It has been one and a half years (two years if you include my internship time) since I started working. I have come to the realization that studying was way more easier and fun compared to work. But another shocking realization is around two thirds of workers I have met in this period say the most stressful aspect of their jobs is their immediate boss, their line manager. Does this suggests a massive number of unhappy working relationships? So, does this mean that leadership is failing on a massive scale? Well, not exactly...
The outcome of this realization was that I felt bosses aren't inherently bad people (mostly ;-))but that the modern culture of work sets them up to fail. Here are the main reasons that I think leads to the failure of management.
1. Strict Hierarchies:
Leaders are at the top of the chain and are assumed to have all the answers, so they make most of the decisions. In reality knowledge and expertise is spread across people in organizations. But it's the leaders who must be seen to lead and so followers get frustrated because their superior knowledge and expertise is frequently ignored. This leads to:
2. Poor decision-making.
Leaders often don't make any better decisions than followers, and frequently make worse ones. This is another consequence of strict hierarchies. It's better to agree that leaders are not always the best people to make the decisions. Spreading the responsibility around, or using more participatory strategies for decision-making is often more effective. But this isn't the way things generally work, part of the problem is:
3. Huge pay differentials.
Followers often hate their leaders because of the huge difference in their salaries. It's hard to feel any sympathy for someone whose pay is stratospheric (average CEO pay is 179 times that of average workers). And, because more pay means more status, leaders can quickly come to believe they really deserve the God-like status their pay suggests, resulting in their thinking they have all the answers and that they have the right to treat their employees less than fairly. In the bosses' defense, though, there are:
4. Impossible standards for leaders.
Perhaps because of the huge pay and incredible demands, followers expect their leaders to be almost superhuman. The leadership literature identifies a whole range of personal qualities thought important for a good leader. These include integrity, persistence, humility, competence, decisiveness and being able to inspire the troops. While a leader may be high on one or two of these, they are unlikely to have the full set. Followers are almost bound to be disappointed by what is, after all, another fallible human who is just trying to:
5. Climb the greasy pole.
If the boss is nice to you, it's a bonus, because it's not required for them to get on in the organization. Leaders are promoted by those higher than them, not those below them - so it's only necessary for bosses to impress their bosses. This is a recipe for disaffection amongst the followers. Talking of which, forget the psychology of leadership, what do we know about the:
6. Psychology of follower-ship?
Although it's leadership that has been most extensively studied and discussed, most of us end up as followers. So really the psychology of follower-ship is more important than leadership. What is it that makes us follow someone else? And, more subversively: do we need leaders? For example, if people really know what they're doing, they resent having leadership imposed on them. Generally, though, there's little known about follower-ship, and how to avoid:
7. Alienation.
As a result of the strict hierarchies, huge pay differentials, poor decision-making, greasy-pole climbing and feeling powerless to change huge bureaucracies, followers naturally develop feelings of alienation, and alienation kills motivation and productivity, along with any hope of job satisfaction.
Solution:
By implication the way to rectify these perceived problems is to do the reverse. Don't instigate rigid hierarchies, discourage huge pay differentials, democratize decision-making and don't set impossible standards for leaders. Some organizations are already managing this - presumably those in which followers don't find their bosses the biggest sources of stress - but most are not.
Anyone wanting to make these types of changes across an organization would have to be a really great leader - and there are truly few of those around.
What do you think?
Do you recognize these problems in your organization? Has anyone tried to do anything about it? Are there other major reasons leaders fail?
PS : This post is in no way related to my workplace or management. It is just a general realization!
The outcome of this realization was that I felt bosses aren't inherently bad people (mostly ;-))but that the modern culture of work sets them up to fail. Here are the main reasons that I think leads to the failure of management.
1. Strict Hierarchies:
Leaders are at the top of the chain and are assumed to have all the answers, so they make most of the decisions. In reality knowledge and expertise is spread across people in organizations. But it's the leaders who must be seen to lead and so followers get frustrated because their superior knowledge and expertise is frequently ignored. This leads to:
2. Poor decision-making.
Leaders often don't make any better decisions than followers, and frequently make worse ones. This is another consequence of strict hierarchies. It's better to agree that leaders are not always the best people to make the decisions. Spreading the responsibility around, or using more participatory strategies for decision-making is often more effective. But this isn't the way things generally work, part of the problem is:
3. Huge pay differentials.
Followers often hate their leaders because of the huge difference in their salaries. It's hard to feel any sympathy for someone whose pay is stratospheric (average CEO pay is 179 times that of average workers). And, because more pay means more status, leaders can quickly come to believe they really deserve the God-like status their pay suggests, resulting in their thinking they have all the answers and that they have the right to treat their employees less than fairly. In the bosses' defense, though, there are:
4. Impossible standards for leaders.
Perhaps because of the huge pay and incredible demands, followers expect their leaders to be almost superhuman. The leadership literature identifies a whole range of personal qualities thought important for a good leader. These include integrity, persistence, humility, competence, decisiveness and being able to inspire the troops. While a leader may be high on one or two of these, they are unlikely to have the full set. Followers are almost bound to be disappointed by what is, after all, another fallible human who is just trying to:
5. Climb the greasy pole.
If the boss is nice to you, it's a bonus, because it's not required for them to get on in the organization. Leaders are promoted by those higher than them, not those below them - so it's only necessary for bosses to impress their bosses. This is a recipe for disaffection amongst the followers. Talking of which, forget the psychology of leadership, what do we know about the:
6. Psychology of follower-ship?
Although it's leadership that has been most extensively studied and discussed, most of us end up as followers. So really the psychology of follower-ship is more important than leadership. What is it that makes us follow someone else? And, more subversively: do we need leaders? For example, if people really know what they're doing, they resent having leadership imposed on them. Generally, though, there's little known about follower-ship, and how to avoid:
7. Alienation.
As a result of the strict hierarchies, huge pay differentials, poor decision-making, greasy-pole climbing and feeling powerless to change huge bureaucracies, followers naturally develop feelings of alienation, and alienation kills motivation and productivity, along with any hope of job satisfaction.
Solution:
By implication the way to rectify these perceived problems is to do the reverse. Don't instigate rigid hierarchies, discourage huge pay differentials, democratize decision-making and don't set impossible standards for leaders. Some organizations are already managing this - presumably those in which followers don't find their bosses the biggest sources of stress - but most are not.
Anyone wanting to make these types of changes across an organization would have to be a really great leader - and there are truly few of those around.
What do you think?
Do you recognize these problems in your organization? Has anyone tried to do anything about it? Are there other major reasons leaders fail?
PS : This post is in no way related to my workplace or management. It is just a general realization!
2 comments:
Nice post , I like the way you continue from one point to point.
You are solution seems a little contrasting to one of our discussions post 26/11. We were saying there must be a corporate culture in parliament where performance becomes easily measurable and we also were of the opinion that a strong dictatorship is better than a weak democracy. I guess the proposed solution would land companies to function like the Indian government , if decision making becomes overly democratic.
I don't see too much of it here , but I guess I am too young to be saying this.
Nice post , nevertheless :)
I meant my organization , when I said here.
Post a Comment