It was nearly twenty years ago when I first heard an executive say that the success stories of the day touting the benefits of empowering leadership were more fiction than fact. While I certainly didn’t have first-hand knowledge of his examples, I did have some interesting experiences of my own that I was happy to share. And since then, the list has grown quite a bit longer including some he has probably read since.
Those finding themselves in the unenviable position of challenging the status quo can probably predict how this conversation went. As the curse of new ideas goes, he conceded my point, but only so far as it was applied to my specific experience. Empowerment could work, he supposed, but only under certain conditions and in specific industries. And those practices wouldn’t translate to our business for sure.
Here it is twenty years later and I find myself reading about a well-known CEO making the same claims based on his personal experience. Here’s what happened.
Like so many, early in his career he was frustrated with leaders least knowledgeable about the core business subverting the work of employees on the front lines. So when the opportunity came, he determined to run his company differently.
He had read a magazine article about a showcase company operating with self-directed teams and no leaders, except for the GM. That should do it, he figured. Take out management and you leave out the problems with hierarchy and excessive control. And so, with limited understanding of the leadership model described in the article, he decided he would copy the basics and see what happened.
Everything seemed to go okay for a while. Then one day a couple of employees dropped the bomb. They had drawn the short straws when staff finally decided to take their problems to the CEO. Staff members were complaining and it was affecting their work. People were unhappy, but up until then, none had dared darken the door of the CEO to explain what was happening.
The CEO was amazed to find out that some were afraid to talk to him. Other employees simply found it impossible to get concerns addressed when they were expected to have both founders present when raising questions about incentive pay and other issues.
His conclusion? The employees needed someone to speak for them. His solution? Install hierarchy.
Since employees were uncomfortable talking with him, and he apparently spent little time discussing the business with employees—causing confusion and dissatisfaction—he picked a couple of the more courageous employees and made them go-betweens—in this case, managers. Now, employees can go directly to the more approachable managers who will take up concerns with the CEO.
It’s a seemingly simple solution to the problem. But could it be that something was missed in the analysis? A few obvious questions might be asked such as why employees are uncomfortable raising questions with the CEO, why employees appear to be in the dark about the state of the business and how it impacts their compensation, why these issues weren’t raised sooner, and, why the agreed upon solution was electing a pair of spokesmen to meet with the CEO. Rather than a need for hierarchy, the questions suggest, for starters, a need for leadership that frequently communicates and informs, greater employee knowledge and understanding of the business, and CEO approachability.
This is a CEO who values giving employees freedom to be creative. He wants employees to have someone to talk to when they have a concern. He thought he could create that simply by keeping hierarchy out of the business and giving employees total creative freedom. When it didn’t work, he automatically assumed it was because empowerment doesn’t work everywhere. He never questioned his essential understanding or beliefs about the model along with how and why it worked in the showcase company described in the magazine. Nor did he consider his contribution to his failure.
Of course, nobody should jump at every new management fad to hit the magazine rack. Every business has its own distinctive combination of leaders, culture, experience, talent, and challenges that may or may not be served by what worked at XYZ Company.
At the same time, don’t be quick to dismiss as irrelevant the latest success story in your favorite business magazine. Your situation may not be as unique as you think. The lesson may not be that “it’s for everyone but me,” but instead, challenge you to discover leadership gems that could help your organization in ways you hadn’t previously considered.
Trying it on for fit: When you come across a new leadership theory or practice, explore its inherent principles, try to obtain valid information about what is actually happening, postulate the values underlying the theory or practice and evaluate the values relative to your own. Try to develop a clear path between results asserted and what causes them. With this information, you should be able to determine to some degree the behaviors necessary to produce the outcomes that are supposed to result from implementing the theory or practice. Consider how the theory or practice might then be applied in your organization in light of your current practices and values. If you think there may be value in the new concept, but have concerns, devise a way to test the theory or practice on a limited basis and see what happens.
Send an email and let me know what you learn from your experiences. I would love to hear from you!
Kevin Herring is co-author of Practical Guide for Internal Consultants, and President of Ascent Management Consulting. Kevin specializes in performance turnarounds through breakthrough leadership, workplace cultures and organization systems. Kevin can be contacted at kevinh@ascentmgt.com.
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