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Interpersonal Communication: leadership
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Interpersonal Communication: leadership
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The examples we have seen all contributed to the rise of what became known as the human relations school of management which proved to be highly influential in management training. Especially after the War and especially in the UK, where the Tavistock Institute in London became its centre, the human relations school challenged the scientific management associated with the assembly lines and time and motion studies of Henry Ford and Frederick Winslow Taylor .
'Taylorism' broke production down into its simplest component parts so that each worker became an expert in tightening a given bolt, inserting a given seal, as parodied in Charlie Chapin's Modern Times. Tom Peters (1995) has characterized this scientific approach more broadly as the 'rationalist' approach to management, which depends on the search for 'unshakable facts' and quantifiable data and on the belief that one right course of action can be rationally decided upon on the basis of the data. An incidental effect of this faith is to punish failure. As Peters comments, it is ironic that such an approach is referred to as scientific management when science proceeds precisely by making mistakes. As Peters comments, this approach is 'right enough to be dangerously wrong, and it has arguably led us seriously astray' (29), often leading to the 'paralysis through analysis' syndrome in companies where central staffs can always find ways to 'prove' that an idea won't work (31). The failings of the 'rationalist' approach are enumerated by Peters as follows:
- the numerative, analytical component has an in-built conservative bias
- the exclusively analytic approach run wild leads to an abstract, heartless philosophy
- to be narrowly rational is often to be negative
- today's version of rationality doe snot value experimentation and abhors mistakes
- anti-experimentation leads us inevitably to overcomplexity and inflexibility
- the rational model causes us to denigrate the importance of values
- there is little place in the rationalist world for internal competition
I recommend pages 42 to 52, in which each of these charges is convincingly argues and supported by a wealth of evidence.
Douglas McGregor coined the terms Theory X and Theory Y to refer to the assumptions managers might make about what motivates their workforce. Theory X is what we have referred to above as the scientific or rationalist school, which assumes that few of us actually like work and will do our best to get out of it, that we're not terribly keen on having to think for ourselves, are not terribly ambitious and are concerned with our security above all things. If we assume that those characteristics are typical of our workforce, then we will go on to suppose that an authoritarian, coercive management style is the most appropriate and that Taylorism is the best way to organize work, since repetitive tasks don't require any thought. Theory Y rejects this view of human beings, since expending effort and energy seems in fact to be natural and rewarding to human beings in both work and play. Theory Y sees human beings as creative, curious, imaginative and inventive in seeking solutions to problems. Furthermore, under the right conditions and with the right support and encouragement, people not only accept, but actually seek, responsibility. One only has to consider the wide range of activities people engage in in their spare time, from solving crossword puzzles to running the local youth group, to see that McGregor might be on to something. Broadly speaking, it is Theory Y which forms the basis of the 'human relations' school of management.
One weakness of the humanistic school pointed out by Smith (1995) is that all the data supporting the views of the human relations school came from field surveys. The data showed a correlation between employee-oriented leadership styles and employees' performance, but that doesn't mean that the former causes the latter. Other researchers have demonstrated in laboratory experiments that by instructing employee accomplices to work either faster or slower, it is possible to elicit a different response from the leader. So it could be that the democratic leadership behaviour is caused by the leader's awareness that s/he has a competent, well-motivated team, rather than the other way around.
Blackler and Shimmin (1984) make the point that it has not been demonstrated that a particular leadership style is always the most successful, citing studies which show that
The 'human relations' school eventually fell into disrepute because of its excesses. Just as the excesses of scientific management had driven Charlie Chaplin's factory worker mad with boredom, so the excesses of the human relations school led some companies to degenerate into happy-clappy environments where everyone was content, but very little was actually achieved.
Likert (1961) in Smith (1995)) developed the linking-pin theory of leadership, which emphasizes the importance of the leaders rôle in linking the different groups within a large organization. This has since been developed further to focus on leader effectiveness as a function of his/her ability to manage the conflicting demands placed on him/her from superiors, subordinates and colleagues in an equal position. Clearly, such an approach involves giving up the myth that leaders communicate only with subordinates. It also involves looking at the variety of different ways the leader communicates with people, using a range of different communication styles. This approach is sometimes also referred to as a 'transactional perspective' since it places emphasis on the variety of transactions that the leader must engage in. An example of this approach will be found in Dick McCann's notion of the Linker (see the section on the Team Management Wheel).
The transactional approach recognizes that it is not simply the case that leaders act upon others and that they, in their turn, are acted upon and influenced by their subordinates. Of prime importance is the perception by leader and led of the nature of the link between them - for the leader to be able to lead effectively, her position must be perceived as legitimate and she must be perceived as having greater competence than the led. This approach to leadership necessarily offers complex explanations, partly because all of the transactional types involved need to be analysed but is probably likely to yield more accurate insights than the other, rather more simplistic, views.
Charisma
Students of Sociology will recognize this term because they will know that the nineteenth-century sociologist, Max Weber, in his examination of leadership qualities, identified the 'charismatic leader'. The charismatic leader is seen as having an almost magical or religious quality which they use to communicate their vision to their followers. This is probably quite a widespread view of great leaders; it is not uncommon to think that those - Napoleon, Hitler, Churchill, Thatcher - who could inspire such devotion must have some quality that the rest of us lack.
This is a view which fell into disfavour as the investigation of leadership qualities took a more 'scientific' turn. However, some leadership theorists have recently paid more attention to the idea. Bryman (1992 in Smith (1995)) or Conger and Kanungo (1988 in Smith (1995)), for example, have argued that one should distinguish leadership from management. Management is concerned with day-to-day routine administration and leadership with major change and innovation. It is argued that this does indeed require some kind of charismatic skills, in particular the ability to establish an intense two-way bond with followers. According to Tom Peters (1995 : 82 et seq), the importance of what the political scientist James MacGregor Burns refers to as 'transforming leadership' has often been overlooked in studies. This is the kind of leadership which builds on our innate need for meaning and purpose, which is able to establish values to which members of a group or organization feel able to commit themselves. The transforming leader is 'concerned with the tricks of the pedagogue, the mentor, the linguist - the more successfully to become the value shaper, the exemplar, the maker of meanings' (82). Peters quotes the industrial psychologist McClelland (see also the section on motivation) who describes the members of a charismatic leader's audience as being 'strengthened and uplifted by the experience; they felt more powerful, rather than less powerful or submissive. [..... The charismatic leader] does bot force them to submit and follow him by the sheer overwhelming magic of his personality and persuasive powers .... In fact he is influential by strengthening and inspiring his audience .... The leader arouses confidence in his followers. The followers feel better able to accomplish whatever goals he and they share.' (84)
Unfortunately, the effect of this recognition of the importance of members of a group or organization committing themselves to shared values, to a shared vision has resulted in cabals of managers sitting in committees endlessly debating what is an appropriate vision for their organization. This invariably results in some tedious and platitudinous 'mission statement', which is then framed and hung outside the boss's office or in the reception area, initially to be greeted with the universal derision of employees, ultimately to be entirely forgotten; if occasionally noticed, then as pointlessly offensive as a faded socialist-realist poster proclaiming the supremacy of the People in a provincial East German town hall. But we can hardly blame Tom Peters for that.
Group communication
Management theory
McCann's Team Management Wheel
Motivation
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