Do nice people make good leaders?
by chet ~ April 14th, 2008. Filed under: Boyd's Theories, Business Strategy, Latest News.Boyd’s work is sometimes associated with such management trends as “empowerment” or “servant leadership” where the idea is that a leader’s primary role is taking care of the troops, and the troops will take care of the mission.
There is some truth to this, in that Boyd did stress preparation of the individual (Fingerspitzengefühl), building a common outlook (Einheit), and harmonizing initiative in order to achieve the commander’s intent (Schwerpunkt and Auftragstaktik). In other words, leaders have to take care of the troops — an observation lacking in new insight.
But there are also differences. A focus on employees is, by definition, internal. If that’s where you put your Schwerpunkt, then you’ll eventually run up against the dire forecast in “Destruction and Creation”:
One cannot determine the character or nature of a system within itself. Moreover, attempts to do so lead to confusion and disorder.
So the focus has to stay external, on the enemy in war and on customers and competitors in business. Taking care of the team is important to the extent that it contributes to this external focus, not because it gives us that warm and fuzzy feeling.
But if we don’t focus on employees, will they exert themselves to satisfy customers (or defeat an enemy)? Will they like us?
More to the point, are there high performing teams that don’t put their focus on ensuring the happiness of their personnel. Sure, and here’s an example:
At most companies, the red-faced, tyrannical boss is an outdated archetype, a caricature from the life of Dagwood. Not at Apple. Whereas the rest of the tech industry may motivate employees with carrots, Jobs is known as an inveterate stick man. Even the most favored employee could find themselves on the receiving end of a tirade. Insiders have a term for it: the “hero-shithead roller coaster.”
Says Edward Eigerman, a former Apple engineer, “More than anywhere else I’ve worked before or since, there’s a lot of concern about being fired.” (From “How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong,” By Leander Kahney, Wired Magazine 16-04, April 2008.)
But then the next paragraph begins with:
But Jobs’ employees remain devoted. That’s because his autocracy is balanced by his famous charisma — he can make the task of designing a power supply feel like a mission from God.
This puzzles a lot of people, but it shouldn’t: Can you detect a little Schwerpunkt / Autftragstaktik in there?
You don’t have to be habitually nice to people (although you can) and you don’t have to consult all and sundry before making a decision (although you can do that, too — Toyota does). What’s important is that you build a climate where people use their creativity and initiative in a focused way to achieve the objectives of the organization. Boyd’s organizational climate is one way to achieve it, as are the principles of leadership found in chapter 9 of Sun Tzu.
I don’t have any idea whether Steve Jobs or anybody else at Apple has ever heard of Boyd. The point is that Boyd’s strategy isn’t tied to a particular management or leadership style: Any style that is based on similar principles should have similar effects.
Although Boyd didn’t like the name “Principles of the Blitzkrieg,” he did get them from German military practice. There’s nothing, however, intrinsically German about them — the Israeli Defense Force uses a similar doctrine — but the name should tell you that you don’t have to be into consensus decision making or new age sensitivity for this stuff to work.
April 14th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Good post Chet, while business and military cultures have evolved from the red faced top down leader of the Industrial Age, they have tipped the other way into what I call the Cheerleading effect.
The “cheerleading effect” is where the only accepted message is a positive one. Everyone in a culture that accepts cheerleading wants to feel great; the party to go on, even after everyone has forgotten what the celebration was for. It becomes an endorsement of current accepted beliefs or policies, and over time, it even transforms history into one-sided views that become traditions and myths that in turn supports the current accepted message.
Cheerleaders are motivators and entertainers. Cheerleaders are also attractive. At football games their primary duty is to try to get the crowd involved in the game, particularly in home games where crowed noise can be used as the “12th player.” Hopefully, this motivates their team, and if crowd noise is loud enough, it makes it hard for the visiting team to call or change plays and hear the snap count.
Cheer leaders also provide entertainment. They are athletically fit and do numerous acrobatic stunts to keep people motivated during down times when their team is behind. Even in the direst moments of a losing contest, cheerleaders try to convince people that through some miracle, their team is going to win. Only after the loss in a big game do you ever see cheerleaders show signs of despair. When cheerleading is used by an organization to undermine and block change, then it is not used to motivate, but to lie and eventually destroy trust in the organization by its members.
“Cheerleading effect” becomes a cultural norm as it accompanies and justifies complacency. It is particularly evident in democracies where the nation periodically elects new leaders or endorses current leaders by allowing them another term in office. In turn the politicians promise to do several things to take care of their followers. To the individual cheerleading provides security, even though in terms of time it may eventually lead to the demise of the culture. Another aspect of the U.S. culture that supports the “cheerleading effect” is our focus on the individual.
Professions also have “cheerleaders.” They are the members that keep the profession up beat and retain the faith in the doctrine of the organization. This is especially needed in bad times, or when senior members of the profession try to sell ideas that may be seen as unpopular with the rank and file. Most of the time those that are cheerleading are also the ones that have benefited the most by how the profession works, especially in terms of how to be successful. Thus, slowly over time “cheer-leading” receives a place in the upper most part of the profession. Today, “cheer-leading” is enhanced with the use of video technology. While “cheer-leading” is mostly entertainment at athletic events, it becomes a dangerous phenomenon when it inflicts and forces members to contradict the proven values of the profession.
Compliancy in an organization is very dangerous, especially if successes drive an organization, and its larger society, into a mindset that moves beyond mere compliancy. There is a chance that the “cheer-leading” used to drum up support for a war or mission becomes the truth if that particular event was successful. At this point everyone, but particularly decision-makers start to believe that a “perfect” model has been found and applicable for any task. Any debate or argument is seen as disloyalty.
April 14th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Great post and great comment.
Toyota in particular is noted for rooting out complacency. “No problem” at Toyota is inherently considered a problem.
It’s nice to finish a meeting at work and not get “beat-up” by the boss, particularly when the targets and goals are unrealistic, however, you’re exactly right. This kind of cheerleading covers up the real problems and deters people from applying their creativity to meaningful solutions. Sometimes the team *can* do more to make things happen. Other times it’s important for somebody to tell the emperor he isn’t wearing any clothes.
April 14th, 2008 at 9:20 pm
My two cents:
First, different people get motivated in different ways. An effective leader finds ways to elicit the best from his people based on their individual fears, motivations, desires, talents, etc… I have always believed that the wise leader is a student of psychology for this reason, among others. Good leaders figure out what makes their people tick, then they leverage those hard-wired qualities to make the organization work.
Second, the above statement applies differently as we move up the chain of command. As the span of control of a leader increases, his ability to motivate those people (as described above) decreases. However, the leader still plays a key role.
The leader, in addition to developing subordinate leaders within his immediate span of control, also establishes a culture of trust in which subordinates are able to use their own styles (within the commander’s intent) to lead and motivate.
The leader also vigorously enforces mutual respect at all levels. Respect is necessary for Trust, and Trust is necessary for Communication – both vertical (up AND down the chain) and horizontal. If a leader, regardless of style (nice guy or otherwise), can establish a culture of Respect, Trust, and Communication, the organization will function at a very high level – for reasons that Boyd articulated brilliantly.
April 21st, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I read tomorrow a summary of some studies about career-enhancing factors in the economy.
Best hair color, size, drinks a beer with colleagues or not and such variables.
Well, one result was that apparently bosses who are nice to their employees will be significantly slower promoted than nice guys.
This is applicable to companies, likely not applicable to forces where promotion boards reign.
But it’s still interesting imho.
Btw Chet; it’s nice to see so many German words with correct spelling in an English text - but I’m a purist about the “Schwerpunkt” concept and have some issues with extremely broad applications of the concept as I prefer clarity and therefore the original meaning (which is very narrow).
April 21st, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Well, Sven, words do change meanings over time. When bringing words from one language to another they have to change somewhat in meaning.
I personally don’t see anything unclear about Boyd’s use of the word (and remember that he was speaking English, not German).
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:41 am
I had sponsored a number of Boyd’s “Patterns of Conflict” briefings in the early 80s … when it was nearly all day. During that period, he added a second briefing “Organic Design For Command and Control” … the combination made for a very long day.
As the (c&c) briefing evolved, Boyd used several examples of US military rigid, top-down command and control … as having been left over from the start of WW2 when the country had to mobilize a very large number of men with little or no experience. The extremely rigid, top-down command and control was to leverage the few experienced resources that were available. He noted that several of those young officers were now starting to come into top corporate executive positions and falling back on their early rigid, top-down command and control training. The problem was that it severely restricted an organization that did have experienced and skilled individuals.
May 18th, 2008 at 12:16 am
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