tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5337360001060332600.post6541722712508895728..comments2023-07-25T08:26:50.096-06:00Comments on Learning at Westminster: Incivility and the misunderstanding of leadershipgaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05362826471852969332noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5337360001060332600.post-83862664383455429512010-09-13T12:35:57.249-06:002010-09-13T12:35:57.249-06:00PART II: I was intrigued by the following argument...PART II: I was intrigued by the following arguments in your posting: If a leader is perceived as solely responsible for all organizational outcomes, then members of the organization don’t feel responsible for negative results. And, if a leader is viewed as the cause of all that is bad, incivility toward that leader may seem entirely appropriate. (I hope I got the gist of your arguments right.) These points make sense, and it’s obvious that leaders can’t improve organizations on their own . . . but I would argue that leaders themselves often exacerbate the problems of irresponsibility and incivility among the members of organizations. <br /><br />Leaders can influence perceptions of responsibility, because through their behavior, leaders signal who is responsible for decisions and consequences. I would argue that a leader who refuses to seek advice, does not seriously consider the input he or she is given, fails to delegate meaningful tasks, and insists on making all decisions is far more likely to have followers who do not feel responsible for outcomes. The research on shared leadership in organizations seems to support this conclusion: When leadership is shared with others, responsibility for outcomes also tends to be shared. Shared leadership seems to work particularly well in complex organizations in which creativity is needed and people must work interdependently. This explains why self-leadership has been successful in organizations as diverse as W.L. Gore & Associates, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Brick Avon Academy and the Math and Science Leadership Academy (teacher-led elementary schools in Newark and Denver), and the GE jet engine facility in Durham, North Carolina. So, when leaders in these types of organizations ask others to participate meaningfully in decision making, felt responsibility is likely to be distributed more evenly throughout an organization. <br /><br />Reducing incivility is a little trickier, in my view, because incivility is less a product of leadership actions than it is a reflection of cultural mores. Nevertheless, through their actions leaders do communicate the level of incivility that is acceptable. I would argue that a leader (1) who personally displays incivility, (2) who witnesses incivility without expressing disapproval, and (3) who chooses to promote, praise or otherwise reinforce those who engage in incivility is communicating that incivility is acceptable and that those who display it will be rewarded. These leadership actions create an environment in which incivility flourishes.<br /><br />It does seem reasonable to assume that there is a connection between felt responsibility and incivility. The cynicism and procedural justice literatures suggest that people become cynical when they perceive that a trust has been violated, believe they do not have a voice, and feel powerless to influence organizational events. Again, leaders may be able to increase responsibility and reduce cynicism and incivility by asking members of their organizations to participate in important decisions, and by sharing responsibility (both praise and blame) for the outcome of those decisions. <br /><br />So, although I agree that leaders cannot cause all events, I think it’s clear that leaders can strongly influence outcomes and the way those outcomes are achieved in organizations. I would offer two hypotheses. (1) In business organizations, when leadership is shared rather than tightly controlled at the senior management level, felt responsibility is more likely to be distributed throughout the organization. (2) When members of an organization feel responsible for outcomes, they will approach problem solving more productively, making cynicism and incivility less likely. I think there might be a paper in there somewhere. <br /><br />Thanks for taking the time to write such interesting postings! This blog always provides food for thought. <br /><br />MelissaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5337360001060332600.post-27624305036470140192010-09-13T12:34:26.858-06:002010-09-13T12:34:26.858-06:00Gary, there are lots of interesting ideas in this ...Gary, there are lots of interesting ideas in this posting. I think your comments are mainly directed toward leadership in a public/political arena, but I’d like to share two observations with you, both of which center on organizational leadership. (Sorry for the length of this response, but I’ve thought a lot about your arguments and didn’t want to oversimplify. I've divided the comment into two segments.) <br /><br />PART I: Your comment that leaders are not causal agents reminds me of Meindl’s (1987) “Romance of Leadership” perspective. Meindl argued that people have a tendency to overestimate the impact leaders have on organizational performance, and to minimize or ignore other factors such as resources, employees, the economy, or luck. Many people romanticize leaders, claimed Meindl, particularly in response to extreme results; when organizational outcomes are very good or very bad, the leader is the one who is praised or blamed. This perspective makes a lot of sense to me; sometimes leaders’ choices are so constrained that they can’t influence organizational outcomes much at all—but they are held responsible nonetheless. <br /><br />On the other hand, there is plenty of research showing that leaders do matter a great deal in organizations. Stock prices rise and fall as CEOs are hired and fired (Oracle’s stock price rose sharply last week after Mark Hurd was hired, for example), and leaders make strategic decisions that can significantly impact organizational results. A leader can strongly influence an organization’s values and culture as well as the thoughts, feelings and actions of followers. In an article published in the Strategic Management Journal, Macky (2008) found that a firm’s CEO explained 29% of the variance in firm performance—far more than corporate factors (8%), and industry factors (6%). A study by Wasserman and his colleagues (2001) indicated that the choice of a new CEO had as much impact on a firm’s performance as the choice of whether to stay in the same industry or compete in a new one, and in some circumstances (e.g., when opportunities are scarce and resources are plentiful), organizational leadership is absolutely crucial. <br /><br />So, although I agree that leaders are often held solely responsible for outcomes that are beyond their control, there is a lot of evidence to indicate that a leader’s behavior can greatly impact organizational results, both positively and negatively. In other words, organizational leaders often are causal agents. If I believed otherwise, I’d probably go into another line of work!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com