In these cataclysmic days of the Coronavirus – notwithstanding that there have been many cataclysmic events in the past from which the world has recovered but, in the main, not learnt – it seems minor and self-indulgent to write about personal experiences of empowerment and leadership. However, it appears to be clear that leaders and their behaviours matter. And we, each of us, are leaders – I am speaking strictly in an organisational sense – at some level, whether of an activity, a team or a business.
In my working life, I have heard what, to me, have appeared to be three particularly depressing sentences. A department had been running initiative upon initiative – of great quality and vision and depth but of little actual, on the ground value, as there was little resource and appetite to implement. Nevertheless, it was hitting its annual budget and getting pats on the back. ‘Why not fewer new ideas and focus on delivering the ones we have?’, I ask. ‘But that’s not the point!’ The point was to volunteer to run with any executive study going and stay in the limelight.
A Board level executive to his very senior team. ‘You just tell me your ideas and then I’ll share with you the piece of paper I have in my bed-side table at home.’ (Trump, a decade before Trump!) As an aside to me, not a member of the team, he said, ‘I have no intention of sharing the strategy with my team – I’ll just tell them when I am finished.’
‘You’re in the big league now Arnab.’ (I really wasn’t but why not use a cliché?) ‘You have to learn to be an a***-hole – mark your boundaries so they do not come near.’
Once upon a time, there was a course I attended titled, ‘You as an Engaging Leader.’ The course talked about the various types of Leadership (Hay/McBer). Coercive (do what I tell you), Authoritative (come with me), Affiliative (people come first), Democratic (what do you think?), Pace-setting (do as I do, now) and Coaching (try this).
These, it was asserted, set the ‘climate’ of an organisation and, I would argue, even a business unit or area. Research from Daniel Goleman – HBR Goleman, Leadership that Gets Results – suggested that the most positive overall results over a period of time came in the following order, starting with the best: Authoritative, Affiliative, Democratic and Coaching. In contrast, Coercive and Pace Setting were equally negative.
Leadership matters because we are not a mass, but individuals. I was at a large employee event some years ago and one team member from the floor pleaded for a greater level of ‘empowerment.’ The CEO jumped down the contributor’s throat and said, ‘Can you please describe what this ‘empowerment’ is? People keep talking about it, but no one tells me what it is.’ Another executive team member joined in and said that anyone in his team could take over any of his portfolio of tasks!
I began to think about what would define ‘empowerment’ for me. I have worked for two types of bosses. The first provides autonomy, sets wide boundaries, is supportive when required and provides confidence. The second is far more directive, is looking to be served and feels that continuously asking to be satisfied is the way to get good performance and keep people on their toes. The former is empowering, the latter is not.
‘Empowerment’ to me is treating people with respect. It is about believing in their competencies and letting them perform. It is about making the assumption that others are intelligent and know what they are doing. It is about giving them the scope and time to blossom and providing them the autonomy to come up with structures and solutions that deliver the outcomes but via their own route – so they are or swiftly become better than you. It is about growth and learning and doing more than ‘your job’.
Different environments will drive different behaviours; day to day operations are by definition more focused and I suppose my background has been based around longer-term activities – account management, strategy, and change management. Regardless of theory, my experience of working with and for very senior people, and observing behaviours, suggests that the negative traits (as alleged by research) are remarkably common. The belief that others exist to follow instructions, that only ‘I’ know, and have the tools to know, what is right, and that to ask for input is a sign of weakness, goes diametrically against what is shared on courses that the self-same managers send their people to and attend themselves!!
Not belonging to that stratified layer of executive management, I am reluctant to be negative about the all too common dissonance between practice and theory, because each style has its place and time. I have, though, ‘led’ teams and, in the end, each of us has to make one’s own way in a manner that one can be comfortable with and learn along the path. You will have your own experiences.
This article is exclusive to The Business Transformation Network.
