Leadership Style

After having read the chapter on Leadership in Stueart & Moran, I've come to understand my past experiences a little better. And a great irony has come to mind: When I was much younger, I would sometimes be chastised by my teachers or parents with the some form of the comment "If you want to be treated like an adult, you've got to start acting like one." But my experiences in the "real world" have been the exact opposite; in most of my previous employment environments, the administration basically treated the employees like children, no matter what the employees were hired to do or how professional their credentials were. While this implies a leadership and managerial philosophy akin to Systems 1 or 2 under Likert's Systems of Management or McGregor's "Theory X", my own personal style, on the other hand, seems to be more similar to one of the contingency models of leadership, especially House's Path-Goal Theory. This stems, I believe, from my belief that people, especially people in professional situations, should be treated like adults unless and until they prove otherwise. This philosophy requires me to assume that people will do the job they've been hired to do or will ask for guidance. Until an employee "drops the ball" a number of times or otherwise demonstrates that they need to be supervised much more closely, I'm going to assume the job is going to get done.

And, to be honest, this approach has, so far, worked in my favor, not only because the job gets done, but the employees view me in a positive light, seeing me as a very good leader. For example, when I was at LexisNexis, on a number of occasions, I was tapped as an Acting Team Leader to fill in during extended absences or while they filled the position. On those occasions, I was able to make the transitions for the team members as painless as possible because I allowed them to continue to function, for the most part, as they had before I came along. As a result, many customer support representatives hoped I would be appointed on a permanent basis, and when an opening for a permanent position came up on another team (one of which I had never been in charge), my reputation as a fair, humane, but effective Team Leader was so pronounced that members of that team, some with several years seniority on me, lobbied me to apply and campaigned heavily for my appointment.

And it's not because I let them get away with things. For example, one of the times I was Acting Team Leader, I had a new person on my team who had just completed Initial Training and was being coached into the phones who, for several days in a row, was technically late logging in. Now, proper procedure required me to log each occurrence in the system, which would have been on her record for the next year. Instead, and especially because she was consistently going over her time at the end of the day (which meant, in my mind, that the company was getting the time she was expected to give each day), I sat down with her and explained the ramifications of her tardiness if I were to go "by the book". We then talked about the causes and possible remedies, and I imparted to her that I didn't want to hold it against, but I would be forced to log future occurrences. She claimed to understand and, at least for the remainder of my tenure as Acting Team Leader, she was not late again. By treating her like a responsible adult, even if one with a problem that needs to be addressed, I was able to get her to remedy the situation in a way that kept our working relationship on the positive side without resorting to potentially long-lasting punishments. Similarly, because of this approach, I found team members coming to me with problems or concerns that, they admitted, they would not have felt comfortable taking to my predecessor.

I'm not a fan of McGregor's "Theory Y" or any similar theories that rely on employee committment to "objectives" or "vision". While there may have been a time when employees thought in these terms, today's employees are much more self-interested; they do their jobs because of what they get out of it personally (which may be, and usually is, more than just a salary), not because of a desire to help the company achieve its goals or because they are motivated by the vision being handed down from the CEO. Don't get me wrong: An employee may act, even consciously, in a manner that helps the company achieve its objectives or realize its vision, but the employee is doing it because it will help him achieve his personal goals, whatever they may be. In other words, the company-centric motivation is, at best, an illusion, while the employee-centric motivators are the effective ones, and when aligned with the company's goals or vision, will bolster the illusion that the employee is affected by company-centric motivators. The best leaders and managers will be able to align the employees true motivators with the company's goals or vision, or, failing that, make the employee comfortable with the company's motivators, even if they don't fully embrace them.

The Abilene Paradox

In class yesterday, we watched a video (based on an article) entitled "The Abilene Paradox", which basically highlights the phenomenon whereby a group of people can agree to something (usually a particular course of action) despite the fact that none of them are actually interested in it (and may actually be against it). Although these may have been covered by the article, the video did not really spend any time on how these situations arise, and how they can be prevented.

First of all, these situations are almost always caused by our fear of authority. In the video, all of the instances (with the possible exception of the wedding story) were founded on a two-fold belief regarding the person perceived to be the highest authority: First, that the authority figure is in favor of the particular position, and, two, that admitting one's contrary position will somehow be perceived as an attack against the authority. For example, in the namesake instance, the author believed that his father-in-law wanted to make the trip, and he was afraid that stating his opinion would somehow upset his in-laws, whom he was clearly still trying to impress (despite already having married their daughter).

Furthermore, the reason why they tend to think the authority figure is in favor of the idea is because they are frequently the ones to bring the idea forward. In the original instance, the father-in-law was the one who suggested it, even though he later admitted that he suggested it solely as a means of starting a conversation, which all the listeners interpreted as a desire to see his suggestion followed. Similarly, in the faculty meeting example, the facilitator of the meeting was perceived as being the one who wanted the meeting; he had, after all, called or scheduled it and was, as a result, making everyone sit there.

One way to keep these things from happening is for whoever is in charge to remember that he or she shouldn't raise an idea "just to say something" or force something "just because it's on the schedule" without making the perceived subordinates aware of that fact.

However, sometimes, even though the authority figure is perceived to be supportive of a particular thing, he or she may not have been the source of it (e.g., the wedding and Project X instances). Even in these situations, all it takes is for one voice to be honest to "get off the road to Abilene," and the earlier this is done, the better. And I don't mean that merely in the sense of stemming the damage: The earlier in deliberations that one person voices their resistance to the suggested course, the easier it will be for others to join in. The longer a person waits, even in this initial stage, the harder it may be to overcome, as more people express their agreement with the suggestion. Maybe they're agreeing because they truly like it, maybe they're agreeing because they don't care either way, or maybe they're agreeing because of the pull of the Abilene Paradox; it doesn't matter. The earlier resistance is expressed, the earlier other's may feel comfortable agreeing with the dissenter, or the earlier the dissenter's concerns can be addressed. And it doesn't have to be a response as contradictory as "I don't like that." For example, in response to the father-in-law's suggestion of taking a drive to Abilene (53 miles one way, in the middle of the summer), the author asked if the car's air-conditioning had been fixed yet (it hadn't), but he left it at that. If he had followed up with "Do you really think it would be a good idea to make such a long trip in this heat with air-conditioning?", that would have given the father-in-law a way to back out of the suggestion, and it would have provided a venue for the others to express their resistance to the suggestion as well.

Basically, honesty is the cure for the Abilene Paradox. I can confidently state that I have never experienced this Paradox, although I have been in situations where it could have developed had I not been afraid to state how I truly felt. For example, at the beginning of the most recent professional football season, the fantasy football league I am in was holding our draft for the upcoming season, when we appointed a new commissioner and he made some remarks. One of his topics was, in fact, the future of our draft, and he stated that we were going to have a meeting after the season to test out holding an auction for players rather than drafting them. At first, he was presenting this as an idea that we were going to test out to see if we would be interested in it, but near the end of his remarks, he began using terms that implied it had already been decided and that this session was just to familiarize ourselves with the process. As he was winding up, he finally made some comment about "all of us" being in favor of it, and that's when I felt I had to jump in. I explained that, not only have I never expressed a favorable position on changing the process, I am currently emphatically against such a change. I explained that I was willing to participate in the auction test because I recognized that I may be mistaken in my assessment of its virtues and I was open to more information, but that, if we took a vote right then, I would be so adamantly against switching to an auction that I would be willing to leave the league if we switched. After I was done, it came out that three others (in a ten-member league) were against a switch as well, and even the ones who had originally suggested the test had suggested it because they knew it existed but didn't know all of the implications of a switch and wanted to test it out so that the league could, after the test, make an informed decision. The new commissioner was a little peeved (he was gung-ho for the switch and saw the test as a formality), but the rest of us felt a lot better about it once all the cards were on the table.

Bottom line: If you are a professional, you should be able to avoid the Abilene Paradox because you will be willing to be honest and willing to express disagreement to your superiors.

"Danger" Follow-Up

I discovered a website that offers a web-version of the tool I described before (although it costs a little). For those who may be interested, here it is: http://www.masteryworks.com/a/toolShow.cfm?ToolID=28

P.S. Sorting the cards and looking at the lists was only the first half of the whole-day session I was involved in. The second half was supposed to be about taking this new information and working with it, but after my epiphany, I zoned out the rest of the day, and I don't remember anything else about it.

The Danger of "Personality" Assessments

I must admit, I've always loved completing personality-type assessments. I think they can be fun, and, much like horoscopes, I enjoy assessing how well they describe me without necessarily buying into the whole thing. However, although I love them in a social environment, they can have "less than the desired" results, shall we say, in work situations.

Case in point: First of all, I am an Introvert (with a capital I). I have never even come close to the middle of any scale that claims to assess introversion/extroversion, let alone on the E side of the scale. Yet, it frequently shocks people (who haven't been paying attention) when they discover I'm a card-carrying Introvert. For example, my last year as a member of a drum and bugle corps, I was the drum major. However, I hated being in the public eye, so I worked around it. First, I begged the staff to give me an all-black uniform so it would be easier for the audience to not notice me (they refused, so I wore Wayfarers while conducting Carmina Burana all season as an act of defiance) . Then, I approached it as a job: I wasn't a Drum Major; I was a baritone player who happened to be conducting the corps because they needed somebody to do it.

Now, when I joined the customer support staff at LexisNexis after graduating from law school, it started out as an almost perfect job: I could just sit in my cubicle for eight hours a day and just do my job. Although my job required me to talk to people, I could handle it because 1) they were initiating the contact, 2) they were asking me for help, and 3) I had no idea who they were, they had no idea who I was; it was (for the most part) totally anonymous. After a while working there, I began to move up the ladder, and after a couple a years, I had moved up to the position of Consultant, which basically meant I had a lot more responsibility, and leadership opportunities, than just answering the phone.

At about this time, during a Team-Building Day, my team leader thought it would be fun to have us all do a Myers-Briggs assessment. Most of the team fell where you would expect them: Those who enjoyed talking and were busy moving up the ladder were on the Extrovert side, and those who liked where they were and didn't want to get involved very much were on the Introvert side. Except for me. We all stood on a piece of tape that had been stretched across the floor to represent the scale based on how we scored, I was at the very end of the Introvert side. Most of the people were shocked, although my team leader claimed (and I believe her) that she knew that's where I would end up. Some of the other scales also held various surprises from other team members, but none were greater than mine.

Flash forward a few more years: I'm growing very tired of taking calls all day long, and the company has rewarded me for my successes and positive attitude by giving me several opportunities outside of the phones. I spent nine months as an editor for the lexis.com online Knowledge Base (my first experience with HTML), which had me completely out of the phones; on three separate occasions, I was tapped to act as Team Leader for extended periods of time for my own and other teams while their team leaders were absent. I was given opportunities to mentor others, to work with product development, to work on new projects, all of which took me out of the phones for brief periods of time. But all they did was deepen my frustration. Everytime they took me out of the phones, especially for something fun or cool, the more painful it was to go back. And even though I didn't let it effect my customer interactions, those who were paying attention could tell I was no longer enjoying my time there.

That's when they made their mistake. I had been contemplating getting my Master's in Library Science, but I had mainly been looking at completely online programs. Then, one day, I discovered a training session in my schedule called WorkSmart (or something like that). The aim of the class was clearly to make its participants realize that they liked doing their jobs, indeed, that they enjoyed them, and it was supposed to empower us to think differently about the parts we didn't like so we could better enjoy the parts we liked. In the beginning of the class, we were all given a set of 40 cards that had action verbs on them (one on a card), like "organizing", "planning", "sharing", etc., and we were tasked with finding the ten verbs we "liked" the most. After we had our ten cards, we were to turn them over and reveal a "type" for each verb. Each verb was labeled as being associated with either People, Ideas, Things, or Data (and they were color-coded to help sort them). Most of the people in the class had predominantly (i.e., at least five) People cards; I was the only one (out of 20) who didn't have a single People card in my ten. And I could tell something was wrong right away, because when I revealed my cards (predominantly Things, with some Ideas and Data thrown in), the facilitators both stopped smiling and temporarily froze before trying to hide their reactions and moving on.

The final step of this process was to examine special lists of occupations and professions that linked up to the cards you had. For example, near the top of the People lists, not surprisingly, was Customer Support Representative. Other jobs near the top of that and the Ideas and Data lists were also jobs that LexisNexis offered (at times, not necessarily at that time). Clearly, we were supposed to realize that we loved doing customer support, and even if we wanted to do something else, LexisNexis might have an opening for that position sometime down the road if we just stick it out. That was for the People, Ideas, and Data people; at the very top of the Things list was Librarian. And that's when I knew. I didn't know I would be going to Wayne State, but I knew that I couldn't just do it online as a part-time thing. I needed to get out and just go do it.

Bottom line: Because of this assessment, they lost me. I was empowered to to cut all ties and step out on my own. I'm still friends with several people who work there (including my old team leader), but, although I have no idea whats next in store for me, it was one of the smartest decisions I ever made.

Bad Apples and Team Dynamics

I wasn't planning on this being my first entry in log, but when I saw this, I couldn't resist, since it seemed so relevant.

It seems that, according to a study performed by some researchers at the University of Washington, one "bad apple" can destroy a team and, furthermore, "good apples" can't reverse the damage. I have some thoughts on both aspects of this study.

First of all, I think the main thesis, that a worker with a negative attitude (i.e., "those who do not do their fair share of the work, are chronically unhappy and emotionally unstable, or bully or attack others") can have a widespread and deleterious effect on a team, is one of those "duh!" examples. It's common sense that no one wants to work with someone who isn't going to carry their load or who is constantly the focus of attention because of their negative or unpleasant attitude, disposition, or behavior. And because no one wants to work with them, it's very easy for other team members to withdraw from team interactions as a way of limiting their exposure to the bad apple, which will further hamper the team's abilities to accomplish its goals or responsibilities.

However, I believe good apples can reverse the damage. Good apples can pick up the slack of the people who this study labels "bad apples" because they don't do their share (Type 1); good apples won't like doing more than their share, but if they are willing to make the sacrifice in order to ensure that the team is not handicapped by the bad apple, they can. (Whether they will step up and make the sacrifice is another issue, but to say the effects of bad apples can't be reversed is going too far.) Similarly, good apples (or "Martyrs" as I like to call them, who are frequently just people with patience) can reverse the effects of the chronically unhappy or emotionally unstable (Type 2) on the team by, again, making the sacrifice to act as a buffer. By giving the bad apple the attention and sympathy they seek, the Martyr can effectively shield the rest of the team from the negative effects and, in some instances, stabilize the bad apple enough that they can work productively with the rest of the team.

As for the types of bad apples who bully or attack others (Type 3) (and I presume the study is referring to emotional or psychological bullying and attacking; if these were physical acts, then the person would need to be discharged for these criminal acts), it tends to be tougher to deal with them, but good apples can still make a difference in one of three ways: by taking the time to get to the bottom of their behavior, by confronting the person individually, or by motivating the rest of the team to group together for an "intervention"-type of encounter with the bad apple. Many times, the person may not realize their actions or comments are being perceived as bullying or attacking. Indeed, in some instances, such claims may be coming from a Type 2 bad apple, in which case, their responses and perceptions should be addressed. But even in the true Type 3 instances, a good apple can either confront the person alone or motivate the team to intervene; in either case, it must be made apparent to the bad apple that their behavior is inappropriate. While confronting a co-worker is not something anyone wants to do (and few will have the fortitude to act), a good apple will see that it is a necessary step for the team to work. Again, the study is correct in that the team will not succeed if no one steps up, but I think it is possible, contrary to the study's conclusions, for good apples to counteract the negative effects of bad apples.