MEMORANDUM FOR DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS FROM JOHN F. BLAKE
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Document Page Count:
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Document Creation Date:
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Document Release Date:
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Publication Date:
September 16, 1976
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DDA 76-4657
MEMORANDUM FOR:
FROM
Gentlemen:
Director
Director
Director
Director
Director
Director
Director
Director
JJA R gistry_
File
16 September 1976
of Communications
of Data Processing
of Finance
of Logistics
of Medical Services
of Personnel
of Security
of Training
John F. Blake
Deputy Director for Administration
Attached is a copy of an article entitled "Where
Have All the Leaders Gone?" which was published by
the Federeal Executive Institute in June 1975. I
thoroughly enjoyed reading the article and I believe
you also will take pleasure from it.
Att
Distribution:
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DDA:JFBlake:der
John F. Blake
DDA Subject w/att
1 - DDA Chrono w/att
1 - JFB Chrono w/o att
(16 September 1976)
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Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
Warren G. Bennis
"Where have all the leaders gone?" They are, as a paraphrase of
that haunting song could remind us, "long time past."
All the leaders whom the young respect are dead. F.D.R., who
could challenge a nation to rise above fear, is gone. Churchill,
who could demand and get blood, sweat and tears, is gone.
Schweitzer, who from the jungles of Lambarene could inspire
mankind with reverence for life, is gone. Einstein, who could give
us that sense of unity in infinity, of cosmic harmony, is gone.
Gandhi, the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, all lie slain, as if
to prove the mortal risk in telling us that we can be greater,
better than we are.
The landscape is littered with fallen leaders. A President re-elected
with the greatest plurality in history resigns in disgrace. The
Vice-President he twice chose as qualified to succeed him is driven
from office as a common crook. Since 1973 the governments of
all nine common market countries have changed hands. In the
last nine months more major governments have fallen. Shaky
conditions exist in Finland, Belgium and Israel. Minority
governments rule precariously in Britain, Denmark and Sweden.
In Ethiopia the King of Kings is captive in his palace.
Where have all the leaders gone?
Those who remain ? the successors, the survivors ? the Fords
and Rockefellers who come to power without election, the
struggling corporate chieftains, the university presidents, the city
managers, the state governors -- all leaders today now are seen
as an endangered species, because of the whirl of events and
circumstances beyond rational control.
15
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There is a high turnover, an appalling mortality ? whether
occupational or actuarial -- among leaders. In recent years the
typical college president has lasted about four years. Men capable
of leading institutions often refuse to accept such pressures, such
risks. President Ford has had great difficulty getting the top men
he wanted to accept Cabinet jobs. We see what James Reston
of The New York Times calls "burnt out cases," the debris of
leaders. We see Peter Principle leaders rising to their final levels
of incompetency. It has been said if a Martian were to demand,
"Take me to your leader," Earthlings would not know where to
take him. Administrative sclerosis around the world, in political
office, in all administrative offices, breeds suspicion and distrust.
A bumper sticker in Massachusetts summed it up: "Impeach
Someone!"
We see people dropping out, not just college students, but leaders
of large institutions, businesses, to seek some Walden utopia
without responsibility. We see more and more managers turning
into Swiss gnomes who do not lead but attempt to barely manage.
A scientist at the University of Michigan has recently discussed
what he considers to be the ten basic dangers to our society.
First in his list of ten, the most significant, was the possibility
of some kind of nuclear war or accident which would destroy
the entire human race. The second basic challenge facing us is
the prospect of a worldwide epidemic, disease, famine or
depression. His third in terms of the key problems which can
bring about the destruction of society is the quality of the
management and leadership of our institutions.
I think he's right, and here we are: virtually without leaders. In
the last year or so, we've seen four senior Congressional leaders,
Committee chairmen, deposed. In the new Congress, the new
junior members have the power. Whether they will exercise it
intelligently and responsibly is another question. The Congress
used to get much more work done when there were some towering
giants in those chaml
them -- Rayburn, C
were arrogant, so?:
managed to produu
there is scant ate,
horizon of Americ,i
In business, also, I
mind, the Fords,
Sloans, Ketterings,
really "outside" the
widespread acceptai
Gerald Ford seems
presidents of majo,
it were). Max Ways
about the absence
Hall of Fame. Of ?
are business leadt -
Mark Hopkins, N; -
Alice Freeman l'
and others.
But these giants
a growing invisi
Haverford College
about these vanisls
administrators off
on educational al:
there now a colle,:
be President of th
What about our cit
city of Cincinnati
managers in the p.
International City.
March 1 after jusi
pprove or e ease
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,
&+,
4,-tg
-- whether
it years the
Vlen capable
ssures, such
he top men
mes Reston
ie debris of
? final levels
to demand,
iw where to
in political
tad distrust.
7. "Impeach
, but leaders
'den utopia
gers turning
ely manage.
ly discussed
our society.
possibility
uld destroy
facing us is
famine or
; which can
lity of the
t leaders. In
anal leaders,
ss, the new
exercise it
he Congress
lie towering
17
giants in those chambers, the "whales," as Lyndon Johnson called
them ? Rayburn, George, Vandenberg, Johnson himself. They
were arrogant, sometimes oppressive, but nevertheless they
managed to produce an aura that things were getting done. Now
there is scant attention to the basic issues of our times. The
horizon of American politics is peculiarly flat, and characterless.
In business, also, the landscape is flat. The names that come to
mind, the Fords, Edisons, Rockefellers, Morgans, Schwabs,
Sloans, Ketterings, are gone. Nixon's business intimates were
really "outside" the business establishment, entrepreneurs without
widespread acceptance as leaders or spokesmen. And President
Gerald Ford seems to get on best with the Washington vice
presidents of major corporations (a vice-president syndrome as
it were). Max Ways in a recent issue of Fortune magazine talks
about the absence of business leaders in New York University's
Hall of Fame. Of the ninety-nine individuals selected, only ten
are business leaders. Educators are more highly represented --
Mark Hopkins, Nicholas Murray Butler, Mary Lyon, Horace Mann,
Alice Freeman Palmer, Robert Hutchins, Booker T. Washington,
and others.
But these giants were of old. Today we see what appears to be
a growing invisibility and blandness of - education leaders.
Haverford College President Jack Coleman writes nostalgically
about these vanished leaders: "Gone are the days when academic
administrators offered leadership on a broad scale, whether it was
on educational affairs or pressing public matters of the day." Is
there now a college president who might, like Wilson, aspire to
be President of the United States?
What about our cities, their management and leadership? My own
city of Cincinnati, having hired one of the outstanding city
managers in the nation, Bob Turner, a former President of the
International City Management Association, saw him leave on
March 1 after just three years on the job -- unable to realize
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the goals that he brought with him. (He is becoming a corporate liked?" The
executive, hoping for greater scope.) And in Detroit the first Black crossed her
mayor, Coleman Young, said to a jubilant crowd at his
inauguration, "As of this moment, we're going to turn this city Harry MeV-.
around." Less than a year later, Coleman Young in his "State has some tt
of the City" address confessed that he has not been able to realize over-expos&?
any of his goals, including the reduction of crime and the their wholl
revitalization of industry in Detroit. It is as if the problems that quickly."
people in leadership face are out of control. There was a different various lc
time, when Carlisle could write about institutions as being the perceived
lengthened shadow of one man. And there was Pope Urban IV,
whose retinue would greet him with a chant, "deus es, deus es," Are leader
to which he could reply, "It is somewhat strong, but really very
pleasant." Leaders do not hear those chants today. They have I have spc
very few moments for hearing something adulatory, or merely. rational, ti
pleasant. leadership,
other insti
A student at my university wrote me a letter after a talk he had the Nation
heard me give. "Where," he asked, "is education to go in a society reflect in
that becomes more and more dreamless each day?" look back
What shall I reply? What has dulled the image, not only of society I can comp
but of its leaders? We hunger for greatness but what we find be done V :
are, at best, efficient managers, or at worst, amoral gnomes, lost compare w-
in narrow orbits. leader of
knows fro
omnipoten;
Why have we become a dreamless society? In the case of
bewildered,
educational leaders, Haverford's Jack Coleman suggests that we
stirrups.
have fallen into a "popularity trap." "We have asked too soon
and too often whether our immediate constituents would like our I That is so I
programs and policies. Like other leaders of the day, we read solutions, o
polls." innumerable ,
goals and c?,
It wasn't always that way. Not long ago a relative of the venerable leader today
M. Cary Thomas was describing that woman's presidential years then devise
at Bryn Mawr College. An eager undergraduate asked, "Was she potentially 11
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a corporate
.e first Black
'..)wd at his
arn this city
his "State
)le to realize
ne and the
oblems that
s a different
is being the
Urban IV,
deus es,"
: really very
They have
? or merely
talk he had
in a society
y of society
[at we find
nomes, lost
he case of
sts that we
d too soon
uld like our
y, we read
e venerable
ntiaI years
!, "Was she
19
liked?" The answer was short: "I'm sure the question never
crossed her mind."
Harry McPherson, a former counsel to President Lyndon Johnson,
has some trenchant observations on leaders: "First, the media have
over-exposed public men, showing their feet and in some cases
their whole bodies of clay. Television burns up new personalities
quickly." "Two, political, economic and social changes which
various leaders offered as remedies for the Nation's ills are
perceived as having failed or only partially succeeded."
Are leaders an endangered species?
I have spent most of my life in studying the best, the most
rational, the most productive forms of organization and of
leadership, whether of corporate, governmental, educational, or
other institutions. In what is now my fourth year of governing
the Nation's second largest urban multiversity -- whose problems
reflect in microcosm those of any complex organization ? I can
look back upon both accomplishments and failures.
I can compare what a specialist, a theorist, blithely believed should
be done with what, in an imperfect world, can be done. I can
compare what is desirable with what is possible. I know, as any
leader of any organization -- public, corporate, institutional ?
knows from experience, that the challenge is not for an
omnipotent, omniscient "man on a white horse" but for a fallible,
bewildered, often impotent individual to get one foot in the
stirrups.
? That is so because he confronts problems which may have no
solutions, or at best only proximate solutions. He confronts
innumerable, diverse and warring constituencies, whose separate
goals and drives may he irreconcilable. The test, then, for any
leader today is first to discover just what he does confront, and
then devise the best, the optimum, ways of making that reality
potentially manageable.
- -VasTv'r,741't
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Let me first try to set forth the conflicting demands ? the
turbulent environment ? which make that task so difficult.
Foremost is the loss of autonomy. Time was the leader could
decide ? period. A Henry Ford, a Carnegie, Could issue a ukase
? and all would automatically obey. Their successors' hands are
now tied in innumerable ways ? by governmental requirements,
by union rules, by the moral, and sometimes legal, pressures of
organized consumers and environmentalists. Asa supposed leader,
I watch with envy the superior autonomy of the man mowing
the university lawn, in complete control of the: machine he rides,
the total arbiter of which swath to cut where and when. I cannot
match it.
The greatest problem facing institutions is thei concatenation of
external forces that impinge and impose upon it events outside
the skin boundary of an organization. Fifty years ago this external
environment was fairly placid, like an ocean on a calm day,
forecastable, predictable, regular, not terribly eventful. Now that
ocean is turbulent and highly interdependent and pivotal. In my
own institution right now the key people for me to reckon with
are not only the students, the faculty or my own management
group, but people external to the university ? the city manager,
city council members, the state legislature, the federal
government, alumni and parents. There is an incessant, dissonant
clamor out there. And because the university is al brilliant example
of an institution that has blunted and diffused its main purposes
? through a proliferation of dependence on eternal patronage
structures ? its autonomy has declined to the ,point where our
boundary system is like Swiss cheese. Because of these pressures,
every leader must create, in e`ifect, a department of "external
affairs," a secretary of state, as it were, to deal with external
constituencies.
At the same time, our real Secretary of Statel Kissinger, finds
foreign affairs thwarted by internal constituencies which undo his
long, laborious and precarious negotiations.
With this comes
burners of the C
crown of thorn.
constituencies. C
organized press:t
all organization?
have Black orga:
? surprisingly en:
? a Jewish fact
interests groups,
was Lyndon Jo
together," at a
to be together,,
of politics in 1
on particular b
We have becom
more and mar
previously .
injured in his si?
formal suit. M.
Black, for her i
she could fill.
article. In New
state senators to
of the 29th mem
caucus (they did
to the press). In
has just ruled
suspended, disci
? that the loss
property. A fede
to each of the ft
whom it found h
questioning the n
is clear that the I
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rids -- the
if ficult.
tder could
le a ukase
hands are
uirements,
essures of
sed leader,
n mowing
c he rides,
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nger, finds
.11 undo his
21.
With this comes a new movement of populism -- not the barn
burners of the Grange days, not the free silver of Bryanism ("the
crown of thorns"), but the fragmentation, the caucusization, of
constituencies. On our campus, for example, we have innumerable
organized pressure groups -- and these exist, more or less, for
all organizations. We have women's lib, we have "gay lib," we
have Black organizations for both students and faculty, we have
? surprisingly enough at a time when Jews enjoy great acceptance
? a Jewish faculty caucus. We have over 500 governance and
interests groups. There is a loss of consensus, of community. It
was Lyndon Johnson's tragedy to plead, "Come, let us reason
together," at a time when all these fragments scarcely wanted
to be together, much less reason together. We have a new form
of politics in which people do not march on cities but march
on particular bureaus or departments within our institutions.
We have become a litigious society, where individuals and groups
more and more resort to the courts to determine issues which
previously might have been settled privately. A hockey player,
injured in his sport, bypasses the institutional procedures to bring
formal suit. My own university faces a suit from a woman, a
Black, for her loss of the administrative position I had thought
she could fill. A law review has even been sued for rejecting an
article. In New Jersey, a federal judge has ordered twenty-eight
state senators to stand trial for violating the constitutional rights
of the 29th member, a woman, by excluding her from their party
caucus (they did so because she was "leaking" their deliberations
to the press). In a Columbus test case, the U. S. Supreme Court
has just ruled that secondary school students may not be
suspended, disciplinarily, without formal charges and a hearing
? that the loss of a single day's education is a deprivation of
property. A federal court in Washington has just awarded $10,000
to each of the thousands of May, 1970, anti-war demonstrators
whom it found had been illegally arrested and confined. Without
questioning the merits of any particular case, the overriding fact
is clear that the hands of all administrators are increasingly tied
A
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by real or potential legal issues. I find I must consult our lawyers
over even small, trivial decisions.
With the neopopulism comes a phenomenon which I have
described as "arribismo," a term I heard in Peru. When the French
say "arrivisme," or the Italians "arrivismo," both mean
"pushiness." But "arribismo" means something more. It means,
as the Marines jocularly used to define Semper Fi, "You've got
yours, Jack, now I'll get mine." The U. S. arribismo distinguishes
all those Americans of different groups trying to find their
identities along race lines, sex lines, ethnic lines, even age lines
? all at different stages of their social identity and their economic
and political power.
And with the arribismo, the neopopulism is a related thing that ?
one might call the "psychology of entitlement," the right to have
things that one might not deserve from merit, or achievement,
but simply because one's whole group has been deprived ? by
racism or whatever ? from normal enjoyments. It demands X
number of jobs regardless of the individual's personal
qualifications.
MI these pressure groups are not united but fragmented. They
go their separate and often conflicting ways. They tell us that
the old dream of the melting pot, of assimilation, does not work.
They have never been "beyond the melting pot" (as Moynihan
and Glazer saw it); they have been behind it. And they say, "Nuts
to the work ethic, nuts to the American dream of hard work
and you'll get ahead, become part of the mainstream of America."
They say, "No, we don't want to be part of the mainstream ?
we just want to be us" -- Blacks, homosexuals, Chicanos, women
libbers, or Menominee Indians seizing an empty Catholic
monastery.
We are trying to cope with the "Roosevelt legacy," the
Post-Depression development in the public sector of those areas
thU
v't'Att
71,3
-14
"7.1.
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of welfare,
was unwillir
"Progress I
semi-autono -
corporatiom,,
approximate'
of the indiv'4
is upon us. ''
as if he wet
than many s
about the ser
governments,
could scarcel
our society,
government.
was 50 percer
public and
And, where
self-employedl
bureaucracies
might be
sovereignty
Juristic pers
the same f ?
And along
seen it hark
restrict or rc
What we no
being made b
to do with
definitely out
itself.
To take just
Amendment n
n
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How do we deal with it? Usually badly! By definition, a problem
is something which persists and the tactics and strategies, usually
not conscious policies, tend to at best put the problem or conflict
under the rug. What we see often is a persistent tendency for
leaders to surround themselves with yes men despite the fact that
they will always say, "I don't want yes men." We find a tendency
to emphasize loyalty and cooperation in a way that makes
disagreement seem equivalent to disloyalty and rebellion if not
sedition; a glossing over of serious differences in order to maintain
a false appearance of harmony and teamwork; accepting
ambiguous, mushy resolutions of differences which permit
conflicting parties to arrive at dissimilar interpretations (actually
they usually know better); or exploiting differences to strengthen
one's personal position of influence to the weakening of the
position of others.
There arc various ways of coping with conflict. There is a choice
? one of the prime characteristics of a leader's role is to exercise
choice. When leaders are ineffective it's often because they tend
to reply in persistent, static ways to different problems. They
tend to be repetitive rather than flexible. They are not exercising
choice. Organizations have opportunities to exercise choice with
regard to coping with conflict -- and making it a creative source
of energy.
What I see most of all is avoidance, where conflict is denied.
If conflict is denied, it is avoided. It sticks out at a consultant
coming in. Avoidance sometimes is wise. There are times not to
fight. There are times to keep conflict somewhat at bay. Along
with avoidance but somewhat sterner is repression. (A parental
version of this is, "We will not talk about that!") Repression of
differences or conflict is punitive. It's saying that anybody who
wants to face up to conflicts or differences will be punished, and
we will certainly never reward the open expression of differences.
People learn that. That's part of the culture again.
-
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in
re
en
!AV
or
mt
lye
nal
arp
,we
hic
vith
inal
one
bow
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ems,
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ation
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.ns of
nflict
are
's that
stroy
the
2t but
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across the hall. It's true in every organization and institution. In
fact, if it weren't true, I wouldn't believe that there could be
an effective organization.
The problem is how do we contain the conflict (because it is
inevitable), and how do we make it creative, useful ? how do
we really get those competitive energies into constructive and
creative channels?
There are three reasons for the kinds of conflict that one sees
most in organizations. The simplest is information. Y has
information and A doesn't. It gets exciting when A and Y may
have information which is diametrically opposite. This often
happens. It's not that difficult to deal with informational
discrepancies, although quite often that's the basis for what grows
into a more virulent kind of a conflict.
Another factor is the perceptual apparatus -- the perceptions of
people. When I was a consultant with the State Department, we
did some interesting exercises trying to develop more
understanding about the conflicts that existed between the
administrative and the career ambassador types. One viewed the
other as basically a cookie-pushing, pinstriped, Princeton, Ivy
League type ? "They can't start their car, how can they run an
embassy?" And the ambassadorial types had probably a more
benign contempt and a much more clever way of talking about
the administrators, some of whom were very powerful men, some
of whom had been heads of large corporations, but their way
of talking about the "administrators" was that they were
"car-pool supervisors." This gave you some idea of the perceptual
differences that were not merely, based on competition over scarce
resources, backgrounds, ages. Where you are determines how you
see things ("where you sit determines where you stand"). Our
different roles are involved in the conflicts that exist in
organizations.
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fudging reality. The reason is that the norm of science has within
it corrective mechanisms (replication of experiments). More
important is the norm that a scientist reports data publicly.
It would be very easy to fake data. Recently there have been
two cases where that was done. But it is remarkable how few
there are, given the magnitude of the research going on. So for
those who believe that we need a written ethical code, I want
to disagree. A written ethical code can never be comprehensive
enough or subtle enough to be a satisfactory guide to personal
behavior. The answer to the ethical problems is in the very warp
and woof of the institutional culture. It is those things that we
tacitly allow and disallow. The leader can establish a new ethic
by refusing to "go along" with the debasement of ethics.
The management of differences is important. That has to do with
conflict and how we cope with conflict.
There are some areas in which the leader has to be the final
arbiter. As a former organizational consultant, and now as one
who presides over a large institution, I am convinced that how
an organization deals with conflict is probably the best clue to
its proper functioning. Organizations have different patterns,
different mechanisms, of coping with conflict.
In a broad sense we look at, see, touch conflict almost every
day. Talk to the head of a sales department in a major corporation
about his attitudes toward (let's say) engineering or production.
Talk to certain members of the staff about their perceptions of
the line and vice versa. In some organizations intergroup conflict
resembles a form of urban guerrilla warfare. The "others" are
not even part of the species but are sort of a pseudo-species that
exist in some funny other tribe which they would like to vanquish.
In fact at times it seems as if the main objective is to destroy
the competitors within the organization rather than the
competitors without. The "enemy" is not across the street but
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d.
re
Sc
di
or
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where contributions are prized, where independence and
autonomy are encouraged. It isn't that just as an educator I am
putting first encouraging the ability to learn. More than twenty
years of research at the Institute of Social Research in Michigan,
coordinated by Dr. Robert Kahn, has been trying to identify just
what it is that gives one satisfaction in his or her job. They have
concluded that it is above all the opportunity and capacity to
learn. When that is no longer present, job satisfaction wavers and
declines. The most progressive unions are aware of this ? they
are now emphasizing those areas of the work life that have to
do with learning, with the Ruality of the work, with the
opportunities for advancement through education. So leaders have
to be social architects to create those cultures and structures that
facilitate these goals. Not just of the young ? the older have just
been somewhat more reticent about expressing it.
A social architect must also deal with ethics. It's one of the prime
ironies of our time that the heads of many corporations were
prosecuted for the illegal political contributions they were
black-jacked into giving by the former head of the very Justice
Department now prosecuting them. The fact remains that if they
had not long ago acquiesced in an illegal practice because
"everybody else was doing it," they would not have found
themselves in this moral dilemma. This also raises the question
of responsibility of trustees and directions. I wonder whether the
directors, particularly the outside directors, of these corporations
knew about these illegal acts. If not, why not? That is a question
that will and should be increasingly raised in the post-Watergate
climate of corporate ethics. In an increasingly litigious society,
directors can no longer be ignorant of what corporate officers
do. The culture of an organization will dictate and govern its
honesty and probity.
Consider the culture of science. Scientists arc no more honest
in their personal behavior than others. But it is interesting that
there have been very few cases of scientists faking their data or
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which he himself can have some part in creating and maintaining,
or, contrary-wise, debilitating.
Social architecture is important because more and more people
joining the work place are looking for careers, jobs, that not only
make money but make sense and have meaning. More and more
people are selecting jobs that will not only further their
professional or career goals but will also give them a fuller life.
The latest nationwide survey by Yankelovich Associates, which
I mentioned earlier, reveals that there is a blurring or diminishing
of differences in the young, those aged 18 to 26, in their basic
life styles, goals, career aspirations. The non-college young and
the college students now think alike. An earlier survey in the
late 1960 days of student disruptions showed that there was no
"generation gap," that upper-middle-class white students had very
little disagreement with their parents. The same thing was true
among the blue-collar population and the working population --
there wasn't very much difference between the hard-hats and their
mothers and fathers. While there was no generation gap, he found
there was a difference based on class and to some extent ethnic
backgrounds.
Now his new survey shows that the difference between classes
has practically evaporated and is no longer statistically significant.
It isn't just a Scarsdale Maoist, it isn't just the upper-middle-class
comfortable folk, it is now the non-college workers, the union
members, who share the same values as the college kids. And
while one can't make too many generalizations on the basis of
hair length, just take a look at your local policemen just take
a look at the workers in the local assembly line ? and see if
you can detect a difference in dress, manner, aspirations, from
those in college.
That means that we're going to have to create institutions where
people can feel the possibility to grow and to continue learning,
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I know that many have had the experience of listening to some
outside counsellor or consultant who in five minutes can have
you saying, "My God, what wisdom!" about some question so
perfectly obvious that none of the insiders had thought of it.
Just as fish are the last to discover water, all of us need that
sense of perspective and detachment. All of us are capable of
having the same fresh insights that highly paid consultants have
? if only we could find the historical distance to achieve an
outsider's new perspective.
Furthermore, a manager at whatever level must be a social
architect, vitally concerned with the environment of work, with
what the social scientists call the "culture" of work -- those things
that are hard to discern, impossible to touch, but so terribly
important for the way people act; that is, the set of values which
guide our decision-making and our behavior.
Illustrations of culture can be observed in terms of their effects.
For example, in some companies there is a norm or belief or
value system which, overtly or tacitly, tends to reduce risk taking,
tends to make people check things out fifteen times, tends to
have executives keep what Chris Argyris refers to as JIC files ?
"just in case" the boss calls you and asks for some piece of
information for which you keep years and years of outdated files.
The culture can be observed in terms of the kinds of relationships
that exist among people.
How close can you become to other people? What are the norms
and rules regarding intimacy, distance, between people? How
much control, independence, are people allowed? How much
support do people give each other?
Lots of things go into producing a culture ? the style of
leadership, the particular technology of the institution, its peculiar
history, and so on. The leader must understand the social
architecture and climate within which he works and the culture
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things in government policy that actually did them the most good
and backed the things that actually would hurt them, it is largely
because of this insular parochialism and lack of good information
at the margins.
This danger emphasizes what I consider to be the main value and
importance of a periodic "time out" moratorium for executives.
M.LT.'s Sloan School of Management and the Harvard Business
School provide this for mid-management executives who can
cross-fertilize their latent creative instincts by swapping
experiences with opposite numbers, and above 211 simply gain the
time and perspective for an intellectual "repotting." The Sloan
Fellows used to say after their year at MIT. that they learned
a lot about computer sciences, about industrial dynamics, and
the human side of enterprise. However, as one who watched them,
it seemed to me that their greatest gain was not from the areas
of course work (although indeed they did get a lot from that):
It was simply the fact that they and their families had a year
away from it all, with other executives in similar positions, and
by so doing gained a new perspective, a detachment. The German
word. for retreat means literally to take one step backwards, which
also has a double. meaning of gaining perspective, so as not to
be, as Gertrude Stein said, "too immediate to be immediate."
Unfortunately our institutions really don't have these reflective
structures built in where we can take the time to examine very
Seriously our own operations. And because we don't we are
overloaded, too reactive to sheer, immediate events, and in
consequence we often cannot ask the big questions, the
most profound questions, about where we real-Fare and where we
should be headed. And I don't mean "long-range planning,"
something that is usually centralized and isolated and insulated
in a "long-range planning office." I do mean the fundamental
questions -- the very purposes of the institution. Presidents don't
do it enough. Managers don't do it. Boards of directors should
do it, but are equally remiss.
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up the hierarchical ladder, which includes a period of their lives
where they are themselves enclosed by the norms and the beliefs
and the values of the middle management. They work themselves
up. When they get to the top, a whole new array of forces ?
environmental, political, economic, financial, things they had
never considered ? confront them. For example, the people who
come up through the financial end of institutions are bookkeepers.
They move up through that hierarchy ? tight control methods,
bookkeeping, security, management controls ? but at the very
top, the vice-president of finance is really involved in legitimate
gambling and risk-taking and nothing in his previous experience
as a bookkeeper or a steward over other people's accounts is in
any way preparation for that role at the top level.
Quite often people get to the top who are really unprepared for
those jobs.
Organizations should be transitive; that is, being in job A should
prepare you for job B, being in job B should prepare you for
job C. Often organizations tend to keep people in particular jobs
too long simply to over learn the competencies in job B before
they get into job C. In the case of the financial, bookkeeping,
trajectory, we see an organization and a career line being
non-transitive. I suspect this is really the core reason for the
so-called Peter Principle of people being promoted to their
ultimate level of incompetency. It isn't that people just get lazy
and obsolete. The fact is that they can be in a job and get
promoted to another job where there is absolutely no preparation,
no training, no background. So we have unprepared people in
a highly turbulent environment. This also often leads to businesses
opting for policies, governmental policies, that will be to their
disadvantage and at other times fighting policies which would be
to their advantage.
We have seen this a lot. Ted Levitt, in the Harvard Business
Review, documents this. If by-and-large business has fought the
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formed. One way of getting at this is to identify and utilize
individuals whom I call "marginal," people who sense
discrepancy or variance between the achievements of the
organization and the aspirations, people who have the future in
their bones, people who sense (without low-level grumbling and
bellyaching) dissatisfaction and who want to achieve more. These
are marginal people because their lives, contacts and interests
often keep them at the margins or the boundary of the institution
itself and the bigger outside world. They can, and should be,
invaluable to a wise and prudent leader. The irony and tragedy
is that they are all too often too marginal and hence, because
the bad news they sometimes bring, or the variant news, may
be at an angle to the conventional wisdom of the culture of the
organization, they get their heads chopped off.
The bigger the bureaucracy, the greater its danger of a kind of
incestuous, inward-dwellingness where middle management spends
all its time writing self-justifying, self-protective memos to each
other, and as far as the outside world is concerned, scarcely know
whether it is raining or whether it is Thursday. The epitome of
this came when the then head of General Motors, appearing before
a Senate committee with all his retinue of advisors, was totally
? unprepared to discuss questions of automotive safety because, the
wonder of it, he was totally unaware the Senators would raise
those questions! In Brussels, while attending a World Conference
of Planning, I stopped off to talk with some Unilever executives.
That company seems to be aware of this middle management tone
deafness. They figure that at the top or at the boundaries of
the institution there is more opportunity for a potential leader
to become more aware, more cosmopolitan, more involved with
the forces around the boundaries of the organization. In a firm
producing consumer products, it is of pivotal importance to have
that kind of information.
One of the consequences of the middle management corseting
and insularity is that too many people spend a long time going
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We live in an information economy. Information itself is one of
the chief levers of power (it was also the chief target of the White
House "plumbers"). In large part organizations are information
processing systems, and the people who get power are the ones
who learn how to filter the incredible flow of information into
a meaningful pattern. So one of the leader's biggest problems is
to make sure that he gets all the valid information he needs and
makes sure, difficult as it is, that that data and information have
not been distorted by over-eager Doppelgangers who think they
are presenting material to suit what they consider to be his
prejudices or hunches.
Not long ago, a No. 3 man of one of our very largest corporations
? he had risen up this organization through the control and
interpretation of data -- told me in a burst of candor that he
had spent virtually all the previous ten years proving his boss
right even when he was wrong. Now that was a family dynasty,
so it should be no guide to others; but my own experience has
taught me that the biggest problem of any executive is getting
the truth.
As an advisor to the Department of State some years ago I learned
that people got entrapped in a very misleading information flow
where people reported to others what they thought the others
wanted to hear or what they thought the others believed,
themselves believing the opposite; this was true at every level of
the hierarchy. It created at times policy which indeed nobody
was in favor of, but everybody else thought that everybody else
was. Like the couple who goes to a movie because the husband
thinks his wife wants to, and the wife thinks he wants to, neither
actually wants to, but both go.
What this boils down to is that the man at the top must develop
a process where he not only gets the right information but also
must have at his disposal a system that can with impunity question
the assumptions which may be prematurely or even wrongly
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The leader, at every level, must be partly a conceptualist,
something more than just an "idea man." It means someone with
a kind of an entrepreneurial vision, a sense of perspective, and
most of all, the time to spend thinking about the forces that
will affect the destiny of that person's shop or that institution.
A story comes to mind. A king returned to his capital, followed
by his victorious army. The band played and his horse, the army,
the people all moved in step with the rhythm. The king, amazed,
contemplated the power of music. Suddenly he noticed a man
who walked out of step and slowly fell behind. The king, deeply
impressed, sent for the man and told him, "I never saw a man
as strong as you are. The music enthralled everybody except you.
Where do you get the strength to resist it?" The man answered,
"I was pondering, and that gave me the strength." That old story
is relevant to the point I want to make. Almost all leaders
complain about getting involved or overly involved in routine
(turning off the lights, the day-to-day operations) and given the
overload on all of us, it's understandable. But I don't think this
is any excuse for not realizing that one of the main functions
of every leader, every manager, is his sense of perspective to be
a conceptualist, to be able to look ahead so that an organization
or part of that organization can make the right decisions for the
future, to be able to ask the right questions. It has been said
so often that generals are always fighting the last war. That is
not just true of the army.
The leader must create for his institution clear-cut and measurable
goals, based on advice from all elements and many elements. He
must be allowed to proceed toward those goals without being
crippled by bureaucratic machinery and routine that sap his
strength, energy and initiative. He must be allowed to take risks,
to embrace error, to use his creativity to the hilt, and encourage
others in the institution to use theirs. This cannot be done without
the leader taking on a role of studied detachment, or a "time
out" moratorium at times, or developing some "reflective"
structure where he can ponder where strength can be gained and
how the institutional goals can become vital and adaptive.
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How Managers Can Lead
The first requirement is that leaders at every level must lead, not
just manage. The crisis calls for leadership; but leaders aren't
leading. They're consulting, pleading, trotting, temporizing,
putting out fires, either avoiding or more often taking too much
heat, and spending too much energy in doing both. They've got
sweaty palms, and they're scared.
I believe that any manager's first priority, the sine qua non of
effective leadership, is to create around him some kind of
executive team, a constellation, to help direct and run the office
of the leader. It can be a mixed bag -- some of them vice
presidents, some of them people on temporary duty, some
presidential assistants. All of them must be compatible in the sense
that they can work together, but neither uniform nor conformist
in the sense of "yes men."
They will be men and women who know more, should know
more, than the chief executive does about everything within their
areas of competency and can attend to them without dropping
their wet babies on his desk. They must be people who take very
seriously the functions of the office, whether it's president,
vice-president, foreman, middle management, or what. You can
have an interesting, easy, group exercise which goes like this. We
try, on one axis of a blackboard, to identify what that office
must, should, do ? what its goals, tasks, objectives are, both
short-term and long-run. And then we ask each individual what
it is that he or she wants to do, are motivated to do, aspire to
do. And then, finally, we look at competence. flow competent
are various individuals to perform those tasks. What I strive for,
but never fully succeed in doing, is creating a fit, a triangulation,
between competence or capacity, aspiration, what one wants to
do, and what needs doing in that particular job.
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. _
?C?oVitictlits
notion of "one-man" leadership has to be seriously questioned.
I would wager that we will see more and more collective
leadership, in all institutions. I would forecast that President Ford
will be working much more in tandem and more closely in an
executive framework with his new Vice-President, Nelson
Rockefeller, than have previous Presidents, because ?of the
recognition of the managerial complexities of running such a huge
?
establishment as our federal government. It is significant that
Ford has already turned over to Rockefeller deputies the Domestic
Council powers previously held by Nixon's close aide,
Ehrlichman.
Such changes will lead to a lot of frustration about who's on
the team and who isn't, who's in charge and who isn't. The name
of the game will be ambiguity, and people had damn well better
get used to it and learn to cope with it. There will be more
politicization, new kinds of politics, new organizational politics.
There will be more constituencies, more voices, more concerns,
more caucuses, more regulations, more capricious and
unpredictable litigation, and so on. And there will be ? is already
? a blurring of the traditional line between public and private
sectors. There will be elements of each in the other.
These are the kinds of characteristics of the organizations we are
now living in. My own view is that these tendencies will become
more pronounced, more visible, in the years ahead, and that it
is incumbent upon all of us and all those who aspire to positions
of responsibility to understand them, to cope with them, and
to learn how to be masters of our own fate in a wholly different
kind of organizational environment. All this augurs more
frustration for the followers as well as the leaders, and certainly
makes it more mandatory than ever before for better, deeper
understanding between the leaders and the led. Else neither will
be leading nor being led.
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Therefore, we can expect that decision-making will become an
increasingly intricate process of multi-lateral brokerage, a
brokerage that will include both people within the organization
and outside the organization. And more and more, these decisions
will be public in the sense that they affect people who intend
to be heard, especially if a decision doesn't suit them. So more
and more constituencies will be involved in voicing their opinions.
Management will have to take into account constituencies that
they would never before have had to consider except through
some market research.
Moreover, today's leader must consider the growing role of the
media as the fourth estate ? the fourth arm of government. The
media will be used both by those who favor, but even more so
by people who oppose, particular decisions being made. The
decisions involved will affect more and more people. A product
cannot be distributed in many of the retail areas unless various
consumer groups and organizations are consulted. Public sector
examples of this are the decisions that administrators must make
on mass transit, on pollution, whether to build fewer highways
or more railways. The fact is that the concept of "movers and
shakers" -- a clearly defined elite who determine the major
decisions ? is an outdated notion. They are as much the shaken
? the "shook" ? as the shakers.
The bigger the problem to be tackled, the more power will be
diffused, and the more people will exercise it. Decisions are
increasingly complex and specialized and affect more, and
different kinds of, constituencies
We're moving toward what . the Russians call "collective
leadership." We already see analogies of this in some of our most
successful corporate institutions ? Union Carbide for example --
where executive constellations, or task forces, are created for
specific purposes. When all large institutions have, according to
Peter Drucker, at least forty-five core functions or goals, the
?? ?
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disciples outside the churches than in them. The thousands turning
to inward-dwelling mysticism make their own dreams in the
dreamless society.
There is, above all, a hunger for both that integrity and simplicity
which mark the truly great ? a Lincoln, an Einstein, a Holmes,
a Schweitzer.
The irony and paradox of our times is that precisely when the
trust and credibility of leaders is at its lowest, when we survivors
in leadership positions feel inhibited from exercising what little
power we have, it is a time when we most need people who can
lead, who can transcend that vacuum.
Unless we can transcend it, it seems to me that we are in great
danger, that a wave of violent crime, of organizational paralysis
? a failure of nerve ? could easily lead bitter and fearful citizens
to seek a demagogue on horseback.
Within this gloomy perspective, let's examine the requirements
of genuine leadership in such a complex and confusing era. Harlan
Cleveland, rewording Wilson, calls today's large organizations "a
jungle of close decisions openly arrived at." That's a valid
description. The organization of today is big, complex and
surrounded by an active, incessant environment which is becoming
more influential and dominant in the kinds of decisions that affect
the institution. In a sense organizations have a difficult time just
as individuals do in becoming self-determining.
But institutions are going to become bigger and more complex,
more inclusive than ever before. This may sadden both the
reactionary and the radical who are nostalgic for the "ma-and-pa"
corner grocery or the one-room schoolhouse. But the power and
pervasiveness of new technologies will require more complex
systems, more expensive systems and more specialists involved in
decision-making.
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mastery in times of rapid change. Many institution leaders do
not want to face up to this. Not long ago, the Director of the
New York Health Corporation resigned and said, "I already see
indications of the corporation and its cause being made a political
football in the current campaign. I'm not a politician. I do not
wish to become involved in the political issues here." And yet
in a previous article he said that he found himself, "at the center
of a series of ferocious struggles for money, power and jobs among
the combatants, political leaders, labor leaders, minority groups,
medical militants, medical school deans, doctors and nurses and
many of. his own administrative subordinates." His corporation
has an $800 million budget and is responsible for capital
construction of more than $1 billion, employs 40,000 people,
including 7,500 doctors and almost 15,000 nurses and nurses
aides. It embraces 19 hospitals with 15,000 beds and numerous
out-patient clinics and emergency rooms that treat 2,000,000 New
Yorkers a year. And he's surprised that he's into politics -- and
doesn't like it!
When our own university could admit only 187 medical school
applicants out of 8,000, we immediately angered some 23,000
would-be constituents ? 24,000 parents and applicants minus the
successful applicants and their parents who were pleased. Those
who were unhappy immediately brought pressure on councilmen
and legislators. What resulted were proposals to legislate
restrictions on our autonomy, such as to bar out-of-state students.
We could resent and oppose that, and we did; but we should
not be surprised by it. We should know that such decisions
automatically become political.
The Shape of the Future
The great leaders are gone -- but, the people, particularly the
young -- hunger for new ones. There is a spiritual thirst; God
may be dead, but Jesus is very much alive ? he may have more
?
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the incredible mass of paper stacked before me. I was bone weary
and soul weary, and I found myself muttering, "Either I can't
manage this place or it is unmanageable."
I reached for my calendar and ran my eye down each hour, each
half-hour, quarter-hour, to see where my time had gone that day,
the day before, the month before.
What I discovered was that I had become the victim of a vast,
amorphous, unwitting, unconscious conspiracy to prevent me
from doing anything whatever to change the university's status
quo.
Even those of my associates who fully shared my hopes to set
new goals, to work toward creative change, were unconsciously
doing the most to ensure that I would never find the time to
begin it.
In recent years I have talked to many new presidents of widely
ranging enterprises. Almost every one told me that the biggest
mistake he made was to take on too much, as if "proving oneself"
depended on providing instant solutions, and success was
dependent on immediate achievements. These instant solutions
often led to pseudo-solutions for problems not fully analyzed.
People follow the old army game. They do not want to take
the responsibility or bear the consequences of decisions that they
should properly make. Everyone dumps his "wet babies" (as
the State Department old hands called them) on my desk when
I have neither the diapers nor the information to take care of
them.
Today's leader is often baffled or frustrated by a new kind of
politics, not along traditional party lines, but arising from
significant interaction with various governmental agencies,
regulations, the courts, the media, the consumers and so on. It
is the politics of maintaining institutional "self-directedness" and
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The people who are joining our organizations and institutions
today are those who seek, who represent, the latter part of each
of those dichotomies. They are the "New Culture."
So there are the problems of leadership today. We have a new
and important emergence of a Roosevelt-Keynes revolution, new
politics, new dependencies, new constituencies, new values. The
consequence of these pressures is a loss of autonomy of the
institution to determine its own destiny.
Why Leaders Don't Lead
Why are the "leaders" not leading?
One reason, I fear, is that many of us don't have the faintest
concept of what leadership is all about. Leading does not mean
managing; the difference between the two is crucial. There are
many institutions I know that are very well managed and very
poorly led. They may excel in the ability to handle each day
all the routine inputs yet may never ask whether the routine
should be done at all.
I've noted myself that frequently my most enthusiastic deputies
were unwittingly keeping me from working any fundamental
change in the institution. I think all of us find that acting on
routine problems because they are the easiest things to do often
blocks us from getting involved in the bigger ones.
This brings me to what I might call "Bennis' First Law of
Pseudodynamics," which is that routine work will always drive
out the innovational. My own moment of truth came toward the
end of my first ten months as head of the university.
It was one of those nights in the office. The clock was moving
toward three in the morning, and I was still not through with
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It obviously changes every aspect of information sharing and the
way recommendations are written about students.
Leaders become an endangered species because the external forces
and the internal constituents, themselves with diverse expectations
and demands and desires, isolate the man at the top as the sole
"boundary" person trying somehow to negotiate between them.
There is growing tension, conflict, goal divergence, between the
internal and external demands. In my own city a ICroger's or a
P&G must consider both external as well as internal problems,
whether nitrates or price-labeling. Or take the effects of
"affirmative action" on what used to be autonomous decisions
made by the organization. The overload of these demands from
within and without the institution is enormous.
Within the community, we have not only a loss of consensus over
basic values, we have as well a polarization. We have not a
consensus but a dissensus.
Consider the change of values among the young, as reflected in
the surveys done recently by Yankelovich. We've gone from the
considerations of quantity, that is more, toward considerations
of quality, that is better. The old culture would focus on the
concept of independence, whereas the new culture moves toward
the concept of interdependence of nations, institutions,
individuals, all natural species. What they are saying here is that
we want a new "declaration of interdependence." From conquest
of nature toward living in harmony with it, from competition
toward cooperation, from doing and planning toward being, from
the primacy of technology toward considerations of social justice
and equity, from the dictates of organizational convenience
toward the aspirations of self-realization and learning, from
authoritarianism and dogmatism toward more participation, from
uniformity and centralization toward diversity and pluralism, from
the concept of work as hard, unavoidable ? from life as "nasty,
brutish and short" -- toward work as purpose and self-fulfillment,
a recognition of leisure as a valid activity in itself.
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of welfare, social service and education that the private sector
was unwilling or unable to handle. As Lord Keynes wrote:
"Progress lies in the growth and the recognition of
semi-autonomous bodies within the states. Large business
corporations, when they have reached a certain age and size,
approximate the status of public corporations rather than that
of the individualistic private enterprise." The Keynesian prophesy
is upon us. When David Rockefeller goes to London, he is greeted
as if he were a chief of state (and some of his empires are bigger
than many states). But in addition to the Keynesian prophesy
about the semi-autonomous, often global, corporations which rival
governments, we also have public-sector institutions which Keynes
could scarcely have imagined. The largest employment sector of
our society, which is growing at the fastest rate, is local and state
government. Higher education, which less than twenty years ago
was 50 percent private, 50 percent public, is now about 85 percent
public and is expected to be 90 percent public by 1980.
And, where a century ago 90 percent of all Americans were
self-employed, today 90 percent now work in what can be called
bureaucracies, members of some kind of corporate family. They
might be called "juristic" persons who work within the
sovereignty of a legal entity called a corporation or bureaucracy.
Juristic persons who do not control their own actions cannot place
the same faith in each other that self-employed persons did.
And along with the growth of public-sector institutions, we have
seen it handmaiden -- a catscradle of regulations which tend to
restrict or reduce the institution's autonomy in decision-making.
What we now have is a situation where many of the decisions
being made by any major organization, public or private, have
to do with factors that are partly outside the control, and
definitely outside the governing perimeter, of the organization
itself.
To take just one example -- the university -- the Buckley
Amendment makes all records available to students and parents.
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Another tactic often used by a type of organizational leader that
we have occasionally seen glorified in movies and novels has to
do with pitting two or more deputies in a kind of gladiatorial
mortal combat. I have heard executives say, "Well, I'm just going
to see what old Joe and old Bill do to one another for the next
year or two," which is I suppose a form of legitimate genocide.
I cannot think of many situations where that would be an
effective way of dealing with differences and conflicts.
All too infrequently do executives try to make conflict creative,
look on conflicts and differences with managerial objectivity and
as an educational opportunity. I see a segment of any manager's,
and leader's, role as being educational. Quite often we can learn
from differences, not just learn the other's point of view; but
almost always, if we really analyze differences and conflict, doing
so will identify a significant problem that that organization has
not yet learned how to handle.
How do we convert conflict and differences into the potentials
of better problem solving? We must welcome the existence of
differences because they are going to be there whether we like
it or not. We must try to create approaches where we can learn
from them.
What can a leader do? Here is a checklist.
He can listen with understanding, rather than. evaluation. Quite
often people who hold conflicting points of view believe that no
one really understands them or is in tune with them. There is
tremendous difference between understanding and agreement,
although sometimes the difference is hard for subordinates to
grasp. As a first step, we need to get a better idea of what is
on people's minds and do our best to see it from their points
of view before saying "that's bad" or "that's good" or the horror
of it or the wonder of it.
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Secondly, a leader must try to clarify the nature of the conflict.
Quite often there is a lot of confusion or obfuscation as to its
true nature. On occasion, deep understanding and clarification of
the real issue can resolve it. You can also recognize and accept
the feelings of the individuals involved rather than saying, "Oh,
boys shouldn't fight" or implicitly or openly rebuking those
involved in the controversy. A lot of evidence shows that when
people are involved in conflict -- feel threatened or under attack
? they tend to become more rigid and more defensive about
positions. What the leader can help to do is lower the defensive
syndrome. He can also try to make things clearer and better by
indicating who is in control or who will make .the final decision
about the controversy being discussed. Sometimes I've seen
disputes go on with respect to an issue over which the persons
involved had no control. So it may be wise to make clear what
the actual realities of that situation are.
The leader can also suggest procedures and ground rules for
resolving the differences. If the disagreement is over facts, the
leader may assist various disputants in validating data or seeking
additional data. If it's over methods, he may want to remind the
parties that they have common objectives. If the disagreement
is over goals or goal priorities, he may suggest that the parties
take time to describe as clearly as possible the conflicting goals
which are being sought, rather than the vague terms sometimes
used in conflict. Disagreement over values is trickier, more
difficult, but even these can be useful to clarify the actual
differences and to make people more fully aware of.what the
others' points of view are.
The leader should give a lot of attention to maintaining
relationships between the disputing parties. Often during the
course of heated argument, so much attention is paid to the issue
under discussion that nothing is done to maintain and strengthen
the relationship between the parties. The leader has a maintenance
role here that he should realize and try to establish. If a conflict
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is to be transformed into a problem-solving situation, these
functions need to be performed by someone, if necessary by a
third party, but preferably by the leader.
The leader can also set up appropriate vehicles for communication
among the disputing parties. Here is where creativity comes into
play. Techniques that have proved useful include brainstorming,
a select committee, a third-party intervention from an uninvolved
outside source, or a retreat, away from the scene of conflict,
where "leveling" is encouraged for all concerned. All of these
have to do with the leader playing, at every level, a crucial role
in helping to clarify and to cope with the inevitable conflict that
exists and to try to divert that into constructive channels.
All of this is based on the assumption of managerial objectivity,
of perspective and judgment. The people reporting to the manager
each have their own blind spots, particular areas, vested interests,
orientations, based on role and perceptions. Somehow or other
the manager has to have this ecumenical view and the objectivity
that should go with it.
It's interesting to ask, "Just what is it that leaders in fact do
at the present time?" without putting any evaluation on it. That
is, what do we know descriptively about the behavior of leaders?
Only recently a study was done by Mintzberg to try to categorize
the behavioral patterns of leaders.
He found eight areas of prime importance:
1. Peer skills ? the ability to establish and maintain a network
of contacts with equals.
2. Leadership skills ? the ability to deal with subordinates
and the kind of complications of power, authority and
dependence.
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3. Conflict-resolution skills ? the ability to mediate conflict,
to handle disturbances under psychological stress.
4. Information-processing skills ? the ability to build
networks, extract and validate information, and
disseminate information effectively.
5. Skills in unstructured decision-making ? the ability to find
problems and solutions when alternatives, information and
objectives are ambiguous.
6. Resource-allocation skills ? the ability to decide among
alternative uses of time and other scarce organizational
resources.
7. Entrepreneurial skills ? the ability to take sensible risks
and implement innovations.
8. Skills of introspection ? the ability to understand the
position of a leader and his impact on the organization.
I think that is a splendid list. From my own experience as a
leader, and from talking with other executives, and observing as
a consultant other leaders at work, these pretty much summarize
the basic skills that leaders need.
But there's more than that ? an "X" factor that is hard to define
but is quintessential for leadership. Leaders have to define issues,
not aggravate the problems. They have to clarify the problems,
not exploit them. In effect, leaders are essentially educators. Our
great political leaders, such as Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson, were
essentially educators who tried to educate the people about both
the problems and the deeper underlying issues. They also
developed solutions.
A leader who responds to a drought by attacking the lack of
rainfall is not likely to inspire a great deal of confidence. And
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what we see quite often is the problem being left as a problem
rather than getting to the underlying issue and a possible solution.
Martin Luther King, Jr., provided this perspective, inside
illumination, and understanding for the Black people of this
country. We sorely need leadership that can do this for our entire
nation. Lyndon Johnson once said, "Get your head above the
grass." And in the same farmyard language someone else said that
any rooster that sticks his head up above the grass will get a
rock thrown at it. That's true, but that's exactly where a leader's
head belongs.
John Gardner said that the best kept secret in America today
is the need of people to believe and to dedicate themselves to
purposes that are worthy and that are bigger than themselves.
I am certain that the need to believe, fidelity to an idea, an ideal,
is necessary for our mental health. Erik Erikson, the distinguished
psychiatrist, suggests that maturity cannot be reached until there
is some form of fidelity to an ideal, a value, a belief. The good
leader understands and develops ideas and issues that resonate
with this need to believe, this need to dedicate oneself, this need
to give something to a cause greater than oneself. The Peace Corps
tapped that need ? and we saw remarkable people, young and
old, flock to the doors to work for it. We need, in Frost's lapidary
phrase, "work and play for mortal stakes."
The leader must also recognize imperfection and at the same time
retain a sense of optimism and of hope.
A study done of the effective psychotherapist showed that the
particular orientation or school from which a therapist comes has
little to do with his effectiveness. The common chord among
successful therapists had to do with whether they had hope in
the ability to solve a problem, in the ability to help someone.
Similarly, a study was done on school teachers, and it turned
out that when school teachers held high expectations for their
;4.
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48
students, that that alone was sufficient to cause an increase of
twenty-five points in the 1.Q. scores of the students. Where the
teachers seemed to have low expectations or hopes, the scores
had no significant difference.
What qualities do these challenges demand from new leaders?
After at least fifty years of research and theorizing we can say
only one thing with any confidence: there are no provable
generalizations about leadership.
That indefinable quality of charisma is sometimes mentioned. But
there are charismatic people who do not become leaders, and there
are non-charismatic people who do ? Herbert Hoover,
Clement Atlee, GoIda Meir come to mind.
There are low-energy leaders and high-energy leaders. There are
attractive and unattractive leaders. But all the accumulated
research in personal psychology suggests there is not one single
trait or characteristic that would have any value in predicting
leadership potentialities. None ? not even intelligence.
It seems to me the big test for any new leader will be whether
or not he can ? by identifying with the process of change -- ride
or even direct it, and by so doing, build new strengths in the
process. By identifying with change he will find himself changing,
growing.
An old Talmudic story comes to mind. An oriental king, who
had heard that Moses was a leader, kindly, generous and bold,
had a portrait of Moses brought to him, and examined it with
his astrologers and phrenologists. When they examined it carefully,
they told the king that Moses was a cruel, greedy, craven,
self-seeking man. Puzzled by this the king went to visit Moses.
On meeting him, he saw that the portrait was good, and said,
"My phrenologists and astrologers were wrong." But Moses
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disagreed: "Your phrenologists and astrologers were right, they
saw what I was made of; but what they couldn't tell you was
that I struggled against all that and so became what I am."
The leader who does learn to "cope," to direct change, may find
himself or herself quite a different person five years hence.
The task of the leader is to lead. And to lead others he must
first of all know himself. His ultimate test is the wise use of
power. As Sophocles says in Antigone: "But it is hard to learn
the mind of any mortal, or the heart, till he be tried in chief
authority. Power shows the man."
Power, leadership, authority have very recently all too clearly
shown the man, the men, who could not use it wisely or properly.
The landscape is littered with those who were tried and found
wanting. It is for us to profit from their example, so that the
endangered species may survive.
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