Slow Leadership: Authoritarians Need Conformists

Much of the subject matter for these articles comes from things I have read. This one is no exception. It began with the notion that organizations become rigid and inflexible, in part from the build-up of “scar tissue:” rules and policies that are instituted in a hurry to deal with some painful mistake. When things go wrong, people often feel angry and hurt, and they want to prevent such hurt recurring. They therefore rush into quick, often poorly-considered actions designed to achieve just that. The commonest of these, in organizational terms, is to set down some rule or policy that prohibits whatever is seen as the cause of the current hurt. In time, organizations become weighed down with such rules, each one enacted to deal with a specific problem. Aside from the fact that many conflict with one another, the sheer weight of such a build-up of rules begins to act as a major drag on progress.

It’s a great insight and I only wish it had been mine, but it isn’t. I found it here, thanks to a comment on this blog from Michael Harmer. However, what struck me most were the comments from people defending the need for widespread rules and policies. I find it very tough to understand why anyone would positively want there to be more rules, or policies, or procedures in place to govern their actions. But I will try, and that’s the subject of this article.

Rules take away risk by giving you clear, pre-set actions to follow. They remove the fear of failure by allowing you to blame any lack of success on the rules themselves. It’s the ages-old excuse that you were only following orders.

I think that the most common reasons for people to want rules are these:

fear of risk (and attendant fear of failure);
unwillingness to make unnecessary effort;
the belief (a correct one) that following rules saves time; and
the unwillingness to risk accepting personal responsibility for their actions.

Rules take away risk by giving you clear, pre-set actions to follow. They remove the fear of failure by allowing you to blame any lack of success on the rules themselves. It’s the ages-old excuse that you were only following orders. Of course, you may have misinterpreted the rule, or failed in the execution of it, but that still seems to many people to be a much lesser risk that having to decide on what to do in the first place. Besides, since the rules prescribe actions, they are usually quick and simple to use. There is no time and effort to be spent in working out first what the problem is, then how to deal with it. All that is needed is a process of categorization: find the right box that fits the problem, take out the rule or procedure that is kept in the box, and apply it. Quick, simple, and—once again— free from the risk of attaching your own credibility to the outcome.

Authoritarian managers—and there are many—love rules as a great means of enforcing conformity and obedience. It is fashionable to deride authoritarianism and suggest that training, coaching, or some other form of intervention, can wean such misguided folk away from their unpleasant ways. Never mind that conventional management styles practically demand authoritarian leaders, since they are based on applying a mass of new rules, from performance appraisals to weed out “slackers,” to constant measurement of short-term goals to establish the rules for almost every action.

So long as organizations are full of people who want rules for every situation, there will be authoritarians more than happy to supply and enforce those rules. The result—as we have seen—is a type of organizational arteriosclerosis . . .

We will neither remove nor seriously limit the number of authoritarian managers until we do away with an equal number of conformist subordinates. The one needs the other. To take a frivolous and far more racy example, every sadist needs at least one masochist. If you get your kicks by inflicting pain, you need people who get theirs by suffering what you inflict. So long as organizations are full of people who want rules for every situation, there will be authoritarians more than happy to supply and enforce those rules. The result—as we have seen—is a type of organizational arteriosclerosis, with rules and procedures taking the place of cholesterol-based plaque.

Is your organization suffering from hardening of its arteries? Is the life blood of open communication and personal freedom to do one’s job unmolested becoming clotted and clogged as it tries to move through the veins of the business? Don’t just blame the authoritarians in positions of power. Blame those below them who accept the constant imposition of petty rules and substitute compliance for true performance.