Bully or buddy?
Tough times demand tough leaders – but how can you ‘command and control’ without ruining employee engagement? Jill Flint-Taylor discusses how to adapt your management style to the changing economic climate.
There can’t be many leaders in the UK who look at the challenges facing Gordon Brown without thinking about what they would do – or would have done – in his shoes. You might argue that political leadership is a different thing altogether to running a high street retailer or a multi-national technology company. But how different is it really, and how much do we know about leading in times of crisis whatever sector we are in?
Beyond ‘command and control’
Are we to believe that tough times demand tough leaders – as the appointment of Sir Alan Sugar to the post of Enterprise Tsar suggests? Many would agree that, Sir Alan, ‘at least on TV, comes across as bullying, nasty, mean-spirited and just about the last man you’d want as a boss.’ 1 Is this really the style our political leaders strive for themselves, and do they want the rest of the country to follow suit?
Whatever the answers to these questions, the encouraging fact is that we know a lot more about successful leadership than we did in the days when ‘command and control’ was the favoured style in many sectors. The hard evidence is that leaders need to demand a lot of people, but they must also provide support and enable others to feel in control in their work. Best performance is achieved under these conditions of balance, but if demand is high while the level of support is low and people feel they have little control or influence the opposite is true and performance will suffer.2
Challenge and support
Many leaders know that their success depends on creating an environment which feels demanding for employees, but fail to recognise the fine balance that needs to be struck between challenge and support. This is a difficult balancing act to pull off, not least because what’s a welcome challenge to one person is scary, overwhelming and demotivating for another. But the reward for getting it right is a healthy, engaged workforce and a high performing organisation. It is hard to argue with a study of nearly 8,000 separate business units in 36 companies, showing that higher levels of employee engagement and satisfaction are associated with more successful business unit level outcomes such as customer satisfaction, productivity, profitability, low employee turnover and low sickness or absence levels.3 It’s hard to imagine a Board member who would not place value on improvements in those areas.
Off the rails
So what do we know about leaders who succeed in this and those who fail, especially in times of crisis? For some time now there has been growing recognition of the traits that can cause an apparently promising leadership career to derail when the pressure is on. Bullying behaviour is one of the most commonly cited ‘derailers’ – when challenge tips over into aggression. Others include micromanagement, insensitivity to other people’s perspectives, aloofness and being rigid or difficult to influence. 4
However, this ‘dark side’ of personality is not the only problem. Less sinister qualities such as confidence can be ‘too much of a good’ thing when it comes to challenging and engaging your employees. For example, self-belief is clearly a valuable leadership quality. Yet believing too strongly in your own abilities and resourcefulness can lead you to dismiss other people’s ideas and suggestions, even when you’ve gone to great lengths to involve and consult them. Clearly, the risk of this kind of behaviour coming to the fore is greatest when times are tough and the stakes are high, as some leaders are tempted to think that it is for these moments that they, and they alone, exist.
A flexible approach
However, they would be wrong in most cases – the very best leaders have learned to flex their style and approach to manage these risks. In this way they make the most of strengths such as confidence, energy, determination and concern for others. Leaders who over-use these strengths create a situation where performance is at risk from burn-out (stress) and disengagement among those upon who they depend to achieve their objectives.5
So whatever the leadership challenge, the key to inspiring, engaging and motivating other people lies in understanding yourself, recognising the perspectives of other people, and flexing your style and approach to achieve your desired impact. The research evidence is powerful, and watching some of our best leaders steer themselves and others through difficult times has certainly convinced me. Strong leadership is a highly developed and finely tuned set of skills – so we should guard against being misled by the entertainment value of a bullying style, or by the seriousness of the current challenges.
Dr Jill Flint-Taylor
Dr Jill Flint-Taylor is a chartered occupational psychologist, executive coach and director of business psychologists Robertson Cooper Ltd.
www.robertsoncooper.com
1 New ‘Enterprise Tsar’ Alan Sugar’s appointment not so sweet, June 8 2009 by Jon Griffin, Birmingham Post
2 Dollard, M, F, Winefield, H.R., Winefield, A.H., De Jogne, J. (2000), “Psychological job strain and productivity in human service workers: a test of the demand-control-support model”, Journal of Occupational and Organisational Psychology, Vol. 73 N. 4, pp. 501-10.
3 Harter, J., K, Schmidt, F.L. and Hayes, T., L. (2002). Business unit level outcomes between employee satisfaction, employee engagement and business outcomes: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 268-279.
4 Burke, R.J. (2006). Why leaders fail: exploring the dark side. In Burke, R.J. and Cooper, C.L.(Eds), Inspiring Leaders, Abingdon, UK, Routledge
5 Too much of a good thing? Leadership strengths as risks to well-being and performance in the team: Flint-Taylor, J., British Psychological Society Division of Occupational Psychology Annual Conference 2008
