Avoiding Leadership Dysfunction

The difference between managers and leaders:

• Managers work in a steady state environment and are accountable for getting the work done and for developing their people to get the work done and improving
• Leaders work in an abnormal environment, change, emergencies, and are accountable for direction and for getting people to follow, “Hey guys, this way, follow me!”

There’s a reason why the military always talks about leadership; they  prepare their workers for the ultimate abnormal environment, war.

In business, management skills and leadership skills are often expected from the same person, your boss. Over my career the business press has progressed from talking about management skills to leadership skills. I think this is for three reasons:

• Nobody wants to be the boss or be bossed. Managers and supervisors are looked down upon; everybody wants to be a leader.
• We live in an increasingly abnormal business environment, constant change -changes in technology that change industries overnight, mergers and acquisitions and other structural changes, changes in societal norms, customer and worker attitudes and expectations. As someone said to me “There is no steady state!”
• In this environment influence, peer leadership, has increased in importance, and direct lines of authority, have had to respond or as someone else said to me, “You can’t tell anyone what to do anymore!”

Leadership Dysfunction

So everyone is a leader, even the boss and everyone has an opinion on leadership. If you read LinkedIn, there are some bad leaders out there. Here are a few of the dysfunctions of leadership:

• Unclear, poor, wrong direction: People will forgive a leader who is wrong, if he or she admits it or is transparent about what is a guess. Lack of clarity, confusion is less forgivable, especially if followers pay for the consequences.           Symptoms include:
  • A vision that keeps changing. Some evolution is to be expected in uncertain times, but wild swings in the way a leader talks about the change implies the leader doesn’t know and hasn’t said “I don’t know.”
  • KPI of the week -most organizations have too many key performance indicators, but the change should have two to four at most that the leader keeps coming back to. At British Airways it was customer service (as rated by JD Power) and profit.
  • Tunnel-vision and trivia – for instance a leader who picks apart cost minutia in an innovation that will lead to doubling market share and profit.
• “He doesn’t want to lead you; he just wants you to follow him.” This was a quote about the villain Grindelwald from the movie “The Secrets of Dumbledore.” It describes a narcissist who craves the adulation of followers, but gives nothing back. He sees no value for others, but feels entitled to their worship.  It is all about the leader when it should be all about the direction, the vison, the mission and the followers.In the movie, Grindelwald, is a psychopath, who manipulates people to obtain power for evil purposes. In your life, the leader may just be ego-centric, but glimmers of the expectation for adulation still exist.

Symptoms include:

• A leader who values flattery and loyalty over truth-telling. If the “suck-ups” always get the best roles, the most time with the leader, the biggest budgets, and most praise, then no one will say “this isn’t working.”
• A leader that explodes at bad news, blames and denigrates the messenger. If you hear “You tell him.” “Uhn-uhn, not me, you tell him,” then the leader only gets honey-glazed info-crap. In this situation “No news is not good news.”
• Pseudo-empathy, some have learned how to fake a genuine interest in followers. They say things like, “That must have been tough for you, but. . .” “I hear you, but. . .” Ignore anything said before the “but,” no matter how sensitive it sounds.
• True anti-social behavior – I’m enough of an optimist to believe that despite the fact that some people call their bosses “psychopaths” or “sociopaths,” these are clinically rare in the workplace. There are some people who are unusually sensitive to others and misuse that gift for power. Sometimes these people feign emotions well and combine that with verbal acuity to be quite manipulative.

If you work for someone that seems to be able to make you elated one day and pinpoint your weaknesses, verbally eviscerate you to the point of tears the next. Forget that it is an exciting place to work. Run away, far and fast.

We’ve been looking at this from the point of view of the follower admittedly from the slightly jaundiced viewpoint epitomized by Bob Dylan,  in “Subterranean Homesick Blues:”

 “Don’t follow leaders; watch out for parking meters.”

How to Lead

But what should you do if you are the leader, if it is your job to make some part of the change happen. Here are a few ideas:

• Don’t be dysfunctional – if you see yourself with any of the dysfunctions above, stop, get help (a friend who can signal you to stop, a coach, training, whatever it takes).
• Focus on the direction, vision, mission of the change. People will pay attention to what you systematically pay attention to, and measure and control on a regular basis. Make sure it’s the right thing.
• Be clear about what you role model – what’s most important? Getting it right the first time or Try-it-fix-it-try-it-again? Big Picture or sweat the small stuff? If you’re running innovation and/or improvement initiatives learn the methodology and do a project yourself. What you do people will emulate.
• Control how you react to bad news, set-backs, incidents, and crises. Thank the people who bring bad news and tell the truth.
• Give time and resources, rewards and status to people who tell the truth (not suck-ups) I once saw a leader make a joke out of SUWI (suck-up with integrity) vs. SUWOI (suck-up without integrity). The leadership team had felt required to flatter the previous leader and the SUWI SUWOI joke turned that around in two meetings.
• Recruit, select, develop, promote people who do the right things and do things right. The people who make the change happen, get results (do the right things) and build good processes (do things right) should end up running the changed place.

As Dr Edgar Schein pointed out leaders shape culture, by establishing what is important. “Culture is the long shadow of leadership behavior.”  Make sure your shadow is one that serves your people and the change you intend them to make.