When I work with clients to create sustainable change in their corporate cultures, I am often faced with challenges dealing with the use of positional power. Change often needs to happen quickly in order to meet the goals of management. However, rapid change - no matter how beneficial - can be a culture shock to team members.
Dictatorial rapid change does not provide the context for the change and often involves radically altering the way business is done or life is lived. This is not to say rapid change can not be positive, but it needs to be handled carefully and collaboratively.
When management is fearful*, management can quickly want to be seen as "decisive" which unfortunately often means "dictatorial." But dictators make bad managers.
Why?
Well, when we look at the arc of most dictatorships, they tend to universally hold power for a while and then, ultimately fail.
This is because power is a shared resource - if it is collaborative. Real power is based on trust. Trust cannot be taken, it is earned or given. Coercive power is based on anti-trust. Indeed, if we have two patterns, Collaborative Power is the pattern for sustainable growth. Coercive Power is the anti-pattern.
So, what is the basis for dictatorial power?
It is the exploitation of positional power - positional power is when one party has some temporary but compelling influence over another party. They use fear (say from the loss of a job) to coerce the other parties into doing their bidding.
Fear can take many forms. In business it's often guilt (you're not a team player), explicit threats (you will be sacked / demoted), or implicit threats (you may be shunned or chastised by the group).
But coercive power is ultimately doomed to failure, not because workers don't want to listen - but because they are human beings with options.
Bear in mind that this dynamic happens, regardless of the motivations of management. Management can have completely honest and beneficent rationales for wanting to achieve the cultural transformation. If the transformation takes place in a hostile or non-collaborative way - workers will react with at least suspicion and at worst resentment.
Then, their options let them vote with their feet. They leave for better opportunities.
What Dictators Don't Do
Now, we've talked about what dictators are doing. What are they not doing.
The glib way of answering this is that dictators do not collaborate. But that doesn't help us here.
We need to know what the after-affects of collaborative styles are and how they are not being achieved by coercion.
Respect - In any relationship, a basis of respect is essential for good-faith negotiation and an exchange of value. Dictatorial methods in the workplace make those dictated to feel disrespected. That may seem obvious, but how many times have you or someone near you not recognized their own coercive behavior and then were shocked when there was push back? (Or worse, got compliance until one day the other person finally won't take it any longer and crisis ensues.)
In any cultural change, understanding and respecting the other person's right to make decisions and the value they can bring to the table is key. There's a Chinese proverb that says:
Tell me and I will forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I’ll understand.
I've used it before.
It's a mantra. Post it on your wall.
You see, The lifecycle of a dictate ends as soon as someone is able to disregard it. And, after a time, the ability to disregard the dictate is self-granted. People look for excuses to break coercive mandates due to their inherent lack of respect.
Involvement (Collaboration) is true respect. The message is: I trust you so much, that I will allow you to change the process I'm bringing so that it may benefit us all.
Provide Safety - When we feel unsafe, our brains and bodies go into a protective mode. We are hyper aware of threats. We perceive threats that aren't actually there and then process them. Lack of safety creates fear, which spawns waste.
In the beginning, an unsafe environment rewards the dictator. People don't push back until they are sure it is safe. This time gap is used by savvy dictators to invent new threats to extend the period of fear.
This quickly creates friction. People view all ideas initially in terms of how it can hurt them personally. Then, maybe, what it might mean to the organization. Things harmful to the organization, but that don't actually kill the unsafe individual are therefore tolerated for a while because the act of speaking up in a dictatorship is, itself, unsafe.
This means that even if your change is for the good of the organization, if it comes in a way that threatens people and reduces their personal safety, it will create friction and ultimately be self-defeating.
Collaboration provides safety by allowing honest communication throughout all processes. People understand the business goals and the rationales for what they are expected to do. They can change process in the service of improvement. This creates an air of safety. Many unknowns or threats are removed - people can focus on success.
Allow for Success - Building on respect and safety, Collaborative management creates a culture of success. The changes you want are, presumably, for some type of success. Success stems from an organization where people feel both empowered and a sense of ownership in the process.
By using coercion, a dictator is actively taking ownership away from them.
“The will is not free - it is a phenomenon bound by cause and effect - but there is something behind the will which is free.”
Swami Vivekananda
Build Sustainable Organizations - We arrive at the effect of these causes (there could, of course, be more). You cannot build anything lasting on coercion. Dictators ultimately do not last.
People's wills can be momentarily bound by a dictatorial edict. That is simple cause and effect from positional power, it is entirely natural and understandable. Threats come quickly and people react first for protection.
But people will reach beyond that, will look for an escape and, when it is found, they will use it.
Therefore, an organization cannot last with dictatorial leadership. The very application of it destroys internal trust, engenders self-interest, ruins any culture of success and ultimately kills the dictatorship.
Not to mention, dictatorships just aren't very fun. Who wants to live like that, when there's collaboration around? :-)
* Note the fear here drives the need to be coercive and fear breeds fear.
Jim -
"Dictator" is a funny word to use inside a business. "Petty tyrant" might be an alternative, or "authoritarian", or something else.
Note that when workers have the option to leave, and when employee turnover is high as a result, you sometimes get management structures and employee relations optimized for high turnover. Ritual abuse of new employees may be a coping mechanism (or even a sustainable model) for middle managers who know that half their staff will be gone in two weeks. (the "those who stay will be champions" school of management).
Posted by: Edward Vielmetti | 22 September 2008 at 14:16