PREFACE
Introduction
CHAPTER 1
Relationships and Results
Lacking Relational Meaning
Relationships as Driving Forces
Summary
CHAPTER 2
Self-confidence based Management
The Characteristics of Self-confidence
Self-confidence driven Achievement
Summary
CHAPTER 3
Leadership based on Self-esteem
Self-esteem and Meeting Needs
Self-esteem and Integrity
Self-being in Leadership
Characteristics of Self-esteem
Self-esteem Foundation and Development Steps
Summary
CHAPTER 4
Self-esteem based Leadership and the Relationship
The Three Relational Patterns
Deteriorating Relationships
Maintaining Relationships
Developing Relationships
Case – from Deterioration to Development
Summary
CHAPTER 5
Self-esteem Based Leadership in Practice
Leadership of the Room of Possibilities
Leadership of the Force Field
Force Field Tools
Summary
CHAPTER 6
Self-esteem based Leadership and Result Creation
Self-esteem based Leadership and the Customer Relationship
The Deteriorating Customer Relationship
The Developing Customer Collaboration
CHAPTER 7
Self-esteem based Leadership and the Surroundings
Restricting Global Forces
Regional Differences Concerning Definitions
Scandinavian Values
Universal Driving Forces
Summary
CHAPTER 8
The Door to New Leadership
Self-confidence based Leadership
Relationship based Leadership
Self-being based Leadership
Surroundings based Leadership
Meaning-based leadership
Glossary
Definitions of Self-esteem and Self-confidence
Summary
Bibliography
First of all I want to thank you Martin, because you took the time and energy and used your intellect to write this book; a book which you asked me to write a few comments about. Seldom have I to such a degree identified myself with the storyline of a non-fictional book and seldom during my recent readings have I thought – “this, this is me” or “this is exactly how I felt and reacted” – rightly or wrongly, for good or for bad.
Just as often I thought – “but that’s exactly what I do but it’s not working”, or “God, my team and my management are really “deteriorating” or “maintaining” instead of “developing”. Just as often I thought “but that step 2 with the self-esteem based characteristics, that’s what others have made fun of and said I did wrong”, even though it felt right. This is definitely the way forward in future management instead of hanging on to and being stuck in the past.
The main message for me has been the importance of emotional and relational management of teams and the organisation alongside the rational and contextual. The central point being how the relational is just as much a discipline and experience that is hard to learn properly in line with the professional and contextual. The book maps out my next ten years as a leader and makes it evident that a gut feeling is actually an ability of its own.
I find that there is so much material here and so much more to think about. This book is just the beginning of much more insight.
I’ve gone back and looked in my notes where I’ve written: “Christ, this is really amazing, it’s just so me to be me. I’m best when I’m just me. The better I become, the more I’m just me and the other way round.” In an article in the daily Børsen about myself, the title “This Kierkegaardian self-acknowledgement” was used.
So I would like to say thank you so VERY much. This book has done me an enormous favour and will be one for many more leaders.
Jørgen Vig Knudstorp
(CEO, LEGO Group)
The Door – Self-esteem based Leadership is about entering into deeper and more creative meaning and commitment than that which we have made do with in management until now. The leader can no longer handle the task of motivating others without working through the feeling. Only to a limited extent does the employee become more motivated by receiving a higher salary, being praised for being competent, and gaining more self-confidence. The employee only feels marginally more secure by being told that he is good at his job. In recent years we have come to realise that both leaders and employees change jobs at an increasing rate. The better “package” and higher salary is a short-term motivational factor that is quickly replaced by renewed searching.
Today, much leadership is experienced as divided, based on the reasoning that leadership can be separated from feeling and self-esteem. Many leaders fight a fierce battle in order to convince themselves and their surroundings that they can keep feeling out of the professional work relationship. We now experience another type of person who mixes the personal and the relational regardless of whether they want to or not. That’s how the employee and leader go to work every single day.
Making this ‘feeling’ person in ourselves and the other become the starting point is what leadership today is increasingly about. It’s about creating developing relational patterns because the quality of the relationship is so crucial for developing inner human self-esteem and the derived feeling of purpose. When efforts are neglected, the consequences are great; consequences which are registered as loss of balance, motivation, responsibility, and drive.
Self-esteem based leadership is not a miracle cure. It’s hard work but a serious attempt at a personally founded approach to leadership; an approach that tackles challenges and creates possibilities and a form of leadership that contributes significantly to increased result and relationship creation in the company. This is summarised in the following:
In order to understand the potential in what is described here, it is of central importance to have an insight into the concept of self-esteem. It is important that the feeling of self-esteem is regarded as something different to the feeling of self-confidence. For me, the distinction between the concepts self-esteem and self-confidence lies in much more than an idea. It is an insight and a probable acknowledgement that we have only partially recognised in management; a discovery that is spreading like ripples in the water in Scandinavia but not in the rest of the world. This distinction between self-confidence and self-esteem has resulted in a new approach to how I and many others regard man’s potential for expressing himself and his ability to collaborate. The difference between self-esteem and self-confidence is what is essential for human motivation. For a more detailed definition of the concepts self-esteem and self-confidence please see the back of this book.
This book is based on the results of observations. No documented research exists, only practice which has been tested and transformed into ideas and inspiration. Together with my colleagues I have studied the possible powers of self-esteem based leadership in the private business sector and we have worked with the connection between the self-esteem and self-confidence based leadership. In my capacity as leader and leadership coach I have seen the effects and felt the consequences.
Today, we have an industrial image of the human being and a series of management practices which originate from old mental models. Our approach to leadership has historically been based on self-confidence. The future requires a leadership approach that is more based on self-esteem. With this book we seek to prove that the more self-esteem oriented approach is what modern man lacks; it’s what we often erroneously leave out when we talk of meaningfulness in management.
The book is primarily targeted at leaders but the book is directed towards anybody with an interest in management. The book seeks deep down and beyond the quick and easy descriptions which at times characterise management literature. It seeks to investigate and describe the motivation behind the performance oriented person of our time – the leader and those he leads. The book includes a number of case studies in an attempt to trigger experiences of recognition and to provide a break for reflection and thought. Each chapter is concluded with a summary. We recommend that the reader who does not want to read in depth and only wants to capture the essence of the book do the following: Start with the introduction, read the summaries at the end of each chapter and conclude with the chapter “The Door to New Leadership”.
This book presents a composed idea. An idea created from several areas of expertise. The book has drawn inspiration from management literature, psychodynamic and existential psychology and from experience-oriented family therapy. It has been an investigative journey to which many have been committed.
I have written the book together with Jørgen Lauge Sørensen, René Bach and Peter Mortensen. The book describes what we as coaches work with on a daily basis. The principle source of inspiration has undoubtedly been our clients and the more than 2000 cases concerning leadership coaching and leadership group coaching of which I and my colleagues have been a part. Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, CEO of the LEGO Group has written the preface to the book and prior to that commented on the manuscript. Jørgen has strengthened my belief that this project is of value. I am grateful for his effort and his fine acknowledgement.
Furthermore, I would like to thank the following for their help with contact, confrontation and comments: Anne Daugaard (consultant), Britt Brandt Lassen (family therapist), Claus Gilbert Clausen (leader), Claus S. Juul (leader and consultant), Henrik Kjær Hansen (leader), Henrik Theilbjørn (leader), Jens Aaløse (leader), Michael Binzer (leader), Susanne Lund Lyster (leader).
Today, the efforts to inspire and support leaders who seek to explore and adapt the principles of self-esteem based leadership, continues in our company SCANLEAD Scandinavian Leadership development. More information is available on www.scanlead.com
This book was originally written in Danish for an Scandinavian Audience, but with the help and dedication of Mathias Voelchert in Munich, Germany, it has now also become available as a book and ebook in German, and the present book/e-book version in English.
We are living in a time full of opportunities where man’s only partially exploited creative forces are closer to becoming fully realised than ever before. Man has always expressed himself in flashes but never before have we been faced with such massive self-actualisation; a self-actualisation which can create results. Self-actualisation is no new phenomenon. Abraham Maslow described it back in 1954 in connection with his famous hierarchy of human needs. It’s the search for and realising of potential, when all basic needs have been fulfilled.
The feeling of meaning is part of this self-actualisation - a feeling that is important to man because it generates motivation and drive. Experiencing something as meaningful sparks an interest and therefore a drive. Perhaps it is time to rediscover what it is that creates meaning. To rediscover what self-actualisation is and how we within management can trigger deeper and more creative motivation.
During the old industrial management paradigm, the leader needed a worker. He mainly needed the worker’s hands, not so much his head. Today, the leader searches for a “co-worker”. It’s the “co” part of the word that’s important here, because it’s the degree of commitment that determines the quality of the work. The co-worker is a “co-creator”, whose inner potential is to be un-folded, who uses thought and feeling, and who also seeks collaboration through creative commitment.
The most important part about happiness is not wealth and pleasure, but enterprise, the free development and expression of abilities and friendships with good people.
– ARISTOLE.
Perhaps we have solely focused on what Aristotle calls the development and expression of abilities and overlooked what lies in friendships with good people.
The model illustrates that creating results without creating healthy relationships can lead to a bottom line surplus and praise from the board. However, there will often also be an underlying degree of frustration. Frustration is expressed in many different ways, however, less results is a common feature of them all. Frustration means various degrees of restricting forces and de-motivation. Effects sparked by frustration are: tasks not being completed, apathy, stress, absences due to sickness and resignations. I experience it all the time. When the relationship is not thriving, the company will continue to function because goals, processes and systems keep the wheels turning but the lightness, speed and the responsibility disappear. With time the creation of results will be affected and the company will experience dismantled relationships and results.
The model shows several possibilities, including one that I must warn against: the developing relationship with no result – without profit. The meaningful relationship without the performance dimension often establishes a culture that solely acknowledges relational promotion. That in itself is relationally restraining because all too often a maintaining pseudo-consensus arises; a relationship in which people don’t seriously hold each responsible and don’t seek sincere clarification.
On the other hand, when result creation is combined with the creation of a developing relationship, these 2 elements become mutually strong. The meaningful is activated and inspiration is awoken. This is a tougher move which provokes increased pleasure, happiness and commitment. Being in a relationship developing state makes you grow. You feel appreciated which supports an inner sense of “self-esteem”.
Management is therefore a matter of leading on two different fronts at the same time – leading the result and the relationship. The former has been discussed in the vast amounts of management literature that exist. The latter has been described to a much lesser degree. And that’s what this book seeks to shed light on and go in depth with. It’s about leading the quality of the relationship and can be understood by looking at what works as rationally and meaningfully for man.
We who are behind this book believe that leaders have focused too much on performance and too little on relationships. Human management has, from the departure from the industrial society and in the transition to the information and knowledge society, sought improvements in performance and motivation through rewards based on measurements, assessment and control. Gary Hamel describes exquisitely the strength of the management paradigm in his book The Future of Management 1. Management is what makes a company work. It’s the management approaches that put things into the system. It’s about setting goals, developing and supporting competencies, following up on and rewarding what works, and identifying what doesn’t work. Thus the basis for improvement arises. A constant assessment and improvement approach arises which constantly refines and optimises. The management paradigm has created a lot of good things, including an approach to management that primarily is based on self-confidence - an approach that focuses on performance and results.
One-sided focus on self-confidence in management speaks to the rational side of the human being. It activates thoughts and the side of the man that appreciates an additional reward. Motivation-wise it activates enthusiasm but not much commitment. In other words: in all too many cases this approach leaves out the deeper feeling. This has an impact on motivation and meaningfulness. Self-confidence is nice, often gives a rush and can drive humans far, especially if you have never known any other type of acknowledgement. However, self-confidence seldom feels very meaningful. It only reaches a certain depth within us - it creates results but does not fulfil us.
If we are to feel that we express more of ourselves we must experience relationships in which we can grow as humans; relationships that develop self-esteem and not just self-confidence. It has to do with activating our “double drive”. The power that lies in what we call the developing performance and the developing relationship.
Hein and Kjerulf describe in their book, Handlekraft 2 [Drive], a model, in which relationships form a central part in result creation. The authors say that relationships are “the pipelines”, through which leadership is channelled. The worse the relationship is, the narrower the connecting channel.
It is our opinion that this is that part of the leadership task that causes the leader the greatest problems. The leader is often trained in working with creating results but has neither insight into nor experience with creating relationships. This is something the manager has to learn. This entails a number of consequences but also possibilities if the leader is willing to take on the responsibility.
There are consequences when the relationship side of management is given a low priority. We encounter an increasing number of managers and employees who are not motivated - people have lost faith in it being worth while; they can see no point in working to trigger an additional bonus, to be promoted and given another title, to reach the next target or something else which previously was a motivating factor. They have difficulty coping with the many hours at work, the increasing pressure and the lacking feeling of being of actual value to themselves and to others. Many opt out and make different priorities. This is a waste that has always existed and which should stay at a natural level in a competitive economy, but which has increased radically during the last few years. When senselessness strikes, man does not thrive.
A part of the senselessness lies in the paradox that today we work more than ever before. This enormous amount of activity has a reverse side of which the majority of managers and employees are very well aware. There is not enough time. Each new assignment, each new challenge has a tendency to take an additional little bite out of our time. Lack of time is a reality, even though managers optimise their time management, choose to deselect and focus sharply on what really creates value. When man no longer meets others of his own accord, he becomes lonely. I meet many people who choose to deny their personal needs in order to give the activity their all, in the hope of finding inner satisfaction. The needs they set aside, gradually start to build up with a whisper of wanting to be unleashed. It feels like creeping, insidious dissatisfaction. The leader is often mentally strong and can maintain rejecting parts of himself, because demands speak a language of their own and everything else gets muffled. This increases the inner tension. A tension others often don’t see, only feel.
It can be a healthy sign that people become ill if the alternative is to force yourself to keep up something that is not good. Being able to suffer pain is one of man’s characteristics at a level further down in the hierarchy of human needs. It is a necessity of survival. In many management cultures, suffering is part of the actual suitability test. We look at each other to see who can manage the working hours, the many business trips, the long meetings, and a lot of back-patting takes place – “well done”. What often happens in these groups is that we slide away from ourselves and move towards registering what is required of us. When we become ill from stress it has something to do with not having felt ourselves and our inner needs and we have not acted upon these needs over a period of time.
Illness could actually be the body’s way of forcing us to feel ourselves again. It draws us away from what is making us sick. When we withdraw, we become aware of all the things that are not good for us, and consequently the feeling of meaninglessness often emerges – why am I putting myself through this type of life?
In the old management paradigm it was universally accepted to develop a vision, a mission and a number of company values to ensure high levels of motivation. We need meaning and direction. Many companies are really fed up with these approaches, and many leaders give the difficult art of communication the blame. Jonas Ridderstråle and Kjell Nordström, the authors behind the book Funky Business, mention in that connection that many leaders have, due to past actions, problems with credibility when attempting to implement meaning in an organisation:
The truth is that many leaders have to over-inform because their previous attempts at communicating have not gone down too well and all new talk of visions and missions is inevitably met with both scepticism and cynicism. Many know from experience that visions don’t mean anything, and that there will be a new one again in a year or two’s time. 3
Much mission and vision work is performed badly without it having the intended effect. And even when this vision and mission work is performed managerially correctly and with sweeping execution, it seldom solves the underlying meaninglessness in modern man. The fact that new goals are set which are merely greater than the previous ones and which dictate certain behaviour does not create any direction of meaning nor motivation on its own. And this is because many of us already have a life full of goals and demands. Many are no longer driven by the bar being raised, when they become aware of what is actually going on. Many think and philosophise about the paradox of the pleasure of reaching a goal, however the pleasure disappears and the goal is replaced with a new one.
It can be frightening to think about the meaning of what you do. For many, personal meaningfulness and thoughts about work are still regarded as a kind of luxury. It is something they don’t allow themselves to think about, it is a line of thought which is only intended for the privileged or the insecure. The majority of us carry on and attempt to keep the thought of an alternative at a distance. A sort of communal unconsciousness arises which stems from a lack of inner and outer contact. The right questions are not asked but there’s still always talk of the “dream”. If only I could take six months off work. If only I won ten million. Perhaps we should reschedule our lives and make entirely different priorities. The possibility of choosing yourself is continuously held up in front of the self as a constant possibility. We don’t choose ourselves and that maintains the enervating situation. We believe it will be better some day without us taking on the responsibility and wrestling with life ourselves. Every day more people are hit by the fear, loneliness, stress or despair of meaninglessness; a feeling of lacking meaning that sneaks its way into man of modernity.
Now, those are managerial challenges for you; an unexploited potential in the form of knowledge, leading to people who are full of resources which are not expressed. These are people who are not thriving, or people who choose to endure without the subsequent true passionate commitment. These are people who might thrive and run fast but they are not really fulfilled and their performance curve therefore drops. These are people who create results but who could create more, and more efficiently, if they used themselves in a better way.
A New Relational Approach
Man no longer reacts as he did previously. We no longer go to the right, because an authority says so. We have learned to ask ourselves: What’s good for me? Family patterns regarding upbringing have changed. The family is the place where you encounter leadership for the first time. We, who bring up children today, have been brought up with much more involvement and on a more equal level regarding respect and dignity than our parents were. The majority of people today want the self-esteem and integrity of their children to be maintained and strengthened through their upbringing. Today, it has more to do with including rather than bringing up children according to family counsellor Jesper Juul. This creates a different relational approach between people.
The model above illustrates a difference in the foundations of leadership. We are no longer motivated by the leader that takes on the leader role if the leader does not have personal authenticity. We want to be met by a leader that leads through himself and not through his role as himself or his role as leader. Previously, we accepted authority. Today, there still exists a certain amount of respect for certain authorities but, in general, respect has been reduced. For our parents’generation it was important that one knew one’s place and took part in the system. Today, nobody feels responsible for a place in the system that they haven’t chosen themselves.
Today, this difference in motivation and drive is most apparent amongst the young. The young and the young in us want to leave behind the restricting relationship which lies as a pattern and keeps people in place. We want to live freely and with responsibility but at the same time have a framework and goals. This is a new kind of person who doesn’t want to be lead by being told, but one who wants to participate in creating. It is a human being who is not driven by being taught by the master but who wants to feel his own master within himself. It is a human being who doesn’t want to embark on his consultant career by being sent to Basel in Switzerland for six months, a stay during which he’s to sit in a basement coding a SAP solution. It doesn’t make sense when what he actually wants to be is project manager in an IT consultancy firm. 15 years ago it wouldn’t have been a problem for the exact same company to find young people who were willing to spend six months or an entire year as “water carriers”.
We experience a new human being who seeks a place with a framework so the potential can be let loose - and preferably quickly. This does not mean that this place should be without a framework as it is still important to maintain the parts of old management system that work.
The New Young Person
There was a young man who had the exact right combination of education and intellect, a person whom the female leader had long been looking for. He had been tested and found suitable and then taken on in the company in question. After only a short period of time in the job, a conference was to be held. At this conference, the company was to launch a number of products, give some presentations, have some workshops, do some group work and provide an entertaining and inspiring atmosphere for the professional group of people sitting between the product and the end-customer. The young man had been out late the previous day entertaining the guests. The leader meets him in the hotel corridor five minutes before the morning program is to start. He’s dressed in running clothes and on his way out for a run. She is devastated and says that they’re to be in the hall in five minutes. He explains that he needed a good night’s sleep and that it is important for his well-being that he goes for a run. He says he has to be up and ready for the afternoon group work session and then disappears out of the door. She doesn’t get a chance to react but considers briefly opening the door and calling him back and ordering him to get changed and be ready in five minutes. Something inside her is amazed and she is paralysed.
She thinks: “I’ve never met a person like that before” - a person who knows his own patterns and respects the importance of his own physical well-being. For the young man exercise and being able to perform are closely tied together. A feeling of his own responsibility and will to independently prioritise between the importance of participating during the morning or spending his time on clients the evening before. The leader said to me: “Our generation would have gone late to bed, got up early for a run before breakfast or dropped the run until after the conference.”
A lot of bad things can be said about where we are right now and many at present refer to the past or to what once was. My colleagues and I look upon this differently. Let’s take from the old that works, and develop from the new that’s worth developing. We encounter a young person who is well-educated, resourceful and often more independent than we were at the same age. Many of the older leaders have taken part in bringing up the people that they are to lead and have some of the new in themselves. There is a lot of potential in the new generations but it has to be developed and what may easily happen is that the potential is restrained instead.
Many leaders are confused right now. The signals inside them and those from the world outside point in opposite directions. They say the young are too lazy but can feel the urge to loosen themselves up. The confusion comprises a threat and a possibility at the same time. A threat because we let go and let all barriers fall. When we do that we discover that our leadership doesn’t work. A threat because we return to too much of the old and thereby cut ourselves off from realising the possibility.
The possibility constitutes increased commitment by developing self-responsibility side by side with what works from the creation of results. The possibility lies in daring to take up the leadership challenge and giving the new person within us and in the other person the relevant growth conditions. When we don’t do that, something inside us and inside the other person dies.
A New Relational Need
Maslow has shown us that our needs change depending on our life conditions. Now, we experience year groups who have lived at the top of the hierarchy of human needs their entire life. The majority of them have never experienced hunger, going without a roof over their heads, war or an infringement of their basic rights. They have grown up feeling fundamentally safe. I experience these year groups as people for whom being acknowledged, seen and heard is just as important as it was for previous generations to scrape enough money together to cover life’s basic necessities. They are positioned differently existentially and look upon the value of life in another way than previous generations. The self-actualising individual is one who seeks to realise him, his own potentials and to fulfil his needs in relation to others. Needs that we are not necessarily aware of. I believe I am right in saying that we humans are often aware of what we feel like doing but not always what we actually are in need of doing.
We talk about becoming isolated. The modern individual has moved away from the nuclear family, the woman as housewife, the close village community, seeing friends and time for socialising. The closeness of the local community and private life has, for many of us, been replaced with work, co-workers, colleagues and bosses, boards and business connections. The most successful have even managed to establish true friendships and durable relationships. Here I can refer to the conclusions from the book Good to Great written by Jim Collins where he refers to his research of companies that have actually created results where the management groups consisted of solid relationships that turned into friendships for life; a conclusion that supports Aristotle’s views on happiness and friendships with good people.
Other of our present day leaders walk around with a strange need for something that they are not really aware of but can feel. Something they have to get at home but something they can’t really get to work at home. In a home where both the man and the woman are pursuing a career and where time is always in short supply, the energy for spending proper time together with presence is often missing. Busy leaders refer to the fact that it is not commonly accepted within management to be good friends with co-workers and colleagues. It can cause problems when having to reject something, talk wages or make people redundant. In my opinion this is a strange way of keeping life at arm’s length with roots far down in the old, rather distancing management paradigm. I believe today’s co-workers want to be met by a proper person who dares to be him/herself and nothing close to what was previously considered as “good professional conduct”.
Man at the top of the hierarchy of human needs is driven by something new. Earlier generations were placed further down in the hierarchy and were at a deeper level driven by fear of not getting their essential needs fulfilled and the desire/wish to secure themselves. The new person has always had adequate and is more driven by the wish to realise his own potential and to develop his own sense of worth.
We could say that the hierarchy of needs has been turned proportionally upside down; self-realisation for the modern individual is actually the most significant driving force. Many of us have experienced inner acknowledgement and happiness stimulation when working from within ourselves and using ourselves, so we feel that we are realising ourselves from within.
In his latest book about social intelligence, Daniel Goleman describes the results of the most recent relational brain research. The world’s leading neurologists have started putting words on what has been working intuitively for a really long time. Scientists within neural networks - that is the networks that control mental operations - speak of “highest harmonic states”. Joyful states that create results. When the sub-conscious works with a kind of inner harmony, it works at maximum ease, efficiency, speed and impact. 5 The joyful states can be registered by MRI-scans and the areas in the brain that are activated are those that are combined with the ability to think creatively, mental flexibility and a large capacity for information processing. These are competencies we need for being creative and for human growth in the new global knowledge competition. Goleman presents conclusions that suggest that we perform our best when we are in balance. The more fear we feel the worse we do. On the other hand the results also suggest that the more apathy we feel, the worse we do.
Brain management is a balance between relationship creation and result creation. The brain has to be motivated out of its stagnate state and pointed in the direction of development. However, it mustn’t be provoked too much. We do badly if we become fearful. We have documented evidence that says that employees must feel safe and are to be lead through trust, but at the same time they must also be stimulated, confronted and challenged in order to feel that they grow as humans.
The employee at the top of the hierarchy of needs will realise him/herself without falling down. Self-actualisation or realising your own potential is dually faceted. It has to do with using your competencies and about developing into the person you are. This places new demands on management with regard to supporting a balance and providing the conditions that will allow the right states to arise.
Increasing Relational Equality Regarding Dignity and Respect
The described changes in relationships affect the relationship between the leader and the employee; an affect that requires explaining.
On the one hand, the leader has the right to discharge the employee. It is part of the leader’s job to assess the employee and to review efforts and progress. This creates a potential fear within the employee of being put in front of a judge, of being judged and found guilty of faults and shortcomings. This makes the relationship asymmetrical. On the other hand, another part of the leader’s job is to recognise success, grant wage increases, improve terms of employment and to promote. This does not make the relationship any less asymmetrical, because the leader in still the judging party.
The assessment paradigm is supported by the fact that many companies and organisations have introduced systems and control procedures. These procedures support the assessing element and in some restraining cultures this control creates a distance which manifests itself as distrust in the relationship between the leader and the employee.
It is vital for the quality of the relationship that the leader takes on the responsibility for the unequal relationship and acknowledges the fact that a part of his role is to control and to lead based on the results of the control.
The new element in present time leadership is that alongside this assessment process, the leader wants to enter into a more trustful relationship. He is interested in meeting the employee and supporting and helping the individual progress. This can only take place through trust. Nobody truly opens up towards another person by being threatened into doing so. Present day leaders often have a built-in form of schizophrenia in relation to the employee: the judging element and thus condemning element, alongside a wish for equality and reciprocity.
If we look back over the past 50 years, then the relationship is still not equal but becoming increasingly so. That’s because the leader can feel that the element encouraging development within the relationship and creating commitment is not threat but trust. This power is supported by a driving force coming from the employee who is becoming increasingly equal in the relationship regardless of whether the leader wants it or not.
This happens because the competent knowledge employee is increasingly becoming a limited resource and an asset for the group. He creates results, develops internal learning and attracts other qualified people through his professionalism. He is aware of his own worth and wants to be treated as valuable. There are countless examples of people who are remunerated better than their leaders – something that just 20 years ago was unthinkable in most companies. There exists a more equal assessment which is especially experienced at middle leader and employee levels.
Top managements’ focus on knowledge and competencies supports to an increasing extent the move in favour of the knowledge worker. Top management does not want to lose any kind of value in the form of employee resources that they have fought hard to get, spent money on educating and are so very dependent on. The leader is therefore increasingly measured by the control systems and assessed on his efficiency in his relation to the employee. That does something to the focus. That is not always sufficient, because more contact cannot be forced forward. On the other hand, it creates a greater interest for creating increased loyalty - a loyalty that is difficult to create. The employee chooses to an increasing degree to leave the manager if the relationship holds no quality.
We human beings become anxious when we are rejected. It lies deep within us that we want to feel that we belong and to be accepted. Acceptance and the feeling of belonging are on an operational level crucial for our survival. As children we cannot survive without protection and as adults we cope badly outside the group. Previously, it was the employee that got sacked, today a potential fear of being abandoned lies in both parties. This leads to the fact that fear as a motivational force, a weapon or form of defence has become less powerful and more equally distributed on both sides.
There are still a number of leaders that say to me that they occasionally have to apply the paradigm of fear to get people to do what has to be done. They say that it is difficult to make changes without threats and making an example of somebody. There may be a truth in that - in those situations where people have different interests and needs. Management is also about cutting away and dismantling. When survival is on the agenda different rules apply. In that case, apprehension and fear are often the driving forces of the renewal of that which is dead or that cannot survive without change. In my opinion, this does not change the fact that fear as a form of management – even though it can make people move – de-motivates and restrains the individual from demonstrating full commitment. The problem with fear is not so pronounced when dismantling. Here stagnation and the need to dismantle is accepted because it’s often a necessity. The problem becomes more pronounced when building something up.
The managers that we come across in company corridors these days have a leg in each camp. When times are good, they believe in the new, committing, more equal and confidence-building elements of the relationship to the employee. When times are bad and they are under pressure they return to their previous management patterns and do more of what they had done previously. Under pressure they still hit and use anxiety as a controlling tool.
This is called “regressing” and is a natural psychological reaction when the new approach has not been anchored as a consistent and integrated pattern. When we come under increasing pressure as individuals, we apply the strategies that have helped us previously in life. When a leader becomes anxious he often turns to what he himself was at the receiving end of when his parents or leader were in the same situation. In too many cases regression manifests itself as criticism, attacks or ignoring an individual which belong within the domain of the cane. This reaction occurs because so many leaders have been brought up in a reformatory paradigm where this was the accepted approach towards a child. When the cane is used too often and with too great a force, it then destroys the trust, stresses the brain, creates untrustworthiness and drains the commitment. The cane leads to a reduced ability to function, attacks or retreat. The strokes constitute scolding, reprimands, ignoring, humiliation, violation of integrity and threats of isolation and rejection. The cane moves people but less than previously. It most often results in declining commitment and occasionally deteriorated self-esteem.
The Grey Gold
A director received a letter from a unified staff. In the letter it said that if management didn’t start to involve the employees and initiate a plan for improving their mutual relationship, they would approach the board and present their case.
The leader gave me an example of his leadership - an example the staff used in their arguments. The director had, together with one of his middle managers, talked of moving some people about. The two of them believed it would be a good idea with a reshuffle within two departments. When they had agreed, they called for a seminar. However, it turned out that the discussion had very little to do with conversation but was characterised by being rather one-way. The employee was in brief told what the two managers had agreed upon. He was asked to pack his stuff together and move to the new department. Neither of the departments in question had been informed. The middle manager walked with the employee to his new department and informed the others that they were getting a new colleague.
I had a good talk with the director. We talked about leadership and management not only being about making decisions but also about getting people involved. He told me that he had gone to school in another era. He said he understood what I meant when I said “getting people involved” - he had just never thought of management in that way.