the work and workforce. A slightly dated but I think relevant example might be seen in the Theory-X/Theory-Y philosopies promulgated several decades ago.

Theory X (broadly interpreted) viewed the majority of workers as individuals with no particular connection or commitment to the work or goals of the organization or to work in general for that matter. Under this theory, the manager's task was to keep an eye on the workers and apply appropriate punishments to keep them from damaging the organization.

If you managed by theory X, you were in a structurally antagonistic relationship with your workers. This was prevalent during the early part of the industrial age before the needs (or humanity) of workers bacame a legitimate subject, hanging on into the 50s and 60s in some industries, associated to some extent with the growing confrontational style of organized labor.

Theory Y on the other hand viewed workers for the most part as individuals capable of internalizing the goals of the organization and acting independently to further those goals.

The theory Y manager viewed the workers as "partners" in the work of the organization and assumed that, with some exceptions, that they would do their best without being bludgeoned.

How managers of each type live and act out their philosophy comprises their style, but the expectations, X or Y, etc., they bring to their work is based on that philosophy.

Thanks Barry for reiterating my POV. The problem I see today is that there are far too many companies reverting back to the X style of management, micro-managing to the max while giving little to no direction or motivation at all, other than keeping your seat. This is most prevalent in medium sized, regional type, companies and not so much with the large, enterprise type companies, which make it extremely prevalent in the American workplace.

There is absolutely zero loyalty in the workplace any longer regardless of management style or philosophy. Corporations, by and large, expect the same loyalty as in the past while giving the employee nothing to be loyal for. This is particularly true in the sales arena. There was once a time (and yes, I know there are still managers out there that are fair) when a manager actually went out on sales calls with their people when needed and went to bat for them when they were right about an issue. Today there are far too many 'ivory tower' managers who not only do nothing to help the team but are in the game solely for themselves, playing the CYA game. We need more mid-sized companies promoting Y type management philosophies and hiring managers that actually do some work, then and only then there will be better morale and more loyalty on both sides of the fence...not to mention higher productivity.

Management Philosophy are broad set of principles of an individual which are evolved from values, vision, mission and culture of surroundings where he has grew up, educated and worked. Thus Management philosophy guides managers to make all types of decisions.