Leadership: Enemy of the People?

Keith Grint

Leadership: enemy of the people?

Is Leadership the solution or the enemy of the people?The Cassandra Complex: just because you’re right doesn’t mean people will believe youThe Cuckoo Clock Syndrome: are we addicted to Command?

Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People

Norwegian coastal town has invested in public baths for the new tourist season led by Dr Stockmann & his brother, the mayor.

Dr Stockmann realizes that the town tannery is poisoning the baths & suggests delaying opening

Nobody supports him – he is ‘An enemy of the people’

Chief Brody (Roy Scheider): Enemy of the People (of Amity)

Cassandra Complex

Cassandra, daughter of Priam – Trojan King. Apollo falls in love with her & gives her the ability

to foretell the future But when she rejects his advances he curses her,

ensuring that, though she retains the gift of prophecy,

…..nobody believes her.

Leadership, defined as:

getting the collective to face complex collective responsibilities,

is unpopular and dangerous

What is popular? Command

Harry Lime (Orson Welles) –eponymous Third Man (1949) set in early post war Vienna.

Famous scene set on top of the Riesenrad, large Ferris wheel in the Prater amusement park.

Lime confronts his erstwhile friend Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton) about latter’s sentimentality.

Command & The Cuckoo Clock Syndrome

“In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. “

“In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? “

“In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

The Cuckoo Clock Syndrome

1. Peace, patience & mundane activities generate tedium & stasis2. Crisis, competition & violence generate progress3. Crisis requires decision-making through Commanders4. Commanders temporarily alleviate the symptoms of a Critical

Problem but cannot address the causes if they are generated by Wicked Problems – that would require collective action

5. Does this lead to an addiction to Command – hence permanent crisis – and an Allergy to Leadership?

Typologies of decision style and problems

The Problem with Change

Do different kinds of problems require different kinds of change?

1. Critical Problems: Commander

2. Tame Problems: Management

3. Wicked Problems: Leadership

Problems, Problems, Problems

Critical Problems: Commander

1. Portrayed as self-evident crisis; often at tactical level2. General uncertainty – though not ostensibly by commander who provides ‘answer’3. No time for discussion or dissent4. Legitimizes coercion as necessary in the circumstances for public good5. Associated with Command6. Encouraged through reward

Commander’s Role is to take the required decisive action – that is to:provide the answer to the problem

White Elephants:

1. Albino Elephant: Deity - Omniscient & Omnipotent2. Expensive & Unnecessary & Foolhardy Expense

Plato’s Philosopher-Kings: Omnipotent and Omniscient Commanders

Problems, Problems, ProblemsTame Problems: Management –

Problems as PUZZLES – there is a solutionCan be complicated but there is a unilinear solution to them – these are problems that management can (& has previously) solved

The problem of heart surgery is a Tame problemIt’s complicated but there is a process for solving it & therefore it has a Managerial Solution/Answer

Launching a(nother) new product is a tame problem

Relocating is a tame problem

Management’s role is to engage the appropriate process to solve the TAME problem

Tame and Wicked Problems (Rittell and Webber, 1973).

Management as a ScienceF W Taylor’s engineering:

the application of science to achieve the one best solution

Problem

Solution

Wicked Problems have no simple solution because:

Either novel or recalcitrant

Complex rather than complicated (cannot be solved in isolation)Sit outside single hierarchy and across systems – ‘solution’ creates another problem

They often have no stopping rule – thus no definition of success

May be intransigent problems that we have to learn to live with

‘Solution’ may precede the problem

Symptoms of deep divisions – contradictory certitudesHave no right or wrong solutions but better or worse developments

Uncertainty & Ambiguity inevitable – cannot be deleted through correct analysis –Keat’s “Negative Capability”

Problems for leadership not management; require political collaboration not scientific processes - role is to ask the appropriate question & to engage collaboration

3C. BC Emperor Liu Bang held banquet on consolidation of China Surrounded by nobles, military & political experts. Guest asked Chen Cen (military expert) why Liu Bang was Emperor. Chen Cen: ‘What determines the strength of a wheel?’ Guest: ‘The strength of the spokes’ Chen Cen: ‘2 sets of spokes of identical strength did not necessarily make wheels of identical strength. The strength was also affected by the spaces between the

spokes, & determining the spaces was the true art of the wheelwright.’

Hybrid LeadershipLeaders as wheelwrights: Leadership as an art

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Scissors

Western Roll

Fosbury Flop

Straddle

1900'04 '08 '12

'20'24 '28 '32 '36 '48

'52'56 '60 '64

'68'72 '76 '80 '84 '88 '92

1996

ScissorsFosbury Flop

1900 1920 1952 1968

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1900 1920 1952 1968 1996

The problem of NIS improvements: Tame - efficiencies & budget cuts

The problem of NHS improvements : Wicked – from NIS to NHS –

e.g., 811,000 people in hospital in 2008 in UK through alcohol; cost - £2.7bn. Professor Ian Gilmore, president of the Royal College of Physicians

Birmingham Total Place Final Report report (2010: 5)

96% of health spend on treating illness only 4% on keeping people well.

The highway from one merchant town to another shall be cleared so that no cover for malefactors should be allowed for a width of two hundred feet on either side; landlords who do not effect this clearance will be answerable for robberies committed in consequence of their default, and in case of murder they will be in the king’s mercy.

Given at Winchester, October 8, in the thirteenth year of the king's reign. —Statute of Winchester of 1285, Chapter V, King Edward I

2003: FBU fire strike: reduced fires

Peter Connelly (also known as "Baby P

But what happens when an issue like this occurs?

Peter Connelly (also known as "Baby PSharon ShoesmithHead Haringey children’s service

Ed BallsChildren’s Secretary

Extra Safeguarding Process

Peter Connelly (also known as "Baby PSharon ShoesmithHead Haringey children’s service

Ed BallsChildren’s Secretary

Extra Safeguarding Process

+7.5% increase in referrals

2008/9 – 2009/10

USS Benfold 1997-1999Guided missile destroyer

The Problem: the worst performing ship in the US Pacific Fleet

Coercive Calculative Normative

Command Management Leadership

Etzioni’s typology of compliance

Problems & Power

Crisis Tame Wicked

Increasing uncertainty about solution to problem

TAME

WICKED

CRITICAL

CACULATIVE/RATIONAL

NORMATIVE/EMOTIONALSoft power

COERCION/PHYSICALHard power

MANAGEMENT Organize Process

LEADERSHIPAsk Questions

Increasing requirement for collaborative compliance/ resolution

COMMANDProvide Answer

Normal distribution of situations/problemsBut what happens when the problem isn’t solved?

Increasing uncertainty about solution to problem

TAME

WICKED

CRITICAL

CACULATIVE/RATIONAL

NORMATIVE/EMOTIONALSoft power

COERCION/PHYSICALHard power

MANAGEMENT (Re) Organize Process

LEADERSHIPAsk Questions

Increasing requirement for collaborative compliance/ resolution

COMMANDProvide Answer

What happens when management fails to tame a problem?First Response: keep doing what you’re doing

Increasing uncertainty about solution to problem

TAME

WICKED

CRITICAL

CACULATIVE/RATIONAL

NORMATIVE/EMOTIONALSoft power

COERCION/PHYSICALHard power

MANAGEMENT Organize Process

LEADERSHIPAsk Questions

Increasing requirement for collaborative compliance/ resolution

COMMANDProvide Answer

What happens when management fails to tame a problem?Second Response: recognize a different category of problem

Increasing uncertainty about solution to problem

TAME

WICKED

CRITICAL

CACULATIVE/RATIONAL

NORMATIVE/EMOTIONALSoft power

COERCION/PHYSICALHard power

MANAGEMENT Organize Process

LEADERSHIPAsk Questions

Increasing requirement for collaborative compliance/ resolution

COMMAND Provide . Answer

A Critical/Command Response1. If it’s critical – command the answer2. Brook no dissent3. Do what needs to be done to get

stability4. Do it now!

Increasing uncertainty about solution to problem

TAME

WICKED

CRITICAL

CACULATIVE/RATIONAL

NORMATIVE/EMOTIONALSoft power

COERCION/PHYSICALHard power

MANAGEMENT Organize Process

LEADERSHIPAsk Questions

Increasing requirement for collaborative compliance/ resolution

COMMANDProvide Answer

A Wicked/Leadership Response Why have we got into this state?

What do we need to agree to stop it recurring? Let us take this opportunity to rethink this. Let us not allow the moment of change to pass.

Increasing uncertainty about solution to problem

TAME

CRITICAL

CACULATIVE/RATIONAL

COERCION/PHYSICALHard power

COMMAND:Provide Answer

MANAGEMENT: Organize Process

Increasing requirement for collaborative compliance/ resolution

But are we addicted to Command?And are we allergic to Leadership?

1. Fear of Failure

Leading a Wicked Problem implies you don’t know the answerBut do we assume leaders have to know the answer?

Does the fear of failure drive people to adopt Command when they should be Leading?

Why might we be Addicted to Command & Allergic to Leadership?

2. The partial role of the media in promoting crisis

30 July 2009 Disorder Fears If Swine Flu Crisis Grows

There have been dire warnings of civil disorder and a breakdown in the basic infrastructure if the worst fears over the imminent swine flu pandemic are realised.NI health officials have briefed hospitals to be prepared for overwhelming volumes of swine flu cases and associated civil disorder.

SWINE FLU CRISIS COULD BRING NHS TO ITS KNEES July 25,2009

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2818762

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3500000

600

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Estimated Annual Global Avoidable Deaths 2003

1,799Global DeathsFrom Swine FluAs at 20/8/9

DIARRHOEA

3. Time, Speed & the Adrenaline Rush: Carpe Diem Commanders & commanded as adrenaline junkies

Anxiety over ‘indecision’ – Keats Negative Capability – the time & space to reflect (Versus ‘the first 100 days’ syndrome)

Role of crisis & epic history-making

Lord of the RingsHarry PotterGladiatorPearl HarbourInglourious BasterdsTerminator

Erich Fromm (1942)

Fear of freedom – why we have an almost compulsive submission to authority.

Modernity uprooted people from communal relationships & this intolerable loneliness and consequent weight of responsibility drove us to seek solace in the protective arms of authority – fascist or democratic – for only that way could we avoid the fear generated by personal responsibility.

What Bauman calls, ‘the unbearable silence of responsibility’

4. The followers’ fear of freedom

5. The difficulty of Leadership: The Romance of Collaborative Leadership

(Leonard)

Collaborative Leadership is rooted in a form of egalitarian culture that

positively inhibits decision-making. Partners need to – but tend not to – give

each other permission to take responsibility to decide.

We often don’t so either we fail to decide or we revert to Commanders:

6. Nietzschean Anxiety over determining causation

If we cannot determine causal agency then ‘the problem’ is potentially irresolvable

Scott Snook : accidental shootdown of US Blackhawks in IraqThere was ‘no bad guy… no smoking gun, no culprit.’

Wrong answer – find a cause

Durkheim’s scapegoat

Was Ibsen right?Is Leadership the enemy of the people?