Jason is the CEO of a large, independent service-providing organization. Highly educated, he is very talented in the business sciences and executes on those skills with flawless precision. As Jason progressed through the company, his hyper competitiveness and ambition exposed a deficiency in his behaviour skills that now plague his senior leadership influence and effectiveness. He exerts his power to intimidate his C-suite team members. His anger is evident when he is dissatisfied with results.
He creates a culture of competition among his key direct reports that stifles creativity and initiative impacting on the overall performance of the organization. He used results of his 360-degree feedback assessment to lash out at those he perceived gave him insulting comments with no regard for the perceived retaliation that would follow. In a word, Jason was intellectually smart and behaviourally dumb.
If we can all acknowledge the truth that developing and maintaining connections and good relationships are crucial to driving performance excellence, then why don’t all leaders engage in this practice? The answer to this question requires a genuine self-examination of our prejudices about leader-follower relations.
First, many leaders do not feel comfortable thinking about, let alone discussing, the superiority mind-set of people who occupy the top tiers of the organizational chart. Thinking this way is a natural and inevitable tendency; it can be observed in all human pursuits. However as painful a subject it is to discuss, the superiority mind-set must be pulled out into the open for the sake of minimizing and eliminating it.
Second, management’s constant finger pointing at frontline workers is the source of major performance problems, such as apathy, lack of initiative, and lack of motivation. This blaming is just one sign that leaders do not think highly of their employees; they are merely a dispensable means to an end. This faulty perception on management’s part creates a wide gap between the leader and the employees, creating the feeling of isolation and impeding the sharing of meaningful experiences.
And finally third, another component of this is management’s belief that such behaviour mentioned above, apathy, lack of initiative and lack of motivation, etc., only occurs, or more frequently occurs, in a lower paid, lower skilled frontline workforce. Research indicates this belief to be false and in fact, to an even greater degree, highly skilled, highly technically educated workforces are just as de-motivated, and apathetic to overbearing, overburdening detached management.
Are there any prejudices about leader-follower relations in your organization?
CORPORATE HARMONY is grateful to Dr. Michael E. Frisina for his contributions to this entry.
Catherine is the President and CEO of CORPORATE HARMONY, providing virtual solutions for leadership development and organizational culture change. Her leadership and coaching experience as a Project Manager in an ever-changing, fast moving technological organization with unrelenting demands drove her to the realization that a positive mindset and strength-building behaviors are essential for today’s complex and chaotic organizational systems. CORPORATE HARMONY’s virtual platform of programs, coaching and performance measurement, is an innovative online technology of tested proprietary content. The world-class content of CORPORATE HARMONY’s Positive Presence Program develops the skill of ‘Positive Presence’ and the necessary ‘Positive Presence Behaviour Competencies’ for maintaining a positive and energized mindset and increased performance in today’s complex work environment, and leading to a culture of collaboration and connection. Catherine’s vision for Corporate Harmony is to bring the skill of “Positive Presence” to the corporate world as it becomes more complex, ambiguous and chaotic. Catherine is uniquely positioned to impact organizations’ productivity and long term success, with her powerful vision of eliminating bad stress from every workplace around the globe, bringing purpose into the people equation to promote healthy, productive and meaningful work cultures and turn the tide on the neglect of mental health on a global scale. Catherine is author of the book: “CORPORATE HARMONY – The Performance Link for Today’s Modern Organization” Catherine can be reached at: Catherine.Osborne@corporateharmony.ca or go to ‘contact us’ on our website www.corporateharmony.ca. Catherine is available for consultation, and can be reached by 519-695-3407.