Authenticity—Where do we go from here?

Prologue  - Why we are so obsessed with Leadership?

Development Dimensions International (DDI) conducts and publishes its Global Leadership Forecast bi-annually.  The below graphic and paragraph have been excerpted from their 2014-2015 Global Leadership Forecast report. This graphic illustrates the overall state of leadership.  This trend is disturbing to us and we have authored several UPDATE articles on the topic.  See our those articles at www.themacrisgroup.com.  

DDI continues as follows:

“Development Efforts Have Stalled

When compared to our last two forecasts, the number of leaders who expressed confidence in the overall quality of leadership in their organization increased just slightly: 40 percent of leaders rated current quality as high (see illustration above). According to HR professionals, however, the needle hasn't moved at all. Only one in four organizations evaluated their overall leader quality as high, the same percentage as our 2011 forecast.*

Why is leader quality going nowhere fast? Apparently, because leadership development efforts have stalled, despite the fact that it is estimated that some $50 billion a year is being spent on developing leaders worldwide.** As in the last two forecasts, only 37 percent of leaders in the current study rated their organization’s leadership development program as effective, indicating no improvement over the past seven years. The overwhelming majority of leaders are still saying they are not satisfied with their organization’s development offerings. It’s no wonder that, with leaders reporting a lack of improvement in their development, we aren’t seeing a vast difference in overall leader quality.

If organizations aren’t doing enough to push the needle, then the outlook for the future is even gloomier. Only 15 percent of organizations rated their future bench strength as strong, a slight decrease from our last forecast. Most organizations are not confident that they have the leadership to address current and future needs. So, what can they do to improve? The message from leaders is loud and clear: Organizations need to refocus on improving their development efforts.”

*  Boatman, J., & Wellins, R.S. (2011), Global Leadership Forecast 2011: Time for a Leadership Revolution, Pittsburgh, PA, Development Dimensions International.

** Kellerman, B. (2012), The End of Leadership, New York, HarperCollins.

How does the DDI Global Leadership Forecast tie in with this the second article on Authentic Leaders?  For those who have followed our writings over the past number of years, we have tried to focus on different aspects of leadership in an attempt to get our readers thinking about scope and breath of effective leadership, along with the vast number of factors involved in actually changing or moving the needle more than what is indicated above.  We hope this and our other articles will give you cause to think about leadership in your organization and within your span of influence.

Introduction

We thank those of you who took the time to respond to our last article on Authenticity and leadership – What does it really mean?  We received both written and verbal comments that present even more questions.  Our intention with UPDATE Newsletter articles is to stimulate thought and dialogue.  An example of a few of our comments are:

General Comments

Once again you have peeled back the onion skin to learn about what makes good leaders, both in context and authenticity....not any easy learning assignment to say the least but you have used good examples to stimulate the discussion…

It all seemed so clear to me when I first thought about the topic:  OF COURSE a leader should be AUTHENTIC on all levels….otherwise she/he is just a puppet, an actor, a FAKER!   But then I kept getting deeper into more levels as you raised such good questions and my brain and emotions got activated!   

This article was excellent, I’d love to actually discuss it sometime in the future.

About Leaders you’ve worked for:

He taught me many things about his corporate stewardship and core values, but above all, he mentored me to be honest and frank in disclosing my deliberations on important corporate matters.  To never be tempted to exaggerate the truth in order to make a case, nor fail to shy away from telling the truth (as I saw it), in fear of "what others" (meaning hierarchical executives) might think or conclude, or the possible retaliatory actions/intimidations they might impose upon me.  I was always to behave "in truth to myself" and my own conscience.  This is what the "old wise man of the sea" taught me.  He was authentic and a very real leader to me....no other has ever come close.

I’ve been guided in my career both by leaders who possessed a moral compass and some who I would consider ruthless. I can attest that I learned from both brands of leaders. I have worked on being aware of how my position affects the many people who follow me simply as a result of where they are positioned in the hierarchy. I’ve determined that it is more rewarding as a leader to see the success in others than to succeed yourself. Maybe the reason is that when you are successful, the confident you have and the joy you live makes you want to share that feeling or place in society.

Reflections: Leadership Authenticity lessons learned

U.S. Navy – One Commanding Officer was insecure.  His experience had not been with fast attack submarines and he was assigned to a very sensitive and critical mission.  His leadership style was inconsistent on areas of operations.  His leadership made the life of his wardroom officers; non-nuclear department heads and division officers somewhat miserable.  The nuclear department officers were exempt – he knew the nuclear side of submarining very well.  As much as he was a good person, I would not place him in the category of an effective leader.  In contrast, another Commanding Officer was completely transparent.  He was a particularly intelligent person and a very honest Commanding Officer.  He plainly stated to his wardroom officers that there were wartime and peacetime Commanding Officers.  While I was young and his comment seemed so obvious at that time, I gave it little thought.  Several years later I realized the essence of what he was actually saying.  While many in the wardroom respected the CO for his intelligence, I am not sure many believed he was a wartime CO.  His realization of the difference was commensurate with his intelligence and has had a significant impact on my thinking on leadership.

In my first job following the Navy, I had the good fortune of working for a person who was quite enlightened in leadership and management concepts, particularly since this was close to 40 years ago. Things that ­­­employees value today like flex time, initiative leading to higher remuneration and leadership opportunities, and innovative profit sharing plans, were part of the way he ran his company.  I learned a tremendous amount about the consulting business there.  But, along with all these positive aspects, there was an Achilles heel.  I might characterize the vulnerability as inconsistent behavior, and a tendency to be highly volatile and reactive.  Which was authentic behavior the enlightened person who was ahead of his time or the volatile tyrant in disguise?   

Regarding Authenticity

One of our readers brought up an interesting point; the FAKER comment.  That comment is based in the Myers Briggs Personality Profile.   The point is straight forward – some people’s MBTI profile may be inconsistent with the requirements of their leadership demands. These demands may require a person to move away from their comfort zone and actually do things that are very difficult for them to do (fake the way they really are) not being true to themselves which challenges their authenticity.  “Faking” might not be truly what the word denotes.  Even a good authentic leader will find themselves in situations where they are not comfortable.  To achieve organizational and personal goals, the leader may have to do things differently from what they would naturally do.  It could be faking to survive or it might be assuming a different response to move the organization along, but still driving to achieve the same goals.  If it is Jekyll and Hyde behavior, as in the example from above, then authenticity is probably lost.  If it is moving out of a comfort zone to keep the organization heading toward stated goals then it may well be an uncomfortable flexibility that is not really a departure from true authenticity.

How does one recognize a real ‘Faker’ though?  A real faker is certainly not authentic.  One way is simple, a faker tries to take the attention away from their shortcomings by diverting attention to things they think, the people they are leading, will respond to.  What do we mean here?  Fakers assume the people they are leading may want to see certain things from them.  Like a nice office, coffee machines, artwork on the walls etc. in lieu of their involvement, engagement and leadership.  The superficial things have a short half-life.  Another way to recognize a real Faker which I learned a long time ago, was; that a faker is one who speaks to an engineer as psychologist and an art collector as a scientist.  Once again, camouflaging their shortcomings or lack of authenticity.

Defining authenticity is not easy, particularly as we are using it in this and the preceding article. Who’s to say what or who is authentic?  As an example, take a restaurant.  If it is Italian or Mexican, we tend to judge it as being authentic or not.  But, who’s to judge?   In this simple example, it is the experience of the diner who has either experienced what they believe to be authentic ethnic food, or one who has the same ethnic background with first-hand experience preparing their ethnic foods.  The point here is that authenticity is judged not by the restaurant owner, but by the patrons.  This flies in the face of the ‘true to oneself theory.’

To complicate the issue even more, looking at the theory of truth to oneself, this leaves a wide range for interpretation.  Having worked for authentic leaders (based on observation and interaction) and for leaders who are leaders only because of the position they hold and not because of any ability to lead; we find that it is still very difficult to define, but let’s take a shot.

There are leaders who command attention by their personalities and their decisive decision making ability.  We have found these to be people who seek input from all levels, who listen to others, but then have the ability to distil that into sound decisions.  These are people who you want to follow, who you want to learn from and who you may not initially agree with but respect the decisions and will carry them out as if they are your own.  These are generally leaders who are very clear about their feelings and convictions.  But they are also, viewed by their people as trustworthy, consistent, having the best interests of all concerned in mind.  These are authentic leaders.

Then there are other leaders who may not be as dynamic and may not have that charisma. However, they can be as effective.  These leaders have the support of their organizations and achieve goals.  Sometimes they are outside their comfort zones but they still build effective teams.  Do they have to “fake” some things on occasion – probably but that does not make them inauthentic.  We are not all gifted with the charisma that some dynamic leaders have.  Sometimes we must move out of our comfort zones to keep an organization moving forward.  The key is maintaining personal integrity and the value system we discussed in our first article.  A leader can force him/herself out of a comfort zone to act in different ways, but as long as they can maintain their personal integrity and values they stay authentic leaders.

There is then a third group who are in leadership positions, but who have no real leadership skills.  They tend toward being dictators who instill no confidence or trust in their employees.  When things go wrong, and they do frequently, scapegoats are generally found and the blame quickly assigned to others for the failures.  This type of organization can quickly become dysfunctional and trust erodes in the leader and among the others in the organization.  We have witnessed instances where executive management or a board of directors fails to recognize the true problems and allows the dysfunction to build and allows the mantra “off with their heads” to reign until they realize, generally too late, that the only head that needs to be gone is the leader.  It then takes a long time for a new leader to rebuild trust and function in such an organization.

Mounting questions

We suspected that as we drilled into the issue of authenticity and leadership we would find there to be more questions than answers.  We see this as our charge here, in hopes we may be able to eventually arrive at some algorithm or paradigm that might point us in a direction to make a change.  At this point the questions mount.

· Can authenticity be taught or even learned?

· How might one actually teach authenticity?

· Does it take practice to achieve authenticity in leadership?

· How would one know if they are making progress or can one even achieve an end point?

· Is there an end point?

· What are the measures along this journey?

As we have said before, the dilemma for a leader is that she cannot be all things to all people, which begs the question: can a leader be authentic at all?  Maybe that’s why the current thinking defaults to being ‘true to oneself’.  A default alternative is the concept of ‘values’, despite the fact that people are motivated or guided by a multitude of different values, yet objectively can see inconsistencies, double standards and conflict within a set of values.  Referent Power, as we discussed in our last article, where leaders consistently apply a set of values and goals, results in respect from subordinates, whether the subordinates like or dislike the leader as a person.  The issue is not whether employees or followers share the same values, but rather the leader’s commitment to consistent application of their (and/or the organization’s) values.   Now, let’s look at a current news story about Kim Davis, the county clerk from Kentucky who would not issue marriage licenses to gay couples. We use this example to illustrate a point.  Was she being true to herself?  Is she authentic?  Was her behavior that of an authentic person who stood by her beliefs?  It would seem so.  But, if she really was true to herself, and felt she could not perform the job she was hired for, should she have resigned?  Here again we may deal with a person (in this case not a leader – to illustrate the point) or leader who must “fake it” where he or she are not comfortable personally with what is required but they are doing what is necessary to fulfill their job requirement or to move the organization toward common goals.

Think about the things that challenge leaders and their leadership.  Politicians are a unique and interesting group.  Despite efforts to establish ethics guidelines and codes of conduct, it’s the inconsistencies between their talk and their actions. This inconsistency is highly visible and recognizable and when they try to sweep it under the rug, it usually comes back to bite them, followed by the apologies. How many times have you wondered why high profile people say and do what they say and do?  With all their advisors and speech writers and staffers, one would think there should be someone who is overseeing whether their ‘guy or gal’ is speaking consistently or from different sides of their mouth.  So can authenticity be taught and learned? Are politicians a different breed of people?  Should they be?  We would like your take on this. 

Along with that, how might one actually teach authenticity – is a set of principles or guidelines, a review of ones values?  Again, your thoughts?  One of the premises we cover in our leadership classes is achieving mastery in a field/profession it takes approximately 10,000 hours of practice (from Malcolm Gadwell’s book Outliers).  Particularly in the context of our discussion of faking it until you make it.  Now, how might one practice their authenticity?  We have a few thoughts, such as self-checking and self-assessment.  Mentoring along with objective feedback is another, but for any of these approaches to be truly effective the person who is being mentored must recognize the need and want to make changes.  Does that become an authenticity issue – might the new person in fact not be true to themselves by virtue of going through the process?  Finally, the last two questions above are equally difficult to deal with.  At this point we certainly don’t have our thoughts solidified, but we see this important enough to continue the dialogue.  

Conclusion

In conclusion, we feel as though we are in a bit of a never ending spiral on this issue, which further reinforces our feeling that the existing authenticity thinking is narrow, because any expansion beyond the current thinking presents far too many variables and dynamics to simply deal with in any kind of traditional fashion.  But, the key point here is we believe that authenticity in leadership is real and can yield significant improvements in the functioning and effectiveness of a leader which parlays into a better work environment, which in turn can be measured with an improved business result.  Stand by and we once again ask and welcome your comments and thoughts on authenticity in leadership.

Authenticity and Leadership—What does this really mean?

Prologue

We are jumping into another very interesting topic, Authenticity and Leadership.  Similar to other self-help and leadership development programs, there are lists galore of characteristics of authentic leaders.  As  examples, some of these characteristics include: self-awareness and being genuine, mission driven and focused on results, leading with their heart, demonstrating initiative, exerting influence, exercising integrity, speaking their truth, being courageous, committing to excellence rather than perfection, etc. etc.    Our guess is that if you ask any leader if they possess these qualities and/or characteristics they will say yes.  But, if you ask those they lead if their leaders possess these qualities, would the answers be yes?  We are not so sure, in there lies the issue regarding authenticity and leadership.  We are focusing on this topic for many of the same reasons we developed the concept of Contextual Leadership.  There is no elixir of leadership, there is no “answer key” to being an effective leader.  Authenticity is keenly important to effective leadership, but once again we are seeing perhaps a singular focus inward, rather than a more holistic perspective where authenticity is both internal to the leader and evidenced/validated by those being led.  Once again we are taking some risks here, and sincerely appreciate your thoughts and even criticism.

 Introduction

As we continue our quest on the essence of leadership, authenticity is another aspect of leadership that we believe needs addressing.   Similar to the overall topic of leadership; authenticity is evasive and difficult to characterize in such a way to make it both easy to understand and possible to achieve.  We certainly are not profound in our search here – a simple Google search of the topic yields a significant amount of information.  In addition, the number of books on the subject is equally as impressive.  We have even purchased and read selected volumes.  So what is it about this topic that Larry and I feel we can contribute?  It turns out after extensive notes and conversations we realized that there are many more questions than there are answers.  Despite the challenges we see, we believe authenticity in leadership is a significant contributor in achieving effective leadership.

 A simple definition of authentic leadership is: ‘True to one’s own personality, spirit or character despite external pressures.’  Sounds good, but what does that mean in the context of leadership?   We do not believe the topic of Authentic Leadership has been explored sufficiently, and as we were doing our research we realized there are more questions than answers .  This article, for the most part, will present our thinking and the dilemma as we see it.  Our intention and expectation is, that as we hear from you on this topic, and delve more into authenticity and its connection to leadership effectiveness, we will follow-up on your comments and our thoughts in future UPDATE articles. So here we go.

 Most of us in our careers have worked with, or been involved with, some authentic leaders and others who were the opposite.  In our respective cases, we didn’t think in terms of authenticity at the time, but as we look back we can see how genuine, effective and authentic certain leaders were; and on the flip side how superficial, uninspiring and two dimensional other leaders were.  Until recently, authenticity was not a common view of a leader nor a common term in the lexicon of leadership, but we believe it is a valid characteristic of a successful leader. 

      Do you really believe leaders think about whether they are authentic or not?  How do they know?  Walk back in your memory and recall leaders in any aspect of your life. Did you ever have the impression that they considered whether they were authentic in their leadership?  Better yet, how would you have known if they were really authentic, or how would you recognize an authentic leader?  Perhaps you didn’t consider that concept as we call it out here, and hopefully retrospectively, you can recall an experience or a person who came across as the “real deal” in your past leaders.

 This brings up yet another question; who is authenticity for?  The definition above, along with many other similar ‘individual focused being true to oneself' definitions, are inward looking.  While knowing oneself is keenly important, and introspection is one of the focal points for our leadership development programs; does an inward focus parlay into authenticity as a leader?  We think there is more to it than just an inward focus.

 So, let’s flip it around – Who are leaders leading?  Leaders are not “leading” themselves.  They are leading others.  No matter how leaders view themselves, it is how those being lead perceive the leadership that is critical to the success of the organization and the effectiveness of the leader.  We think another factor in authenticity is the context of the leadership situation and environment.  In other words, someone can be an effective and authentic leader in one situation but not in a different situation.  We’ll explore this later.   This is where our Contextual Leadership concept comes in. 

 What is Authentic Leadership?

Most commonly the thinking on authentic leadership is inwardly focused; following inner guidance built on experience, a skill set, knowledge, compassion, empathy and a focus on what is the best organization and the employees and not necessarily what is best for themselves.   As we mentioned at the onset of this article, we are not suggesting we have the answer key to this issue.  What we are attempting to do is frame out the argument in the dimensions beyond a leader looking inward.

 The current thinking on authenticity certainly is not new.  “Secular and religious notions of authenticity have coexisted for centuries under different guises; perhaps the earliest account of authenticity that remains popular is Socrates' admonition that "the unexamined life is not worth living".  Plato's account of the trial of Socrates

In aesthetics, "authenticity" describes the perception of art as faithful to the artist's self, rather than conforming to external values such as historical tradition, or commercial worth.  A common definition of "authenticity" in psychology refers to the attempt to live one's life according to the needs of one's inner being, rather than the demands of society or one's early conditioning. [1][2][3]”    

1. Wood, A. M., Linley, P. A., Maltby, J., Baliousis, M., Joseph, S. (2008) The authentic personality: "A theoretical and empirical conceptualization, and the development of the Authenticity Scale". Journal of Counseling Psychology 55 (3): 385–399. doi:10.1037/0022-0167.55.3.385

2. Authentic life. Psychology Centre Athabasca University.

3.  "Existential Psychology". Eastern Illinois University.

Shakespeare, one of the greatest leadership gurus of all time, said it thus "And this above all, to thine ownself be true, and thou cans't not then be false to any man." Finally, Kierkegaard suggests, “One must make an active choice to surrender to something that goes beyond comprehension, a leap of faith into the religious.”^[5] Even if one does not want to put forth the effort of developing his own views, he must do so in the quest for authentic faith.  The goal of Kierkegaard’s existentialist philosophy is to show that, in order to achieve authenticity, one must face reality and form his own opinions of existence.

 But who says you’re authentic or not? If you are true to yourself is that the only criteria?  How do people recognize authenticity in themselves?  Is this not based on their values and not the ones of the leader?   Then there comes the issue of authenticity and effectiveness as a leader. Can one be authentic in all contexts – this goes to the above question as to who says one is authentic.

An authentic leader probably doesn’t think in terms of authenticity.  And they shouldn’t, because you cannot declare yourself an authentic leader.  Only those following the leader can make that call.  Again though they probably don’t think in terms of authenticity but rather in terms of trust and willingness to follow this leader.

We believe authenticity is in the eyes of the beholder or follower.  We are confident that there are many leaders who conform to the traditional perspective of being true to themselves and have examined their lives as stated above, but are/were viewed as a lousy leaders. 

As always is the case, there is the opposite; leaders who were recognized as a good and effective but may not have possessed these qualities.  The interesting point here is how would any of us know?   Please send us your thoughts on leaders you have known or observed in either context.

For the purposes of this article, we will examine three aspects of leadership; power, values and consistency in the context of authenticity.

Power

One thought about authenticity – if a leader is authentic, does that convert into power?  In our workshops we probe the issue of leadership characteristics, verifying that a person is a leader, questioning why they are a leader, and then examining their source of their leadership power.  As an example, a military officer with more stripes is the legitimate authority over those with fewer stripes.  The power comes from the position/rank and not necessarily the person.  Whether the person is authentic or not, the position provides the power.    Many leaders who hold positional power can be authentic and of course there are some who are not.  The “troops” will follow the orders but they may not respect or even trust the person giving the orders if they do not perceive the leader as being authentic.

 Leadership and power possess interesting relationships.  Leaders typically hold positions of power.  How that power is used and exercised is dependent on many different cultural situations.  Some leaders use their power to dictate, ridicule or coerce their people.  Some possess Referent Power, where they consistently apply a set of values and goals, which are respected by the subordinates whether the subordinates like or dislike the leader as a person.  Some leaders have Charismatic Power and are followed based on who they are and their charisma alone.  This can be good or bad as we have seen through history.  Finally there are some who have Expertise Power where knowledge and skill is the key to their power.  Again, we have seen through history knowledge does not always make an effective leader.  While many famous people exemplify these sources of power, and there is a combination that seems to be particularly effective. Referent, Charismatic and Expertise sources of power are a uniquely potent combination.  Think of a person who possessed all three of these characteristics and how you perceived their leadership and authenticity.

Values

We also speak a lot about values in our workshops.  Typically the focus is on corporate values, and leadership living the corporate values.  In the context of leadership authenticity, for this article we focus on individual values. 

Easy Values – like the Ten Commandments – thou shall not kill, honesty, trust

Hard Values – Integrity, money, not lying

Conflicting Values – when values collide

Double Standard Values – when one set of values is good for you but not for me - entitlement

So is authenticity a case where the leader is true to his values (easy and hard ones) and has no conflicting values?  Most people can agree and will conform to the easy values (mostly).  Most people would never think of killing someone, are mostly honest, and value a trusting relationship.  The hard values are the ones that cause problems.  These are ones that cause conflicts.  Integrity is a good one.  Integrity can be characterized as:  dictionaries characterize integrity as follows:  “Having integrity means doing the right thing in a reliable way."  It's a personality trait that we admire, since it means a person has a moral compass that doesn't waver.  It literally means having "wholeness" of character, just as an integer is a "whole number" with no fractions.

What constitutes the ‘right thing’ in a ‘reliable way?’  The comment about ‘moral compass’ is also challenging. 

 One might think that a priest has a strong moral compass and does the right thing reliably.  I think we are talking about more than any human can assimilate. Lying is another value - most people would not blatantly tell a “Big” lie, but I might suggest that most people will tell ‘little white lies.’  Money becomes yet another value that presents challenges.  Perceptions of money and an amount anyone person feels they need or want is a very personal thing and a very comparative thing.  Money gets us what we want or what we see other people having.  But as leaders money is a hard value because it causes conflicts.  As we see in many corporate scenarios, big salaries and bonuses for corporate leaders, and meager increases if any for the ‘proletariat’ of the organization. 

 In our quest to get our arms around authenticity, we feel that when values collide authenticity suffers.  When a double standard of values exists, authenticity suffers.  To illustrate this point, we will use a very positive event in the recent news.

Dan Price, the CEO of a credit card payment processing company gave up his million dollar salary and set in motion the wheels to bring all his employees to much higher pay scale.  The New York Time reported:

“The idea began percolating, said Dan Price, the founder of Gravity Payments, after he read an article on happiness. It showed that, for people who earn less than about $70,000, extra money makes a big difference in their lives.

His idea bubbled into reality on Monday afternoon, when Mr. Price surprised his 120-person staff by announcing that he planned over the next three years to raise the salary of even the lowest-paid clerk, customer service representative and salesman to a minimum of $70,000.

“Is anyone else freaking out right now?” Mr. Price asked after the clapping and whooping died down into a few moments of stunned silence. “I’m kind of freaking out.” If it’s a publicity stunt, it’s a costly one. Mr. Price, who started the Seattle-based credit-card payment processing firm in 2004 at the age of 19, said he would pay for the wage increases by cutting his own salary from nearly $1 million to $70,000 and using 75 to 80 percent of the company’s anticipated $2.2 million in profit this year."  He balanced his values.

Consistency

We spoke about conflicting values, but consistency in values, behavior and decision-making are major components of authenticity.  Perhaps one of the most disconcerting characteristics of poor leadership is inconsistency.  Saying one thing and doing something else.  What’s good for you is not good for me.  The lack of consistency on the part of leaders parlays into perceptions of entitlement and privilege despite how deserving it the privilege may be.  We constantly send the message that leadership is not a privilege, it is a huge responsibility, requires sacrifice and truly is more of a stewardship/servitude position than one of privilege.

Another way of looking at this is from a leadership style perspective.  We all know or have known leaders who have been really difficult to deal with, but they were consistently difficult to deal with.  As a follower you knew what the standard was, you knew the expectation and you knew the consequence of not meeting the standard or the expectation.  Despite the ‘style’ of the leader, you learn how to deal with the person.  It may not be pleasant, but it’s known.  In contrast, a leader who appears to be your friend under a particular situation, and then misuses their power in a coercive manner, creates a high level stress in the organization.  You never know who or which person you will encounter and when.  The reality is some leaders use and like this style of leadership. We find it extremely disconcerting.  Authenticity is non-existent.

In Summary

Our fundamental premise is while introspection and knowing oneself is key to a leader knowing their attributes, personality profiles and understanding how their experience fits into their leadership requirements; authenticity is really based on how a leader is perceived, accepted and followed by his/her people or constituency.  Are people willing to follow this leader and why?  This premise is not an easy one to get one’s arms around.   This concept of authenticity is not new but is appears to be becoming a new way of looking at leaders and leadership.  There are many other aspects of an authentic leader such as their values and how they apply their values.  There are the competencies of the individual and how they impact the authenticity.  There are the experiences of the individual and how they shaped the person.  There are the attributes or characteristics of the individual that also impact the leadership performance.  And of course there is the context of the leadership situation.  We have long talked about contextual leadership, which is a significant factor in this discussion.  Someone can be a very effective and authentic leader in one situation but not in another.  The example is often given of Winston Churchill who led Britain through the darkest days of World War II but was not nearly as effective post-war as a peacetime leader.  Churchill was the same person, but the context changed and the results were different.  While Churchill was the same person in both situations, his performance was viewed differently, and how his leadership was perceived by those he led changed drastically.

Think of leaders with whom you have worked.  Were they effective?  How did you feel about working with them?  What was the type of power they used – did they use it in positive ways or negative ways?  Think about the feedback you have received about your own leadership.  Do people view you as authentic?

A leader seeks data and information but does not blindly follow the data.  This leader listens to the staff and the market but uses instinct and inner guidance to select the path and make decisions.  A psychological definition would be someone who works to live their life according to the needs of their inner being, rather than the demands of society.  How is all of this perceived by the rest of the organization?  Is the leader viewed as authentic?  Pretty heavy stuff.  Please give us your feedback and your experiences.  We want to do a follow up article talking more about how competencies, experience and attributes or personal characteristics shape a leader and help define their authenticity.  However, we would very much like your thoughts and feedback and your experiences.  We seek not names, but why you viewed certain people as authentic and how their performance impacted you and your career.

These articles are so thought provoking and well written, Larry.  Everything stated makes perfect sense and I love the Ebola example of how creativity and original thinking is squashed in our bureaucratic government.  There are simply too many departments and experts that think their way is the best way and never consult with other groups to learn from their experiences.

Unfortunately, our government is not run as a business.  For some reason it feels it is above the rest of us.  Nothing has changed since I went to work for NSA all those years ago and I was chastised for getting my work done too quickly.  I made the others in the department look bad!! Imagine!  I loved my decoding job, but quit after only 14 months.  I could not stand watching the idle locked into their positions with no chance of being fired.

Still makes me nuts and I commend you guys for your writings.  I fear however that nothing will ever change despite your clear voices of reason.

Amen.

A

Excellence v bureaucracy

Prologue

This issue of UPDATE is our second in a two part series on bureaucracy as it relates to organizational performance.  As we are coming off a mid-term election cycle and have been inundated with bashing political ads, it brings to mind the critical need for government to look internally.  We spoke about reengineering the government in our last article, in this issue we hope to present some insight into the type of malaise and its affect, permeating governments thereby highlighting the need for politicians and bureaucrats to make a commitment to their constituents to look inward in an objective responsible manner.   To become more focused on results rather than process.  To strive for excellence and integrity in government rather than building layers upon layers of bureaucracy under the guise of fixing things.  

This issue of UPDATE brings together several concepts we have written about recently and over the years.  Our last issue was titled: Government, Bureaucracy, Ethics, and Reengineering. Not too long ago, we wrote about the conflict between common sense, rote adherence/hiding behind rules, and, even worse, staffers interpreting guidelines to perpetuate the bureaucracy.

These issues are all alive and well within the bureaucratic structure of government at all levels. The result is, the bureaucracy kills excellence, incentive, creativity, performance, trust, job creation, and, potentially, human life.  Ironically, the bureaucracy is supposed to have the best interests of the citizens at heart; instead, it supplants common sense and leadership, with potentially deadly consequences in several contexts.

Introduction

We are going to address these issues through a real life example.  We want to address how a government bureaucracy becomes entrenched and how there are no checks and balances. We will also discuss, the disconnect between elected officials who create laws and the bureaucracy that is created to make rules to support those laws. Too often the rules go far beyond the laws, and there is no review of how the law is being interpreted.

Too frequently there is no accountability of the bureaucracy.  In our last article, we described the example of the multiple water bills. When that issue was raised to an elected council member, the response was that he could not get involved in a departmental function.  So excellence, performance, trust, the best interests of the citizens as well as cost savings cannot be addressed by the elected officials – bureaucracy is in charge and the citizens cannot do a thing about it.

For this article we have an example at a state level that shows the same disregard for the well-being and best interests of the citizens of the state.  We are not going to provide all the details since our purpose is not to publicly skewer specific bureaucrats (however satisfying that might be) but to build the case of how our current government model is not working and how, as we presented previously, governments at all levels desperately need some level of reengineering and improvement.

An Overview

The current outbreak of Ebola illustrates a bureaucratic response versus common sense.  Amber Vinson, is one of the nurses who cared for Thomas Duncan, the Ebola patient in Texas. She flew from Dallas to Cleveland and back to Dallas on Frontier Airlines.  Before boarding the airplane, she was showed a low-grade temperature.  She called the CDC and told them that she was about to get on an airplane and she had a low-grade temperature of 99.5° F.  The CDC employee responded that the threshold was 100.4 and cleared her to board the airplane. 

So let’s think about this: Per the bureaucracy, she was good to go. As one medical expert, who was interviewed shortly after the incident, indicated, what happened to common sense?  When Amber Vinson later tested positive for Ebola, it became clear that the bureaucratic response was inadequate, and put hundreds on that Frontier flight at risk. Certainly that CDC official is not accountable here.  He or she was just doing their job per the guidelines.  But how about common sense?  Should this person have thought a minute about the situation and called their supervisor?  We all would like to hope that might have averted this situation.  That did not happen.  This clearly illustrates how a bureaucratic response can have a serious impact on human life.

Let’s look at some other examples of how the bureaucracy is diminishing creativity, performance, trust, and job creation.

Creativity

By definition, a bureaucracy is not a creative entity.  A bureaucrat’s primary concern is process, not outcomes or results. As long as the program they are administering is functioning, and within budget, they are their objectives are being satisfied (at least in their eyes). If it is a program where their contractor/vendor attempts to be creative, they interpret that as a challenge to the process.  In our world, we help many companies to characterize their vision and mission.  Vision is a good example here.  A vision to a bureaucrat is severely constricted to the program. On the other hand, vision to someone responsible for getting the job done is creative, with long term goals, ideas and practices to work toward that vision.  This concept appears to be incomprehensible to a bureaucrat whose vision is constricted by blinders of process, interpretation of regulations plus many other constrains bureaucrats function under.  So what’s the problem?  The problem is when the bureaucracy imposes its blinders on creative people.  Creativity should be looked at as an opportunity to make things better, and to change the constriction under which the bureaucracy is functioning. However, bureaucrats revert to the process and impose that constriction rather than see it as an opportunity to do something better.  Bureaucracy stifles creativity in lieu of process.

Performance

Excellent job performance is another somewhat alien concept to bureaucrats.  Their definition of performance is constrained similarly to Creativity discussed above.  As long as the process is fulfilled in some sort of ‘acceptable’ manner, they consider themselves productive.  One of the classic examples of this is the ‘low bidder’ concept.  A job or project goes out to bid from a governmental agency.  Proposals are received with one from a firm who has done the job before and knows what needs to be done and how to do it, but their bid is higher than the others.  Then let’s suppose there are a few more ‘qualified’ companies who have submitted bids, with the lowest bid coming from the most minimally qualified vendor.  In most cases, the bureaucracy accepts the low bidder (if qualified).  Typically there is no further consideration of prior experience and job performance.  The determination of what constitutes ‘qualified’ is usually broad, vague, and subject to interpretation.  If the low bidder proves to be unqualified or less experienced and defaults on performance, then the bureaucracy and the public have lost.  Would you like to have the lowest bidder building bridges? Would you like to have the least qualified and experienced doctor doing your heart surgery?

Finally, from the business perspective, the direct and indirect cost consequences of an inexperienced low bidder far outweigh any benefit realized by the reduced price.  To a bureaucrat, though, the process has been fulfilled, and they have done their job.  To be fair, we have experienced lower level bureaucrats who do realize this effect, and also understand that the decision may well impact them and the job they are contracting for, but they look up the chain and say their hands are tied.  The momentum and impact of the bureaucracy is perhaps unstoppable.

Trust

Trust is a very special issue in the example we are discussing.  We believe that when people trust each other, they behave differently.  They actually look out for the other party within the context of their engagement.  Trust is a two way street and works both ways.  Our case study here is one of a governmental agency and a contracting partner.  With a high level of trust, the partner's projects and programs flourished.  No one took advantage of the other because there was no incentive to do so.  The problem arose when trust diminished.   How did this happen?  In this case, it is not so much anything any one of the two entities did or did not do to dilute the trust factor, it is a situation where success fosters resentment or even fear.  What we mean is when an involved third party such as another contractor (who may feel threatened), calls into question that success, they in effect are exploiting the bureaucracy’s bureaucratic behavior.  What we mean by this is bureaucrats like to be perceived as above reproach, and must address the challenge regardless of its validity.  If someone throws a barb at the success of the current vendor, or challenges a bureaucratic decision, a whole other bureaucratic process begins.  When that happens, investigators, auditors, etc. become involved.  The game has changed from cooperation and collaboration to "who can we throw under the bus?"  The contractor/vendor who has worked so hard to be creative and perform well becomes a scapegoat. 

The bureaucrat is just doing their job under the guise of being a responsible manager.  So, it is easy to see how trust can take an exponential slide down.  This downward slide can happen extremely quickly, in contrast to the amount of time it takes to build the trust, and the fact that the initial level of trust will never return.  The damage is significant - but who is the real loser?  The public – the people the bureaucracy is supposed to be helping and protecting.  Unfortunately in this situation the public are not even considered – protection of the sanctity of the bureaucracy and its process is paramount.

Job creation

In our work over the years, we have worked with organizations to develop strategic staffing plans, workforce planning tools, and retention strategies.  Our experience demonstrate the value of these initiatives in the terms of definitive staffing (the right person in the right job), well-defined training programs, and a stable/improving workforce.  Every politician talks about job creation.  The irony is, in our story here, the bureaucracy actually killed jobs.  Perhaps this situation resulted because the bureaucrat’s jobs were at risk?  We are not sure.

Those companies or organizations that do not focus on investing in their people tend to struggle with staffing, retention, performance, and loyalty.  To a bureaucrat though, loyalty is not defined within the language of the program they are tasked with administering.  To a bureaucrat, people are commodities, not valued assets to protect and develop.  Specifically, when the bureaucrat administers a program and does not understand the above concepts, they challenge the need for people, for training people and investing in people, so they cut budgets and commoditize the program hence reducing the workforce, thereby killing jobs. 

Much of this goes back to our article about Quants and bean counting.  The process becomes exacerbated when bureaucrats get complacent, don’t understand the work they are tasked with administering.  Now everything we discussed above escalates and the downward slide is even worse.

Who Measures the Bureaucratic Process?

This is a question that everyone should ask.  In the CDC example, who is measuring the performance of the staffer who told the nurse she was OK to fly? Better yet, who is measuring the effectiveness and management of the organization as a whole?  While we are not sure what happened internally at the CDC, we do feel there should have been some level of training, briefing or other form of communication, informing the staff that they should err on the side of caution including what to do when they are confronted with serious inquiries associated with the latest threat of Ebola. 

The culture of an organization should establish the common sense perspective such that the people within the organization support each other.  In the Ebola case, we are not suggesting the staffer make uniformed decisions on their own or assume the responsibility to provide inaccurate advice. Instead, we are suggesting the staffer reach out to appropriate people in their chain of command and attempt to resolve an issue, and those people provide responsive support. 

We are certain most bureaucracies have some established performance measures for staff members, but whether these are based on results or blind compliance is another question.  We know of a case of a very skilled engineer who was hired into a state organization.  Since this person was the “low man on the totem pole” (despite much higher skills that most of the rest of the staff), he was told that he had to work on a holiday when someone had to be on call.  He was also told that he was not to do any real work because he was getting things done too quickly and his performance was reflecting on the rather marginal performance of the organization as a whole.  If marginal has become the accepted norm, a higher level of performance becomes a serious challenge to the rest of the people around.  So what can be interpreted as the performance measure of that organization – if you stretch work out you are doing a good job and if you get work done quickly (and accurately) you are a trouble maker. 

We know this is not an isolated situation.  In the state and federal governments most bureaucracies are headed by either an appointed or sometimes elected person.  Whether that person is really qualified (on several fronts – technically, managerially and from a leadership perspective) is not always a factor.  So the bureaucracy just slogs along with self-generated rules and measures. 

Oversight remains a function that becomes important when there is an upset and the scramble begins to save face, one’s own job or public scorn.  Measures based on organizational improvement and effectiveness are foreign concepts, by definition, of the function of a bureaucracy.  We are confident that we will receive push back from people on this article, but we do feel that what drives an organization that focuses on a mission of excellence is quite a bit different than one that focuses on process alone.  We are not sure why government can’t work towards excellence much the same way other non-governmental ones do, but we do feel that there are tools to help governments do better and provide more of a servant culture rather than one that functions to perpetuate itself.

Something more for you to think about

In this and the prior article we have attempted to present the case of how our government model of bureaucratic organizations is not working effectively, and herein how it actually works against excellence and effectiveness.  Yes there need to be organizations to interpret the many laws passed by our elected officials, but those organizations need to be held accountable and expected to improve their functioning and their performance just like companies do.  If a company doesn't improve they will lose business and suffer on their bottom line. 

For government, the bureaucracies don’t have a bottom line that they worry about, despite what you may hear regarding budget cuts, etc.  They manage by the numbers within their budgets.  Accountability for performance is reverse.  If they manage well and do their job effectively resulting in a budget surplus there are penalties.  Those penalties may not be punitive from a job loss perspective, but the penalties manifest themselves as reduced funding in the future, making it more difficult to plan for growth and additional service to their constituents. 

In the business world, we could characterize this dysfunction as a form of failure.  In government it is unfortunately business as usual.  Not only do we see no incentive for improving performance but we see too many examples of bureaucracies that function only to protect “their turf” and show little regard for the people they are to serve.  For instance, we can go back to FEMA and Katrina, the IRS and losing emails etc., the VA and keeping two sets of ‘books’ as premier examples of failures.  

The challenge to our readers: we have underlined several words in this article.  We have listed those words below, and ask you to think about them in the context of how that word and your associated context or meaning contributes to the malaise we discussed.  Then we ask you to rank order them from the most important to the least as far as its contribution, or lack thereof, to our case.

Accountability	Common Sense	Vision and Mission
Blinders	Productive	Process
Incentive	Collaboration	Loyalty
Culture	Leadership	Effectiveness

Now compare and contrast how you rank ordered these words based on our case here with an experience you may have had with a bureaucratic entity.  Perhaps you will see a common theme playing out.  What we are not asking you to do is answer the question of why these failures exist.  That is another topic in and of itself.

Of course we would love to see a ground swell of pressure put on governments to stress the need to improve performance and be held accountable.  We elect, those elected appoint, and those appointed hire to fill positions that are budgeted, whether it is enough or too many.  And the bottom line is that no one is accountable to the constituents, regardless of what is touted by the elected and appointed.  What is wrong with this picture?

We are certainly not alone

“Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept?”
― Frank Herbert, Heretics of Dune

“If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't.”
― Hyman G. Rickover

“In our time... a man whose enemies are faceless bureaucrats almost never wins. It is our equivalent to the anger of the gods in ancient times. But those gods you must understand were far more imaginative than our tiny bureaucrats. They spoke from mountaintops not from tiny airless offices. They rode clouds. They were possessed of passion. They had voices and names. Six thousand years of civilization have brought us to this.”
― Chaim Potok, Davita's Harp

“The atmosphere of officialdom would kill anything that breathes the air of human endeavor, would extinguish hope and fear alike in the supremacy of paper and ink.”
― Joseph Conrad, The Shadow-Line

“But [in bureaucracies], too, decision making takes place in a world full of uncertainties. Any actual system of information processing, planning and control will never be optimal but merely practical, applying rote responses to recurrent problems and employing a variety of contingency tactics to deal with unforeseen events.”
― Manuel De Landa, A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History

“Bureaucracies are inherently antidemocratic. Bureaucrats derive their power from their position in the structure, not from their relations with the people they are supposed to serve. The people are not masters of the bureaucracy, but its clients.”

―  Alan Keyes

“Bureaucracy is the death of all Sound work”

―  Albert Einstein