Archive for the ‘bad leadership’ Category

Ellen Weber’s blog, Brain Leaders and Learners, made me aware of this frightening New York Times article on bullies in the workplace.

As we consider a new year, I note a fair number of blog posts (including my own) about 2008, and all the leadership blunders that were in the news during the year (and it hasn’t let up yet – 2009 may be a banner year for stories about bad leadership).

Peter Block, one of my favorite writers/speakers, writes about how followers create leaders. Our initial reaction to this might be, “How can I, as a follower, possibly have any responsibility for a leader who is irresponsible, immoral or unethical?”. Let’s consider this.

In the public arena, we vote for our leaders (this may provide the mose obvious connection to our responsibility for bad leadership):

In this case, we might ignore bad past behavior before we cast our vote. We may be snowed by the public relations machine that “markets” a poor leader. We might simply vote without doing our homework first.

Worse yet, we may not vote for anyone. Complacency has it’s price, up to and including bad leaders being elected to public office.

So here is the tough one.

How can followers possibly be responsible for bad leadership in the business realm?

We tolerate them. We don’t speak up or take action to continue to assure that they don’t continue their bad behavior. Authority and power being what they are, we might fear the retribution that can come from speaking up. We prefer to avoid the risk and continue to do what we’ve always done – remain silent.

Is it possible that we sometimes need to break or silence and in so doing, step up to leadership ourselves?

At one point in my career, I worked for a man who was a tyrant, bigot and sexist (and this was in Human Resources, where good leadership should be modelled). I had talked to this man about some of his bad behavior, but to no avail. He was incapable of listening to or accepting my feedback.

I was young and had a lot at stake in my position – I was the major breadwinner in my family and felt the weight of the responsibility to provide for my young children. Yet, the situation became intolerable for myself and my coworkers, and I had concerns that the company could be vulnerable to a lawsuit due to this man.

I confided in a friend at the company and sought her advice on what I should do. She had a lot of faith and trust in the VP of human resorces (whom she worked for) and suggested I have a conversation with him. The tyrant boss reported directly to this VP. It would a huge risk for me to have this discussion the VP. I felt compelled to do something, even if I would suffer personal consequences.

So, I set up an appointment with the VP. He was caring, expressed understanding of the spot I was in, and he listened well. I assumed he talked to others. He ultimately took the tyrant out of a management position at the company (in today’s world, this individual may have been fired).

I didn’t suffer any consequences for speaking up. I stepped up to leadership through having the courage (some may call this stupidity) to report the transgressions of my boss to his boss. And the VP most certainly expressed leadership by realizing that the tyrant could not stay in the position he was in.

So, my final point is that followers can be responsible for bad leadership when they don’t step up to leadership themselves.

How have you been responsible?