Are We Returning to Command and Control Leadership?

What’s happening to leadership these days? The number of articles and ‘posts’ on the topic have increased exponentially over the last decade advising current and wannabe leaders of the most effective behaviours to engage in with their staff and how to inspire and motivate them for success – a win-win for all involved. Yet this desired image of effective leadership seems to be sadly lacking on the ground, in the actual workplace, all over the world.

 

In fact I’d suggest that leadership as a focused ‘technique’ is being replaced more and more with command and control type approaches to getting things done – where people in positions of authority are reverting back to being managers; and in many cases failing to lead all together.

 

I seem to be meeting more and more managers who lack the very basic leadership qualities and who are quite happy managing for results, rather than leading for results.

 

There are probably many reasons for this current trend, including;

 

1. There is just too much conflicting literature on leadership for anyone starting their careers to be sure what actually is the most effective style or technique. This is mostly due to the over commercialisation of the topic and sadly this trend is unlikely to end in the short-term. Every week someone is coming up with a ‘new’ style definition of leadership claiming ‘their way is different’ and in the end, as with over selling anything, ‘we’ are devaluing the very basics of leadership.

 

2. We’ve always known that command and control styles that mirror results orientated management gets the job done. It may not optimise your long term growth or operating results; and definitely won’t lead to a motivated workforce that is self-driven towards continuous improvement and innovation – but then stakeholders and markets don’t seem to be that interested beyond ‘the moment’ any more – so the old fashioned command and control approach gets them what they want. With a labour market that has changed significantly in the last 15 years, managers are confident of being able to find people to fill jobs – and since they are just looking for people to do as they are told – they take the approach that they know their labour pool is healthy across most sectors, so why care about people.    

 

3. Where are the role models? And hence where do youngsters pick up the basic values that contribute to great leadership these days? The media, especially the news media, has also changed over the last 15 to 20 years where they will readily admit that they are in the entertainment industry first and the news industry only second – as it’s all about ratings. Where are the inspirational leaders like Nelson Mandela – a man who showed so many strong characteristics and behaviours of exceptional leadership? Instead, for example, our future leaders are exposed to a selection of potential US presidential candidates verbally abusing some sector of society, as this is considered more entertaining than anything else and considered news worthy these days – and the young viewer is expected to be mature enough to see past the ‘entertainment’ and not be swayed by the potential leader of the free world not actually behaving like a leader should.

 

4. Who actually cares? Poor leadership has been becoming the rule rather than the exception over a couple of decades now and it appears that no one really cares. It seems to be part of the new accepted business model that employees are not ‘committed’ to their organisation anymore, so managers don’t need to be too bothered with the concept of inspiring and motivating them – they are just there for a pay check, have little ambition and will pretty much do as they are told.

 

Really?  Maybe that’s what poor leaders are telling themselves – but in my experience most, if not all, employees dream of working for an organisation that cares about them; and will create an environment where they can reach their full potential. It’s the chicken and egg story – it’s because employees haven’t been led effectively that they have thrown in the towel and decided “if you can’t beat them join them”.

 

If organisations desire to be the best they can be then they need to start paying real attention to their leadership approach. This doesn’t mean going and asking employees what they think – as these employees already operate in an environment where they don’t feel safe and hence will not give an honest answer. Too many organisations are fooled by thinking their internal surveys tell them everything is working perfectly and can’t see what is really going on. It takes a very special CEO who will create the right environment to identify the ‘real’ problems in his or her organisation and then put in place the solutions to fix them.

 

If you’ve worked for a great, inspirational leader you’ll know the difference it made to your whole approach to life – not just business but everything. The energy that you felt working in this kind of environment and how you actually enjoyed your job. It’s not just a short term thing; and the inspirational leader creates the right environment that allows you to grow and develop, often allowing you to find latent skills you didn’t even know you had. This is a win-win for everyone.

 

And that’s the simple difference between good and poor leaders – good leaders create an environment where everyone wins; the employee, the organisation and the leader – where the poor leader creates a win-lose environment where the leader wins and the organisations wins in the short-term, but the employee loses and so does the organisation in the long-term (compared to what their full potential would have been offered them).

 

Let’s get back to basics – let’s simplify great leadership, so that it’s clear to everyone – and let’s put the commercialisation on hold and build the next generation of great leaders across the world. The more we confuse people about what great leadership is in the workplace, the longer poor leaders will flourish.      

How Will Future Generations View and Plan Their Careers?

The world is changing fast. It wasn’t that long ago that lifetime employment was a genuine reality for many; sons following in their father’s footsteps. This may not have been the most lucrative career, but you were pretty certain that you would have a job for life; and during this same period interest rates encouraged people to save for retirement, where you could actually get a reasonable return on a basic savings account. But in the early 21st century neither are on the short-term radar for the future – so what does this mean for future generations and what advice should parents be giving their children.

 

Just getting a solid education these days puts a youngster in debt right from the start – often with no guarantee of a job; and this is in first world countries like the US and the UK. Universities have become businesses looking to make short term profit, rather than institutions trying to match ‘local’ and ‘global’ manpower needs in different disciplines.

 

At the same time too many large organisations are abusing basic corporate governance requirements to make that extra buck for their shareholders. The recent scandal of VW cheating on the calculating and reporting of data on their vehicle emissions; quickly followed by Mitsubishi is another example of corporate greed; which seems to have become the rule rather than the exception. A further case in point being the banking sector; where we now see banks around the world cutting staff in the thousands after operating some shady deals prior to and during the financial crisis.  

 

So how and what should we teach the next generation to be street smart when it comes to their career planning?

 

There’s nothing wrong with a college or university education if (1) you know what you are getting yourself into from a financial perspective and (2) the subject and institution you choose will give you a ‘step-up’ onto the job and career ladder. Only kids from wealthy families can consider just doing a degree for the ‘fun of it’ in the future; and even in this case it’s pretty irresponsible of the wealthy parents to encourage it.

 

So what to do? There’s a strong agreement these days for becoming skilled in either a profession or a trade. But if you decide to go through the university route without a guarantee of employment afterwards, it’s worth having a solid ‘plan b’ in place that you can fall back on.

 

In fact with employment no longer being guaranteed it’s worth every young person having a ‘plan b’ career up their sleeves, where they know that they can always earn some form of a living regardless of what’s happening in the business world around them.

 

First, future generations should try to get as much ‘business’ exposure as possible during their school years – taking on holiday jobs, in both the profit and non-profit sector. It doesn’t matter if this is hard, manual labour or basic ‘station fill’ jobs – what it does is makes the kid aware of what work is like and all about. Where they learn as much from the job as they do from the peers they are working with.

 

Second, parents should encourage future generations to learn a trade that they can either focus on as a career; or as their ‘plan b’ to fall back on if and when they need too. This could be learning a trade in areas such as plumbing; electrical repairs/installation; construction; brick/stone masonry; carpentry; welding; etc. Having a fall back ‘skill’ will give you that confidence and assurance that you’ll always be able to earn some kind of living should you ever find yourself struggling to find employment and this is very smart thinking in today’s world.

 

Thirdly, become qualified in a hobby or sport that you love - this could be by becoming qualified as a personal trainer; or a coach in your favourite sport; a diving, skiing or surfing instructor – there are so many areas where you can combine a fall back qualification with something you love. You may not earn a fortune if you have to fall back on this as your main income stream – but at least you’ll be earning something while you hunt for that dream job. It also has a positive psychological effect on the individual, at a time when it’s easy for the job loss and subsequent job search to have a negative impact on ones wellbeing.

 

Finally if you have a love for languages then become fluent in one (or more) and you’ll always be able to act as a translator or a language teacher if your career suddenly suffers.

 

I’m not sure who’s teaching today’s younger generation how to plan to survive going forward in their lives. In some elements of communities around the world there seems to be an entitlement mentality – where some of today’s youth feel it’s their governments responsibility to give them a job – and not just any job, but a job they actually enjoy – and if the government can’t do that, then they should provide them with some form of social welfare so they can live without any really worry. This hypothesis is doomed to failure and sadly those that suffer are the youth. Is it all their fault – I’m not convinced it is. They see and read about ‘fat cat’ business men and politicians ripping off the very people they are supposed to be supporting – and probably feel that life is unfair and that they should be given a break too.

 

Sadly victim mentalities aren’t what the world needs to grow and prosper. ‘We’ have a lot of work to do going forward into the future – not just creating jobs, but ensuring there is access to enough water etc, as the population continue to grow across the world. So what the world is experiencing now is just the tip of the iceberg in respect of what the future holds.

 

In fact we knew 50 years ago that technology would make some jobs redundant or less human intensive – and yet there doesn’t seem to have been any real, clever forward manpower planning to strategize about how we create enough work for first world, let alone third world, populations – where citizens can at least earn a living wage.

 

Until we have politicians and top business leaders who can think beyond the moment – we need to encourage and teach our youth basic survival skills in the current global economy. As until there is real change it will not just be survival of the fittest but survival of the smartest – and with that in mind everyone should have a fall back ‘plan b’ career that they can fall back on and earn some money – should they find themselves without a job.

What's Happened to Customer Service?

Understanding your customers is becoming a complex task for most organisations in the 21st Century; not just because market segments have become a highly complex multi-dimensional matrix of customer types – but because most organisations no longer see customer service as a primary factor in organizational growth – more as a minimalistic requirement in their quest for profit maximization.

 

This approach to customer service has been developing since the 1980’s – when organisations started to take advantage of ‘customer loyalty’ built up since the end of the Second World War. Once an organization has a loyal customer base – it’s easy to see how some high ranking individual with dollar signs in their eyes – could see this group of people as easy prey for making a quick buck – and hence the slide in customer service began.

 

Of course the customers partly encouraged this behavior because, even when they suspected the world might have changed and that they were now being fleeced for their money, they still kept loyal to the brand. Some customers might send letters to the CEO expressing their dissatisfaction – but as long as they received some potentially believable apology, they would quickly forgive and continue their loyalty – because for years prior to this they had received great service and quality, so how could this have changed.

 

Customers just didn’t see the complete change in business and the associated ethics and didn’t realize that the quest for long term sustainable success and growth through dedicated customer care was a business school theory rarely practiced in the ‘new world.’

 

Generationally this had a huge impact on differing customer views to purchasing and the concept of loyalty. The young generation – not used to doing deals on a hand-shake and the concept of customer loyalty – entered the world of consumption like a duck to water, not expecting good customer service and quality products, and just looking for the best deal. They knew how to use ‘new’ technology to find that best deal and simply felt this was how business is done, and how it should be done.

 

The slightly older generations – those now in their 50’s and above – still remember a time when being someone’s customer actually meant something and hence many of these customers still long for those good old days – and in a way, with today’s seemingly constant market volatility – so should today’s organisations.

 

Customers are your business – they define your growth, your profitability and your sustainability – everything else is developed around them. This current short term view to business – brought about in no small measure by greedy shareholders has not helped anybody – and definitely not the average shareholder, looking to make money over the long-term not the short. In fact the only people this new approach to treating customers has helped is the institutional investors who don’t give a damn about anything more than making more money today than they did yesterday – regardless of whose expense that comes at. It’s not that they just don’t care about organisations, they don’t care about their employees or their customers – they just care about making an extra buck – whatever the cost of that buck might be to ‘normal people’ through their long term savings or pension schemes.

 

In this global business environment what today’s organisations need, as well as the countries they service in terms of taxes and employment, is sustainability (it doesn’t even need to be sustainable growth). To have sustainability you do have to have the right product at the right price, and to be innovative in your offerings, in terms of future needs – but what you should also want is a loyal, ‘sustainable’ customer, who will stay with you on your journey and during that journey help attract new customers to your products and brand – offering a win-win for everyone involved in the business process.

 

Michael Porter wrote about competitive advantage in his book of the same name – but few organisations consider competitive advantage any more when it comes to their strategic thinking around customers and customer service. Maybe it’s the fault of their boards or their advisors, but industries with high churn rates, like telecoms, energy and even gym membership – seem to be significantly more focused on short-term profit maximization that long term sustainability – much more than creating that elusive concept loyal customer in the 21st Century.

 

Organisations through their CRM strategies have turned today’s customers into what they are – it’s not the customers fault – they are what business have made them to be.

What's Wrong With Leadership Today?

As years roll into decades the image of leadership seems to be sadly going downhill fast. While there is an increase in firms and individuals offering leadership development solutions, the world as a whole seems to lack the face of even one inspirational leader. Which makes one wonder what current leadership development is focusing on and why it isn’t having any impact – at least noticeable impact.

 

There are excellent inspirational leaders out there – I have the pleasure to meet more than my fair share; as will many reading this – but these leaders aren’t becoming visible to make a real difference where it counts; which is way beyond the walls of their own organisations.

 

As much as we’d like to think business and politics are miles apart – sadly in today’s world the umbilical cord between the two has not been cut; with most politicians and their respected parties around the world being financed through big corporate donors.  Where for some strange reason politics has simply become entertainment – where, for example, the media parade future leaders out in front of the public and either attempt to humiliate them; or the candidates seem to have a natural instinct to humiliate themselves.

 

If our current and future world leaders are being portrayed as a ‘form’ of entertainment – what ‘inspirational’ impact can this have on the millions around the world watching – wanting to be inspired to be better, but being ‘taught’ sets of values that have absolutely no place in an effective leaders repertoire. This must lead to complete confusion in the emerging leaders mind – reading what leadership is about from the millions of related articles; and hearing what leadership is about from an abundance of courses; and then comparing these ‘stories’ with seeing today’s leaders in action. What are they more likely to believe and react to – what they read or what they see in action?

 

In a brilliant 2016 Harvard Business Review article by Jack Zenger and Joseph Falkman entitled ‘the trickle-down effect of good (and bad) leadership’ they highlight how “we know that emotions are contagious. Research by UC San Diego’s James Fowler and Harvard’s Nicholas Christakis has shown that happiness is contagious, for example. If you have a friend who is happy, the probability that you will be happier rises by 25%. We also know that behaviours are contagious. Christakis and Fowler determined that if you have overweight friends, you’re more likely to be overweight yourself. If you quit smoking, your friends are more likely to quit. Rose McDermott of Brown University found that divorce is contagious; etc.

 

We wanted to know how such ‘social contagion’ affects leaders. We already know that good leadership creates engaged employees and that leaders influence a variety of outcomes such as personnel turnover, customer satisfaction, sales, revenue, productivity, and so on. But if you’re a good leader, do you make the people around you more likely to become good leaders as well? And which behaviors are most readily ‘caught’?”

 

So we should be aware that today’s bad leaders and the portrayal of bad leadership behavior is simply creating future generations of poor leaders; and worse still poor leaders who actually think they are good – and will be able to pull out of the archives video clips of supposed top leaders behaving in the same way they do.

 

The media seem to assume that the population of future leaders can see through the entertainment aspect of their portrayal of effective leadership – but that is a bridge too far in their thinking and the fundamental flaw in their theory.

 

Zenger and Falkman highlight how “specifically, we tested 51 behaviours and found significant correlations in over 30 of them. (All 51 showed some correlation, but not all the correlations were statistically significant.) Within the behaviours that appeared contagious, there were some that appeared even more contagious than others. Behaviours that had the highest correlations between managers and their direct reports clustered around the following themes, listed in order of most contagious to least contagious:

 

1) Developing self and others

2) Technical skills

3) Strategy skills

4) Consideration and cooperation

5) Integrity and honesty

6) Global perspective

7) Decisiveness

8) Results focus

 

We also examined overall performance. Unsurprisingly, the direct reports of the worst-performing HL (high level) managers were also below-average performers.”

 

It’s worth looking at the list one more time, slowly, and then visualizing the impact both positive and negative influencers would have on each of these behaviors and how this would manifest itself in the work place and in future leadership development.

 

As the world waits for the inspirational leaders to show themselves; we also have a responsibility to not just talk about effective leadership; but enact it on a daily basis as well – and that’s in all our interactions, including social media as well.

 

It’s worth concluding with a 2014 report from the Center for Creative Leadership, which stated that “more complex and adaptive thinking abilities are needed” and “leaders are no longer developing fast enough or in the right ways to match the new environment.”

 

References:

 

Zenger, J. and Falkman, J. (2016). The Trickle-Down Effect of Good (and Bad) Leadership. Harvard Business Review. January.