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Book

Title: The Leadership ExperienceISBN: 9780357716304Authors: Richard L. DaftPublication Date: 2022-03-05

Chapter 1

1.

Leading Diversity and Inclusion

Your Leadership Challenge

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

11-1

Apply an awareness of the dimensions of diversity and multicultural issues in your future leadership.

11-2

Understand and reduce the barriers and difficulties faced by underrepresented employees in organizations.

11-3

Describe the factors that affect women’s leadership, including interactive leadership and the first rung of the management ladder.

11-4

Break down your personal barriers that may stand in the way of becoming an inclusive leader.

11-5

Use mechanisms such as sponsorship and employee resource groups to support the participation and advancement of underrepresented employees.

Introduction

Early in Vivek Gupta’s leadership career, a young woman fresh out of college came into his office and told him she wanted to be in sales. Gupta had spent “a tough five years” in sales, traveling all over India. How could a young woman handle the rigors of such a job, he wondered. That evening, he told his wife about the conversation and said the applicant “didn’t fit the role” for a sales position. His wife’s response? Why not give her a chance? As it turned out, the young woman became the best salesperson in the company. The experience changed the way Gupta hires and leads people. He realized he was “a biased 25-year-old who grew up in a world that gave more status to men than to women.” Since that day, Gupta has been a strong advocate for giving all people equal opportunities. Now CEO of Mastech Digital, an IT staffing and digital transformation IT services company with headquarters in Pittsburgh, Gupta has been honored three times on the list of “100 Most Influential Leaders in the Staffing Industry” by Staffing Industry Analysts.

Leaders at most companies strive to avoid discriminatory policies and practices, but a Harvard Business Review survey found that 93 percent of female respondents and 92 percent of non-White respondents said they had been treated unfairly at work because of someone else’s bias. Today’s best leaders realize that diversity sparks innovation, leads to better decision making, and spurs growth. Yet subtle bias and hidden discrimination is still a significant problem in many organizations, and valuing and supporting diverse employees takes intentional effort.

The Black Lives Matter anti-racism movement, the MeToo movement fighting sexual abuse and sexual harassment, and other recent social justice movements have reawakened the attention to diversity and inclusion as key topics for leaders in all walks of life.

Every leader needs to understand the complexity of diversity issues, learn to create an inclusive culture, and support the development of underrepresented employees for higher-level leadership positions.

This chapter explores the topic of diversity and inclusion and examines the challenge of creating diverse organizations with inclusive cultures. We first define diversity and inclusion, explain the importance of diversity of thought, explore changing attitudes toward diversity, and describe the value of diversity and inclusion for organizations. Next, the chapter looks at factors such as unconscious bias, prejudice, and stereotypes and the challenges they create for women, people of color, and other underrepresented employees in organizations. The chapter then examines a style of leadership that can support a more inclusive work environment, discusses the personal stages of leader diversity awareness, and describes some approaches leaders can take to support the career advancement of diverse people in the workplace. By the end of this chapter, we hope you will better understand some of the challenges, as well as some leadership strategies that can help make organizations more inclusive and provide a better working environment for all people.

11-1. Leading People Who Aren’t Like You

Put It Into Practice

11.

1

Think of a time when you felt that some aspect of your unique traits, attributes, skills, experience, or background were not valued at school or work. Write down that aspect and what you felt at that time.

How does a Black manager lead an all-White workforce, or a female manager lead a workforce of mostly males? How do White male top executives interact effectively and supportively with female colleagues? What happens when a 29-year-old is promoted to a position of authority over a group of mostly 50- to 60-year-old middle managers? As organizations grow increasingly diverse, these questions are being asked more and more often. Consider Kenneth Frazier of Merck, one of only a handful of Black CEOs running Fortune 500 companies, or Cathy Lanier, the female former chief of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police, who is White and led a mostly black and male workforce. Lanier left that job to take over as chief of security for the NFL, where she also had to engender respect and admiration from men not generally accustomed to seeing a woman in charge. Complete the exercise in Leadership Practice: Know Yourself 11.1 to learn about the values you will bring to leading people who are diverse and not like you.

Leadership Practice: Know Yourself 11.1. Values Balancing

Instructions: For each of the following pairs of values, select the one that is more descriptive of you. Even if both qualities describe you, you must choose one.

1.

Analytical

blank 1

Compassionate blank 2

2.

Collaborative blank 1 Decisive blank 2

3.

Competitive blank 1 Sociable blank 2

4.

Loyal blank 1 Ambitious blank 2

5.

Resourceful blank 1 Adaptable blank 2

6.

Sensitive to others blank 1 Independent blank 2

7.

Self-reliant blank 1 Uniting blank 2

8.

Helpful blank 1 Persistent blank 2

9.

Risk-taker blank 1 Contented blank 2

10.

Interested blank 1 Knowledgeable blank 2

11.

Responsible blank 1 Encouraging blank 2

12.

Tactful blank 1 Driven blank 2

13.

Forceful blank 1 Gentle blank 2

14.

Participating blank 1 Achievement oriented blank 2

15.

Action oriented blank 1 Accepting blank 2

Scoring and Interpretation

The listed words represent two leadership values: “capacity for collaboration” and “personal initiative.” Personal initiative is represented by the first word in the odd-numbered rows and the second word in the even-numbered rows. Capacity for collaboration is represented by the first word in the even-numbered rows and by the second word in the odd-numbered rows. Add the number of words selected that represent each value and record the number:

Personal Initiative: blank 1

Capacity for Collaboration: blank 1

Everyone has the capacity for both feminine and masculine ways of thinking and acting. Capacity for collaboration represents feminine values in our culture, and if you selected more of these terms, you may be undervaluing your personal initiative. Personal initiative represents masculine values, and more selected words here may mean you are undervaluing your capacity for collaboration. How balanced are your values? How will you lead someone with values very different from yours?

How prevalent in organizations are feminine and masculine values? Read the rest of this chapter to learn which values are associated with successful leadership.

Sources: Based on Donald J. Minnick and R. Duane Ireland, “Inside the New Organization: A Blueprint for Surviving Restructuring, Downsizing, Acquisitions and Outsourcing.” Journal of Business Strategy 26 (2005), pp. 18–25; and A. B. Heilbrun, “Measurement of Masculine and Feminine Sex Role Identities as Independent Dimensions,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 44 (1976), pp. 183–190.

11-1a. Definition of Diversity

Workforce diversity means a workforce made up of people with different human qualities or who belong to various cultural groups. From the perspective of individuals, diversity refers to all the ways in which people differ, including dimensions such as age, race, marital status, physical ability, and income level. Decades ago, most companies defined diversity in terms of a very limited set of dimensions, but today’s organizations are embracing a much more inclusive definition that recognizes a spectrum of differences that influence how people approach work, interact with each other, derive satisfaction from their work, and define who they are as people in the workplace.

‘We all have different gifts, so we all have different ways of saying to the world who we are.”

Fred Rogers (1928–2003), creator and host of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood

Exhibit 11.1 illustrates the difference between the traditional model and a more inclusive model of diversity. The dimensions of diversity shown in the traditional model reflect primarily inborn differences that are immediately observable, such as race, gender, age, and physical ability. However, the inclusive model of diversity includes all of the ways in which people differ, including dimensions of diversity that can be acquired or changed throughout one’s lifetime. These dimensions may have less impact than those in the traditional model but nevertheless affect a person’s self-definition and worldview and influence the way the person is viewed by others.

Exhibit 11.1 Traditional vs. Inclusive Models of Diversity

Details

Source: Based on Anthony Oshiotse and Richard O’Leary, “Corning Creates an Inclusive Culture to Drive Technology Innovation and Performance,” Global Business and Organizational Excellence 26, no. 3 (March/April 2007), pp. 7–21.

For example, veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may have been profoundly affected by their military experience and may be perceived differently from other people. Women with children are perceived differently in the work environment than those without children. An employee living in a public housing project will be perceived differently from one who lives in an affluent part of town. Moreover, a person’s social class origins may leave a culture imprint on the person that is as important as race or gender. Secondary dimensions such as work style and skill level are also relevant in the organizational setting.

One of the challenges of managing a diverse workforce is creating an environment where all employees feel accepted as members of the team and where their unique talents are appreciated. When leaders create a feeling of inclusiveness, employees display more loyalty, cooperation, and trustworthiness.

Inclusion is the degree to which an employee feels like an esteemed member of a group in which their uniqueness is highly appreciated. Inclusion creates a strong sense of belonging and a trust that all people can have their voices heard and appreciated.

The Leader’s Bookshelf offers some insight into the importance of leaders embracing both uniqueness and belonging.

11-1 b. Diversity of Thought

When researchers asked teams to solve a complex, unfamiliar problem under time constraints, they found some interesting results. The team with the greatest diversity of thought solved the problem in just 22.5 minutes, whereas the team with the least diversity of thought took 60 minutes to complete the challenge. Diversity of thought refers to different ideas, different viewpoints, different skill sets, and different ways of thinking and reasoning.

Heterogeneous teams and organizations—those made up of individuals from different racial and ethnic groups, lifestyles, genders, ages, backgrounds, and other diverse qualities shown in Exhibit 11.1—increase the chances of achieving a diversity of thought, which provides a broader and deeper base of ideas, opinions, and experiences for problem solving, creativity, and innovation. By tapping into the strengths of diversity, teams are more likely to experience higher efficiency, better quality, less duplication of effort among team members, and increased innovation and creativity.

Leader’s Bookshelf Inclusify:

The Power of Uniqueness and Belonging

to Build Innovative Teams

by Stefanie K. Johnson

The longing to feel authentic and express who we are is a deeply felt human need. But the desire to belong with others is just as deeply felt and can sometimes cause people to hide who they really are. In Inclusify, Stefanie Johnson says balancing the tension between these two human needs is the biggest challenge for organizations seeking to create inclusive cultures. Her research reveals two common problems. Some leaders encourage people to be themselves, but they underestimate the importance of group cohesiveness, often ending up with employees who have no sense of belonging and purpose. Others strive to make everyone fit in, but by ignoring the benefits of listening to diverse perspectives, they leave some people feeling like they cannot be their authentic selves.

To build inclusive organizations requires inclusifyers—people at all levels who “live and lead in a way that recognizes and celebrates unique and dissenting perspectives while creating a collaborative and open-minded environment where everyone feels they truly belong.”

Become an Inclusifyer

Johnson reminds us that “although few people are born inclusifyers, there are specific steps that leaders can take to become one.” Her book offers a range of tools leaders can use to build inclusive cultures. Here are a few of the specific behaviors inclusifyers use to encourage both uniqueness and belonging:

Behaviors That Encourage Uniqueness. Inclusifying leaders publicly support diversity. Rather than ignoring difference, they recognize and embrace different perspectives and backgrounds. They get to know people on an individual basis so they can begin to understand the needs of their team members, and they show a hunger to learn from others’ unique perspectives. These leaders strive to treat everyone equitably so that people feel they are treated fairly.

Behaviors That Create Belonging. Inclusifyers are aggressively transparent about their practices, so that people know how things work in the organization. They provide people with a shared purpose and empower team members to make their own decisions. Inclusifying leaders actively work to build team spirit and to infuse diversity, inclusion, and belonging into the organization’s values.

The Power of Uniqueness and Belonging

Johnson asserts that it is possible to have an organization where everyone can both be their true selves and feel a powerful sense of belonging, but it requires a continuous sustained effort so that inclusive practices become the norm. People don’t experience inclusion simply because top leaders proclaim the organization is committed to an inclusive culture. Johnson points out that even in organizations where the CEO has made inclusion a benchmark of success, fewer than 40 percent of employees believe their direct managers share this value.

Source: Inclusify: The Power of Uniqueness and Belonging to Build Innovative Teams, by Stefanie K. Johnson, is published by Harpercollins.

According to the results of one study, companies that rate high on creativity and innovation have a higher percentage of women and non-White employees than less innovative companies. Another study showed that a team’s collective intelligence increases when there are more women members on the team, and yet another research team found that having even a single woman added to an all-male team helps the team perform better with more complex tasks. “This is not because her voice is inherently better-suited or superior for addressing complex tasks, but because [diversity] contributes to divergent thinking in the team and deeper information processing,” the research team wrote. Diverse groups benefit from listening to different viewpoints and considering diverse perspectives.

Companies can capitalize on diversity by including more diverse employees in business decisions at all levels. As shown in Exhibit 11.2, an analysis of 600 decisions made by 200 different business teams over a two-year period found that gender-diverse teams made better decisions 73 percent of the time, while teams with the widest range of diversity made better decisions 87 percent of the time. Moreover, the diverse teams made decisions twice as fast as those that were not diverse.

Exhibit 11.2 Diverse Teams Make Better Decisions

Details

Source: Erik Larson, “Research Shows Diversity + Inclusion = Better Decision Making At Work,” Cloverpop (September 25, 2017), www.cloverpop.com/blog/research-shows-diversity-inclusion-better-decision-making-at-work (accessed June 25, 2021). Used with permission.

One reason that diverse groups often make better decisions than homogeneous groups is that diversity pushes people to work harder cognitively to bridge differences and understand one another’s ideas and viewpoints. Hala Moddelmog, who has served as president of Arby’s Restaurant Group and recently stepped down after six years as the first female president and CEO of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, likes to surround herself with colleagues of different races, socioeconomic classes, and personality styles. “You really don’t need another you,” Moddelmog says. Cindy Holland, vice president for original content at Netflix, also says she tries to hire for diversity of thought and diversity of experience on her team because it leads to better ideas and solutions.

11-1c. Changing Attitudes Toward Diversity

Attitudes toward diversity are expanding in today’s organizations partly because leaders are responding to significant changes in our society. In recent years, the Black Lives Matter and MeToo movements and the growing strength of LGBTQ+ rights activists have brought issues of diversity and inclusion to the forefront.

For example, in mid-2020, as widespread protests against institutional racism raged across the United States, activists toppled statues of historic figures who were slaveholders around the country, NASCAR banned the use of the Confederate flag at car races and venues, and musical groups such as the Dixie Chicks and Lady Antebellum changed their names to drop associations with the Confederate-era South. A year later, U.S. President Joe Biden signed bipartisan legislation making June 19 (Juneteenth) a federal holiday to commemorate the day in 1865 when news of the end of slavery in the United States reached the last slaves in Texas.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences created a task force to revise rules and procedures to expand diversity and inclusion within the filmmaking industry. The organization had been criticized for years for its lack of diverse representation. In 2020, the Academy elected several women and people of color, including Whoopi Goldberg and Ava DuVernay, to the board of governors; implemented a requirement that all Academy governors, branch executive committee members, and staff attend unconscious bias training; and revised rules to require that Oscar nominees meet certain diversity and inclusion requirements. At the 2020 awards, the South Korean film Parasite became the first non-English language film to win a Best Picture Oscar and its director, Bong Joon-ho, also picked up awards for best director and best original screenplay.

Just as movie studios and NASCAR face growing pressure to change, so do leaders in other types of organizations. In 2019, there were 28.4 million foreign-born employees in the U.S. workforce, making up 17.4 percent of all U.S. workers. Of the total number of foreign-born employees, nearly half are Hispanic, and 25 percent are Asian. The percentage of U.S. employees who are not White is expected to increase to around 23 percent by 2024. Women are a growing part of the workforce and are demanding more fair and equitable treatment. Women now outnumber men in the U.S. workforce, and their numbers are projected to grow slightly faster than those of their male counterparts.

Another factor contributing to increased attention to diversity and inclusion is globalization. Leaders are emphasizing cross-cultural understanding so that people can work smoothly across borders. “The speed of global business is accelerating diversity,” says Pauline Ning Brody, a Shanghai-born diversity consultant and former director of global sales for Colgate-Palmolive. Employees with global experience and cultural sensitivity are in high demand because at least some aspect of almost every business today cuts across national boundaries.

11-1d. The Value of Organizational Diversity

Put It Into Practice 11.2

What type of person or behavior annoys you? Your annoyance signals a dislike for certain qualities in others. Contemplate how your annoyance might be similar or different from dislike that is based on race, skin color, gender identity, or religion.

Reckitt Benckiser, a U.K.-based producer of home, health, and personal care products, believes in the power of diversity. The executive committee includes people of four nationalities, and 14 percent of team members are non-male; the group leadership team includes people representing 13 nationalities, with 11 percent of the team non-male; and among the senior management team, there are 54 nationalities and 25 percent non-male. Top executives believe the diversity of the company’s leadership and workforce is one reason income increased 17 percent annually, on average, over a recent 10-year period. Retired CEO Bart Becht once said, “It doesn’t matter whether I have a Pakistani, a Chinese person, a Brit, or a Turk, man or woman, sitting in the same room… so long as I have people with different experiences—because the chance for new ideas is much greater when you have people with different backgrounds.”

Leaders in other companies also recognize that building diverse and inclusive organizations provides clear benefits, including the following:

Better use of employee talent. Companies with the best talent are the ones with the best competitive advantage. Attracting a diverse workforce is not enough; leaders must also provide career opportunities and advancement for women, people of color, and other employees from underrepresented groups to retain them.

Increased understanding of the marketplace. A diverse workforce is better able to anticipate and respond to changing consumer needs. Ford Motor Company realized it could reach its business objectives only if it created a workforce that reflected the diverse face of the country. So, Ford worked to increase the percentage of its workforce from underrepresented groups to at least 25 percent and to foster a culture of inclusion; subsequently, the company won a spot on Black Enterprise’s “40 Best Companies for Diversity.”

Enhanced breadth of understanding in leadership positions. Homogeneous top leadership teams tend to be myopic in their perspectives. According to Niall FitzGerald of Unilever, “It is important for any business operating in an increasingly complex and rapidly changing environment to deploy a broad range of talents. That provides a breadth of understanding of the world and environment and a fusion of the very best values and different perspectives which make up that world.”

Increased quality of team problem solving. Teams with diverse backgrounds bring different perspectives to a discussion, which then result in more creative ideas and better solutions. One research project found that when people participated in diverse teams, their answers to problems were 58 percent more accurate than those of people participating in homogenous teams. Moreover, performance improved over time as people worked within a diverse group, while performance of the homogenous groups tended to go in the opposite direction as people began to copy one another or agree to solutions without debate.

Reduced costs associated with high turnover, absenteeism, and lawsuits. Companies that foster diversity and inclusion reduce turnover, absenteeism, and the risk of lawsuits. Because family responsibilities contribute to turnover and absenteeism, many companies now offer child-care and elder-care benefits, flexible work arrangements, remote work options, and part-time employment to accommodate employees’ responsibilities at home. Discrimination lawsuits are also a costly side effect of a discriminatory work environment.

Remember This

Every leader needs to understand the complexity of diversity issues, learn to create an inclusive culture, and support the development of underrepresented employees for higher-level leadership positions.

Workforce diversity is a workforce made up of people with different human qualities or who belong to various cultural groups. The broader term diversity refers to differences among people in terms of age, ethnicity, gender, race, or other dimensions. This definition has been broadened in recent years to be more inclusive and to recognize a broad spectrum of characteristics, such as work style, nationality, social class, and income level.

Inclusion is the degree to which an employee feels like an esteemed member of a group in which their uniqueness is highly appreciated. Inclusion creates a strong sense of belonging and a trust that all people can have their voices heard and appreciated.

In 2019, there were 28.4 million foreign-born employees in the U.S. workforce, making up 17.4 percent of all U.S. workers. The percentage of U.S. employees who are not White is expected to increase to around 23 percent by 2024.

In 2020, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences elected several women and people of color to the board of governors; implemented a requirement that all Academy governors, branch executive committee members, and staff attend unconscious bias training; and revised rules to require that Oscar nominees meet certain diversity and inclusion requirements.

Diversity of thought is achieved when a leader creates a heterogeneous team made up of individuals with diverse characteristics who bring different ideas, different viewpoints, different skill sets, and different ways of thinking and reasoning.

Creating diverse and inclusive organizations provides clear benefits, including better use of employee talent, greater understanding of the marketplace, enhanced breadth of understanding in leadership positions, higher quality of team problem solving, and reduced costs associated with employee turnover, absenteeism, and discrimination lawsuits.

1-2. Factors Shaping Personal Bias

Creating an inclusive environment where every individual feels respected, valued, and able to develop their unique talents is difficult. Most people, including leaders, have a natural tendency toward ethnocentrism, which refers to the belief that one’s own culture and subculture are inherently superior to other cultures. Research by Harvard psychology professor Mahzarin Banaji indicates that the human brain seems to be wired to categorize people by race in the first one-fifth of a second after seeing a face. Banaji’s studies suggest that all people have an ingrained propensity to racial bias, even if they are unaware of and even disapprove of such bias. Other studies by social psychologists also suggest that there is a natural tendency among humans to identify themselves with a particular group and to feel somewhat antagonistic and discriminatory toward other groups. In high school, the jocks often are aligned against the geeks, for instance. In hospital cafeterias, the surgeons sit in one area and the medical residents in another. In newspaper and magazine offices, the editorial folks are antagonistic toward the advertising people. The combination of this natural force toward separation, ethnocentric viewpoints, and a standard set of cultural assumptions and practices creates a number of challenges for leaders and employees from underrepresented groups.

11-2a. Unconscious Bias

Starbucks leaders became embroiled in a public relations nightmare after two Black men were arrested on suspicion of trespassing as they waited for a friend in a Philadelphia store. Reports indicate that the men had asked to use the restroom but employees refused because they had not made a purchase. The two were eventually asked to leave. When they declined, saying they were waiting for a friend, the manager called the cops. “What did [the police] get called for?” asked Andrew Yaffe, the White friend. “Because there are two Black guys sitting here meeting me?”

Would two White men who did not order while waiting for a friend have received the same treatment from the manager and employees? Probably not. Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson said this was an example of unconscious bias on the part of employees. The CEO quickly offered an apology and proclaimed the arrests of the men “reprehensible.” Starbucks later closed most company-owned stores in the United States for a day of anti-bias training.

Blatant and active discrimination in the workplace may not be as big a problem as in the past, but subtle, and often unconscious, bias remains a major issue in organizations. Unconscious bias, sometimes called implicit bias, refers to attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understandings and actions without our conscious knowledge. Unconscious bias occurs when a person is not aware of the bias in their favorable and unfavorable assessments, actions, and decisions toward members of specific groups. When someone assumes an Asian waiter won’t speak fluent English, sees a homeless person and thinks Get a job, or feels a flicker of discomfort that the pilot of their plane is a woman, unconscious bias is at work.

Everyone has some degree of unconscious bias, which is developed from the moment we are born based on everything we see and hear. Take the quiz in Leadership Practice: Know Yourself 11.2 to evaluate your personal degree of unconscious bias and think about ways you can become more diversity-aware. Some sociologists and psychologists have proposed that if left to their own devices, people will automatically discriminate. Unconscious bias theory suggests that White males, for example, will inevitably slight women and people of color because people’s decisions are influenced by unconscious bias. Consider the following example. When Rick Klau’s boss at Google encouraged all employees to attend training to uncover their unconscious biases, Klau’s first thought was: “This isn’t meant for me. I’m not contributing to the problem.” But after attending the seminar, Klau learned that he was wrong. An unconscious bias test showed that he strongly associated men with work and science and women with home and liberal arts. He discovered that 80 percent of the people he connected to on LinkedIn and followed on Twitter were men. “I didn’t want to believe it. Consciously or otherwise, I was seeking out people who looked like me,” said Klau, who is now a partner in a venture capital firm. He began purposefully striving to add balance to his social media networks and follow more journalists who weren’t White men. He stopped attending conferences that were mostly male and became more conscious of who he talked with at the conferences he did attend.

Leadership Practice: Know Yourself 11.2. Unconscious Bias

Instructions: Think about your typical day-to-day behavior and respond to each of the following items as

Mostly False

or

Mostly True

for you.

Mostly False

Mostly True

1.

I prefer to be in work teams with people who think like me.

blank 1

blank 1

2.

I have avoided talking about culture differences with people I met from different cultures because I didn’t want to say the wrong thing.

blank 1

blank 1

3.

My mind has jumped to a conclusion without first hearing all sides of a story.

blank 1

blank 1

4.

The first thing I notice about people is the physical characteristics that make them different from the norm.

blank 1

blank 1

5.

Before I hire someone, I have a picture in mind of what the person should look like.

blank 1

blank 1

6.

I typically ignore movies, magazines, and TV programs that are targeted toward groups and values that are different from mine.

blank 1

blank 1

7.

When someone makes a bigoted remark or joke, I don’t confront them about it.

blank 1

blank 1

8.

I prefer not to discuss sensitive topics such as race, age, gender, sexuality, or religion at work.

blank 1

blank 1

9.

There are people I like but would feel uncomfortable inviting to be with my family or close friends.

blank 1

blank 1

10.

If I were to seek a mentor, I would want someone culturally similar to myself.

blank 1

blank 1

Scoring and Interpretation

Give yourself 1 point for each Mostly True answer. Each item reflects an element of “passive bias,” which can cause people different from you to feel ignored or disrespected by you. Your Score:blank 1. As a leader, your typical day-to-day behavior will send signals about your biases and values. Some personal biases are active and well known to yourself and others. Other biases are more subtle. Unconscious bias occurs when a person is not aware of their own bias and has no intent to express bias, but others may experience bias. Unconscious bias may be more insidious than active discrimination because the person would exclude diverse experiences and people from expression and interaction. The ideal score is zero, but few people reach that ideal. If you scored 3 or less, you are making a good attempt to eliminate your passive and unconscious bias. If you scored 8 or more, you should take a careful look at how you think and act toward people different from yourself. You should consider ways to become more culturally sensitive. The sooner you learn to actively include diverse views and people, the better leader you will be.

Source: Based on Lawrence Otis Graham, Proversity: Getting Past Face Values and Finding the Soul of People (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997).

The following findings show how unconscious bias can influence decisions and actions in various situations:

When researchers mailed thousands of similar résumés, some with stereotypically Black names (such as Jamal or Lakisha) and some with stereotypically White names (such as Greg or Emily), to companies with job openings, the résumés with White-sounding names were 50 percent more likely to result in a request for an interview.

Research has found that women who come to the emergency room with a stroke wait 15 percent longer than men to get brain imaging, even when they have similar symptoms, and severely injured women are 15 percent less likely than severely injured men to be sent from a nontrauma hospital to a trauma center.

Doctors who were shown patient histories and asked to make decisions about heart disease were much less likely to recommend cardiac catheterization (a helpful procedure) to Black patients, even when their medical histories were statistically identical to those of White patients. After a stroke diagnosis, women are as much as 30 percent less likely than men to be given one of the main treatment drugs.

Several studies have found that e-mail messages with stereotypically Black names sent in response to apartment rental ads on Craigslist get fewer responses than ones with White-sounding names.

Studies of state legislators have found that White legislators in both political parties are less likely to respond to constituents with stereotypically Black-sounding names.

In many cases, these are not acts of conscious discrimination. For example, human resource managers were stunned when shown the results of the résumé study because they genuinely believed they were making a commitment to valuing diversity in their organizations. Most doctors have no intention to treat women or Black patients less effectively than they do White men. Dozens of researchers have studied and documented bias that occurs outside of our awareness and despite good intentions.

The first step in managing unconscious bias in the workplace is to make people aware of it through unconscious bias training. During anti-bias training at Starbucks described at the beginning of this section, an employee described a personal example of unconscious bias, saying he automatically hid the tip jar when a group of young Black men walked into his store. He said he later felt ashamed when the men asked if there was a tip jar for them to leave a gratuity. The restaurant chain Denny’s requires that all employees, including the CEO, undergo unconscious bias training. The New York Police Department contracted with Fair and Impartial Policing to provide unconscious bias training to all 36,000 uniformed members of the NYPD. According to surveys, 70 percent of officers reported a better understanding of their unconscious biases after the training, and more than two-thirds of them said they had gained new strategies and skills to manage them.

Leaders can also establish conditions that limit the degree of unconscious bias that goes into hiring and promotion decisions. Corporations such as BP and Becton Dickinson, for example, use tools to measure unconscious as well as conscious bias in their decisions.

11-2b. Prejudice, Stereotypes, and Discrimination

Another significant problem in many organizations is prejudice, which is an adverse feeling or opinion formed without regard for the facts. Prejudiced people tend to view those who are different as deficient. An aspect of prejudice is stereotyping. A stereotype is a rigid, exaggerated, irrational, and typically negative belief or image associated with a particular group of people.

When a leader and company act out prejudicial attitudes toward people who are the targets of their prejudice, discrimination occurs.

Paying a woman less than a man for the same work is gender discrimination. Refusing to hire someone because they have a different ethnicity is ethnic discrimination. For example, some years ago, a manager at a major bank encountered resistance from senior leaders because she wanted to hire an Indian applicant who wore a turban.

Such discrimination is not only unethical but also illegal in the United States. Leaders should be aware that there are a number of federal and state laws that prohibit various types of discrimination. Many companies, including Walmart, Texaco, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Mitsubishi, FedEx, eBay, and Abercrombie & Fitch, have been troubled by suits alleging the companies broke laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, gender, age, physical disability, or other diverse characteristics.

11-2c. Challenges People of Color Face

Put It Into Practice 11.3

Reflect on a time when you masked or downplayed any aspect of your physical, cultural, spiritual, or emotional self at school or work. Write down the reasons you hid part of yourself.

The Black Lives Matter movement, which began with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter in 2013, exploded following the May 2020 death of George Floyd, who was pinned by the neck under the knee of White Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for nearly 9 minutes. Floyd’s death and the ensuing anger, along with other incidents, thrust the debate about racial bias in the United States to the forefront of public attention. Chauvin was later convicted on charges of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter.

In organizations of all types and sizes, many people welcomed a renewed focus on the challenges people of color face. In a recent survey, 65 percent of Black respondents, compared to only 16 percent of White respondents, said they have to work harder to advance in their careers. Research verifies their concerns, showing that it takes longer for people of color to get their first promotion into management, and that they also struggle to move up the hierarchy. Recent research by McKinsey & Company shows that Black employees make up 12 percent of entry-level workers in the United States, but their numbers shrink to 7 percent just one step up the career ladder. The problem exists not only in corporate jobs but also in stores, warehouses, and call centers. Black employees hold 19 percent of hourly jobs in the field but make up only 13 percent of higher-level salaried jobs. By contrast, White employees start out as 52 percent of hourly workers and make up 60 percent of all salaried employees in the field. In mid-2021, only four Fortune 500 companies had Black CEOs (two of these female), down from the peak of six in 2012. A survey in 2019 found that Black people held only 3.2 percent of senior leadership roles at large companies in the United States, although they accounted for about 12 percent of the U.S. population.

Statistics are similar in the U.S. military. People of color make up 43 percent of the 1.3 million people on active duty, but of the 41 most senior commanders (those with four-star rank), as of May 2020 only two were Black—General Michael X. Garrett, commander of the Army Forces Command, and General Charles Q. Brown, Jr., commander of the Pacific Air Forces. On June 9, 2020, the U.S. Senate confirmed Brown as Air Force chief of staff, making him the first Black leader of a U.S. military service at a time when the entire country was grappling with racial issues. “The absence of minorities at the top means the absence of a voice to point to things that should have been addressed a long time ago,” said Brandy Baxter, a Black Air Force veteran. General Brown agrees. He said: “I’m thinking about a history of racial issues and my own experiences that didn’t always sing of liberty and equality…. I want the wisdom and knowledge to lead, participate in, and listen to necessary conversations on racism, diversity and inclusion.”

The frustration that many Black leaders and other people of color feel is reflected in the experiences of Leslie Miley, a Black engineering manager at Google. As Miley was heading into Google’s San Francisco offices one morning, he was physically stopped by another Google employee who demanded to see his employee badge, which was plainly visible, clipped to his belt. “Welcome to being Black in Big Tech,” Miley tweeted. Miley says it wasn’t the first time that “bias in badging” has signaled to people of color that “you don’t belong here.” Google isn’t the only big tech company that has a diversity problem. Large technology companies employ far fewer women and people of color than other industries. At Facebook, a dozen anonymous current and former employees said they are treated like they “do not belong” in a Medium post entitled “Facebook Empowers Racism Against Its Employees of Color.” One Black program manager says two White employees asked her to clean up after their breakfast mess. When she told her supervisor about the incident, she says she was told that she “needed to dress more professionally.”

Top executives at Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other technology companies are struggling to find ways to diversify their organizations and create a more inclusive culture. Other organizations also need to improve. A report by the Center for Talent Innovation, titled “Being Black in Corporate America,” points out that diversity and inclusion efforts are falling short across the corporate world. The study found that only 8 percent of people employed in white-collar professions are Black, and the proportion falls sharply at higher rungs of the corporate ladder. PepsiCo recently announced a goal of increasing the number of Black managers by 30 percent by 2025. The company committed to adding more than 250 Black employees to the managerial ranks, including a minimum of 100 Black employees to the executive level. Starbucks recently implemented an executive mentoring program for employees of color. The company’s COO, Roz Brewer, who is Black, believes the program is a good step toward helping more people of color rise through the ranks. “I can only imagine back in my own personal career if I had that opportunity,” Brewer said.

11-2d. The First Rung

For people of color, women, and other underrepresented employees, the struggle of moving up the hierarchy begins with the problem of simply getting on the first rung of the management ladder. A great deal of research has looked at the problem women have advancing in their careers. In December 2019, women held 50.4 percent of all jobs in the United States, and the trend of their greater participation in the workforce is expected to continue, with the number of working women growing and the number of men declining. But very few women are expected to break through the glass ceiling to reach senior leadership positions. Although the number of women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies was at an all-time high in early 2020, women-led companies still represented only 7.4 percent of the total. Both male and female Blacks and Hispanics continue to hold only a small percentage of all management positions in the United States.

The glass ceiling is an invisible barrier that exists for women and other underrepresented employees that limits their upward mobility in organizations. When executives are choosing a successor or someone for a top position, they tend to choose someone who is similar to them—and that has typically meant mostly male and mostly White. Women and underrepresented employees can look up through the ceiling, but prevailing attitudes and stereotypes are invisible obstacles to their own advancement. For women of color, advancing in their careers is even tougher. Ayanna S. Pressley, the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress from Massachusetts, says women of color face not simply a glass ceiling, but a concrete ceiling. The term double jeopardy has been used to describe the double dose of discrimination that women of color face. In a recent survey, more than 40 percent of Black and Hispanic women said they have been interrupted and spoken over in a work setting, and one third of the women surveyed said others have taken credit for their work or ideas. Asian employees bump up against the bamboo ceiling, a combination of cultural and organizational barriers that impede Asians’ career progress. Many Asian leaders have found themselves stereotyped as “not top executive material” because they are considered too quiet and unassertive.

Put It Into Practice 11.4

Today, reach out to someone in an underrepresented group to make them feel included.

A recent five-year study reveals that a more widespread and serious problem for women than the glass ceiling is missing the first rung, which is the first promotion onto the management career ladder. Men and women enter the workforce in roughly equal numbers, yet men outnumber women 2 to 1 when they reach that first step up the hierarchy. Thus, women fall behind early in their careers and continue to fall increasingly behind men in promotions, so the gender gap widens at every step up the hierarchy. Researchers have concluded that the first step toward solving the problem of a shortage of women in higher leadership positions is to attack the gender imbalance in initial promotions into management. Luz Damaris Rosario believes a promotion early in her career was crucial to her success. Rosario began working as a chemist at Goya Foods when she was 22 years old. Within two years, she was made a laboratory manager, overseeing a team of researchers in a Puerto Rico plant producing canned beans and tomato sauce. Today, Rosario runs one of Goya’s largest food-production plants in Houston. She says the early promotion empowered her, enabled her to gain a broader understanding of how the company operated, and gave her greater access to senior managers, enabling her to continue advancing up the hierarchy.

Data show that roughly equal numbers of men and women—27 percent and 29 percent, respectively—say they have recently sought a promotion, and that women are not stepping out of their careers in larger numbers than men for family or other reasons. Among the employees surveyed, 25 percent of women believe their gender played a role in a missed promotion or salary increase.

One significant problem is that women face a double bind because of stereotypes and prejudicial attitudes that persist about male and female behavior, even in todays’ age when evolving ideas about gender go beyond the binary male-female construct. When women are perceived to be warm and nurturing—as the prevailing stereotype expects them to be—they are considered too soft for a leadership position. However, when women take charge to get things done, they are often labeled as “pushy” or too aggressive. Tho Bella Dinh-Zarr, a former vice chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, captured the double bind when she described her participation in meetings, both in the public and private sector: “[If] I interrupt, I may easily be perceived as pushy. Yet if a man does it, he’s seen as having something important to say.” Jennifer Thorpe-Moscon, vice president of Catalyst’s Research Data and Innovation Lab, which has done in-depth research on this issue, says the “double bind applies in almost every area of the workplace; you encounter these double standards where men are viewed more positively for exactly the same behavior that women exhibit in any meeting.”

Remember This

Most people have a tendency toward ethnocentrism, which refers to the belief that one’s own culture and subculture are inherently superior to other cultures.

Research indicates that the human brain seems to be wired to categorize people by race in the first one-fifth of a second after seeing a face.

A big problem in organizations is unconscious bias, sometimes called implicit bias, which refers to attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understandings and actions without our conscious knowledge.

Researchers have documented unconscious bias in education, government, and the workplace, and companies are beginning to provide unconscious bias training to employees.

Prejudice is an adverse feeling or opinion formed without regard for the facts. A stereotype is a rigid, exaggerated, irrational, and typically negative belief or image associated with a particular group of people.

When a leader and company act out prejudicial attitudes toward people who are the targets of their prejudice, discrimination occurs.

Research shows that it takes longer for people of color to move into their first management job, and that they also struggle to move up the hierarchy. In 2019, Black Americans held only 3.2 percent of senior leadership roles at large companies in the United States, although they accounted for about 12 percent of the U.S. population.

The glass ceiling is an invisible barrier that separates women, people of color, and other underrepresented employees from top leadership positions. An even more widespread and serious problem is missing the first rung, which is the first promotion onto the management career ladder.

One significant problem for women is the double bind—when women are perceived to be warm and nurturing, as the prevailing stereotype expects them to be, they are considered too soft for a leadership position, but when they take charge to get things done, they are often labeled as “pushy” or too aggressive.

The term double jeopardy has been used to describe the double dose of discrimination women of color face.

Luz Damaris Rosario, who runs one of Goya’s largest food-production plants in Houston, says a first rung promotion early in her career empowered her, enabled her to gain a broader understanding of how the company operated, and gave her greater access to senior managers, enabling her to continue advancing up the hierarchy.

11-3. Ways Women Lead

A McKinsey global survey of 279 companies found that those with the greatest proportion of women on their executive committees earned a return on equity (ROE) 47 percent higher than did those with no female executive members. Another recent study by ISS Analytics indicates that organizations with gender-diverse executive teams performed better financially, were more highly valued, and had lower risk profiles than companies with no female executives. Indeed, several studies have found that companies where women make up a significant percentage of board members and senior management perform better than those with only a few women in high-level positions.

Research has looked at the leadership approach women use that contributes to these positive outcomes. Women often use a style of leadership that is different from men’s—a more collaborative, less hierarchical, and more relationship-oriented approach that is in tune with today’s global and multicultural environment.

There is some evidence that men may become less influential in the U.S. workforce, with women becoming dominant players, because women’s approach is more attuned to the needs and values of the shifting environment. For example, there’s a stunning gender reversal in U.S. education, with girls taking over almost every leadership role from kindergarten to graduate school. Hanna Rosin, journalist and author of The End of Men, suggests that women are more adaptable and easier to educate. Empirical studies do show that women students are more achievement oriented, less likely to skip classes, spend more time studying, and typically earn higher grades. This chapter’s Think on This box takes a closer look at various ways in which women appear to be outpacing men in the United States.

11-3a. Women as Leaders

According to James Garbarino, an author and psychology professor at Loyola University, women are “better able to deliver in terms of what modern society requires of people—paying attention, abiding by rules, being verbally competent, and dealing with interpersonal relationships in offices.” Garbarino’s observation is supported by the fact that female leaders are typically rated higher by direct reports on interpersonal skills as well as on factors such as task behavior, communication, ability to motivate others, and goal accomplishment.

As illustrated in Exhibit 11.3, one survey of followers rated women leaders significantly higher than men on several characteristics that are crucial for developing fast, flexible, adaptive organizations. Female leaders were rated as having more idealized influence, providing more inspirational motivation, being more individually considerate, and offering more intellectual stimulation. Idealized influence means that followers identify with and want to emulate the leader; the leader is trusted and respected, maintains high standards, and is considered to have power because of who she is rather than what position she holds. Inspirational motivation is derived from the leader who appeals emotionally and symbolically to employees’ desire to do a good job and help achieve organizational goals. Individual consideration means each follower is treated as an individual but all are treated equitably; individual needs are recognized, and assignments are delegated to followers to provide learning opportunities. For example, one of the strengths of Cynthia Carroll, who from 2007 to 2013 was the first female CEO of global mining company Anglo American, is “getting the most out of each individual.” Carroll also brought a new mindset to Anglo American to help the company become more global in its approach, reflecting intellectual stimulation. Intellectual stimulation means questioning current methods and challenging employees to think in new ways. In addition to these qualities, women leaders were judged by followers in the survey as more effective and satisfying to work for and were considered able to generate extra levels of effort from employees.

Exhibit 11.3 Comparison of Male and Female Leaders by Their Direct Reports

Details

Source: Based on Bernard M. Bass and Bruce J. Avolio, “Shatter the Glass Ceiling: Women May Make Better Managers,” Human Resource Management 33, no. 4 (Winter 1994), pp. 549–560

Think on This: Are Men Failing?

Here are some recent observations in the United States that suggest men are falling behind in today’s world:

In 1954, 96 percent of men between the ages 25 and 54 worked. In 2012, the male labor force participation rate was about 70 percent, and by 2020 it was down to about 66 percent.

Men still dominate the top of organizational hierarchies, but women are gaining in other areas.

Of the 15 fastest-growing professions, 12 of them are dominated by women.

Although men still earn more, men’s incomes have generally declined in the past decade while women’s have grown. Women in their 20s earn more money than men in the same age group.

By 2026, 57 percent of college students will be women. In Canada, women make up 58 percent of all college graduates between the ages of 25 and 29. Women make up 75 to 80 percent of graduates in education and psychology, and 60 to 75 percent in foreign languages, communications, and biology.

The rate of suicide among boys increases from slightly more than girls before age 15 to 4.5 times that of girls between the ages of 20 and 24.

Both Republican and Democratic political consultants say that, all else being equal, women candidates are now more desirable than men.

Overall, women’s participation in both the labor force and civic affairs has steadily increased since the mid-1950s, whereas men’s participation has slowly but steadily declined.

When there is a major upheaval in society, the people who were at the top of the old order of things (men) tend to cling to the old ways, whereas the people who were on the bottom (women) experience a burst of energy and take advantage of new opportunities. Are men failing? Or is this just a course correction that will have men and women making equal contributions to society?

What Do You Think?

Sources: Based on “Male Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate in the United States from 1990 to 2020,” www.statista.com/statistics/191725/us-male-civilian-labor-force-participation-rate-since-1990/ (accessed June 21, 2021); Philip Carl Salzman, “Why Men Are Falling Behind in Schools,” Minding the Campus (January 3, 2019), www.mindingthecampus.org/2019/01/03/why-men-are-falling-behind-in-schools/ (accessed June 21, 2021); Warren Farrell, “‘Boy Crisis’ Threatens America’s Future with Economic, Health, and Suicide Risks,” USA Today (April 7, 2019), www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/04/07/males-risk-boy-crisis-identity-america-future-addiction-suicide-column/3331366002/ (accessed June 25, 2021); Hanna Rosin, The End of Men—and the Rise of Women (New York: Riverhead/Penguin 2012); and David Brooks, “Why Men Fail,” The New York Times (September 10, 2012), www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/brooks-why-men-fail.html?_r=0 (accessed May 10, 2013).

Another analysis conducted by Zenger Folkman of 360-degree assessments of more than 60,000 leaders (22,603 women and 40,187 men) found that women were rated higher on almost all leadership competencies. In a follow-up study during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, scores for women were even higher than in the pre-pandemic studies. Women leaders were rated higher on 18 of the 19 leadership competencies (13 of these being statistically significant). Men were rated higher only on technical/professional expertise, but the difference was not statistically significant. The top ten competencies for which women were rated higher than men at a statistically significant level are:

Takes initiative

Learning agility

Inspires and motivates others

Develops others

Builds relationships

Displays high integrity and honesty

Communicates powerfully and prolifically

Collaboration and teamwork

Champions change

Makes decisions

Put It Into Practice 11.5

Think of your experiences working with leaders of different genders or races (consider leaders in broad terms as anyone over you in family, school, community organizations, or work). Rank order them in terms of their interactive, collaborative leadership style.

Moreover, employees reporting to women had higher levels of engagement. The employee engagement score for employees reporting to men leaders was 49.2 and for women leaders 55.2.

11-3b. Is Leader Style Gender-Driven?

Several researchers have examined the question of whether women lead differently than men. Although they are broad generalizations, social science research suggests that predominantly communal qualities, such as compassion and kindness, are more associated with women in general and predominantly agentic qualities, such as assertiveness and competitiveness, are more associated with men. Refer to Leadership Practice: Know Yourself 11.1 earlier in the chapter to see if your values are more communal or agentic.

Leadership traits traditionally associated with White, American-born males include aggressiveness or assertiveness, rational analysis, and a “take charge” attitude. Male leaders tend to be competitive and individualistic and prefer working in vertical hierarchies. They rely on formal authority and position in their dealings with followers.

Some women also reflect these characteristics, of course, but research has found that, in general, women prefer less competitive environments than men, tend to be more collaborative, and are more concerned with relationship building, inclusiveness, participation, and caring. Female leaders such as Deborah Kent, the first woman to head a vehicle assembly plant for Ford Motor Company, or Terry Kelly, former CEO of W. L. Gore & Associates, are often more willing to share power and information, to encourage employee development, and to strive to enhance others’ feelings of self-worth. “It does no good to have a diverse workforce if you don’t listen to their opinions and thoughts,” says Kent. “I treat people the way I want to be treated.”

Professor and author Judy B. Rosener has called women’s approach to leadership interactive leadership. The leader favors a consensual and collaborative process, and influence derives from relationships rather than position power and authority. Some psychologists have suggested that women may be more relationship oriented than men because of different psychological needs stemming from early experiences. This difference between the relationship orientations of men and women has sometimes been used to suggest that women cannot lead effectively because they fail to exercise power. However, whereas male leaders may associate effective leadership with a top-down command-and-control process, women’s interactive leadership seems appropriate for the future of diversity, globalization, and decentralized organizations.

Although the values associated with interactive leadership, such as inclusion, relationship building, and caring, are generally considered “feminine” values, interactive leadership is not gender-specific. These values are becoming increasingly valuable for both male and female leaders. Any leader can learn to adopt a more inclusive style by paying attention to nonverbal behavior and developing skills such as listening, empathy, cooperation, and collaboration.

Remember This

A McKinsey global survey found that companies with the greatest proportion of women on their executive committees earned a return on equity (ROE) 47 percent higher than did those with no female executive members.

Women often use a style of leadership that is different from men’s and that is more collaborative, less hierarchical, and more relationship-oriented.

In one study, women leaders were rated higher on 18 of 19 leadership competencies, with men rated higher only on technical/professional expertise.

Interactive leadership is a leadership style in which people develop personal relationships with followers, share power and information, empower employees, and strive to enhance others’ feelings of self-worth.

Any leader can learn to be more inclusive by paying attention to nonverbal behavior and developing skills such as listening, empathy, cooperation, and collaboration.

11-4. Becoming an Inclusive Leader

A top goal for today’s organizations is to ensure that all people are given equal opportunities and treated with fairness and respect, but leaders vary in their sensitivity and openness to other cultures, attitudes, values, and ways of doing things.

Exhibit 11.4 shows a model of five stages of individual diversity awareness, development, and actions. The continuum ranges from a defensive, ethnocentric attitude, in which leaders meet the minimum legal requirements regarding affirmative action and sexual harassment, to a complete understanding and acceptance of people’s differences, in which leaders value diversity and inclusiveness as an inherent part of the organizational culture.

Exhibit 11.4 Stages of Personal Diversity Awareness

Details

Source: Based on M. Bennett, “A Developmental Approach to Training for Intercultural Sensitivity,” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 10 (1986), pp. 179–196.

People at stage 1 see differences as a threat against their own comfortable worldview and frequently use negative stereotyping or express prejudicial attitudes. Leaders at this stage of diversity awareness consider themselves successful if their legal record is good. They may view women, people of color, and other underrepresented employees as a “problem” that must be dealt with. Typically, these leaders promote a few underrepresented employees to executive-level jobs to meet legal requirements.

At stage 2, people try to minimize differences and focus on the similarities among all people. This is the stage where unconscious and subtle bias is most evident because people have moved beyond openly prejudicial attitudes. Leaders don’t adequately recognize or respond to the challenges underrepresented employees face in the organization. For example, leaders at stage 2 might fail to address insensitive comments or actions toward or about women, people of color, or other underrepresented employees and might themselves engage in these microaggressions. The term microaggressions refers to statements or actions that are instances of indirect or subtle discrimination against members of a marginalized group. For example, a manager might refer to a report from a Black colleague as “actually being pretty good,” which implies that the colleague exceeded the manager’s low expectations, or a supervisor might compliment an Asian employee for speaking perfect English, which is in fact the employee’s first language.

When people move to stage 3 of diversity awareness, they accept the range of human differences and recognize the validity of other ways of thinking and doing things. Here, leaders become proactive and acknowledge that addressing issues of gender identity, race, disability, and so forth is important not just for the underrepresented employees but also for the health of the organization. They recognize that diversity can bring needed insight into developing and marketing products for new customers, so they look for ways to attract and retain high-quality employees that reflect a broad diversity. In stage 3 organizations, more women and underrepresented employees make it to high-level positions, and leaders begin providing diversity and inclusion training to all employees.

Leaders at stage 4 are able to empathize with people who are different from themselves and can comfortably shift from one cultural perspective to another. Leaders at this stage make a strong commitment to broad equality, inclusiveness, and community. They genuinely strive to develop policies and practices that are inclusive rather than exclusive and often become allies to underrepresented employees.

An ally is a person who is White or otherwise in the majority and actively works to support the advancement of people of color, women, and others who are underrepresented in the organization.

Allies stand up for those who experience discrimination or unfair treatment, and they work to understand where bias exists in organizational practices and policies.

Interest in allyship for many leaders was sparked largely by the protests that erupted after the death of George Floyd. Some companies began using ally training to help White leaders know how to advocate for Black colleagues and others who feel marginalized in the organization. Wilda White, a management consultant who also serves as chair of Vermont’s oversight commission on mental health and law enforcement, says she received a lot of texts from White colleagues asking how she was doing in the weeks following the George Floyd killing. She said it is nice when people want to express solidarity, but continuously striving to build meaningful relationships should be the goal. She emphasizes that White employees can help their Black co-workers by being respectful of their experiences rather than trying to smooth over difficult situations. “If a Black person tells you that they’re feeling something is racist,” White says, “just believe them.”

At stage 5 of diversity awareness, people are capable of integrating differences and adapting both cognitively and behaviorally. It is at this stage where leaders can create organizations that are gender- and color-blind. All employees are judged on their competence, and stereotypes and prejudices are completely erased. No group of employees feels different or disadvantaged. Stage 5 represents the ideal leader and organization. Although it may seem unreachable, many of today’s best leaders are striving to achieve this stage of diversity awareness and acceptance. As Inga Beale, former CEO of Lloyds of London, puts it, “We’re fighting against inequality all the time. [Achieving full equality] seems overwhelming, too big an issue to address. But we have to try. We have to aim for it.”

Put It Into Practice 11.6

Pick the stage in Exhibit 11.4 that is most like you. Write down your strategy for moving into the next higher stage.

The commitment of top leaders is critical to building organizations that embrace diversity, and all leaders can advance to higher stages of diversity awareness. For example, a series of highly publicized incidents of racial discrimination at Denny’s Restaurants in the early 1990s spurred top leaders to implement diversity and inclusion programs and provide diversity awareness training at every level of the company. Today, Denny’s is a model for diversity. The company releases annual diversity reports, the most recent of which shows that its group of more than 1,700 restaurants is 90 percent franchise owned. Nearly 50 percent of those franchisees are women, people of color, or entrepreneurs from other underrepresented groups. “Just like our employees, franchisees have to be a reflection of what our country looks like,” said April Kelly-Drummond, Denny’s head of diversity, equity, inclusion, and multicultural engagement. The report indicates that Denny’s workforce of more than 9,000 identifies as 68 percent minority, including 52 percent at the management level. The board of directors is 44 percent minority and 33 percent female. Moreover, Denny’s has spent more than $2 billion with diverse and underrepresented suppliers since beginning its Supplier Diversity program in 1993. Denny’s continues to push toward stage 5 of the diversity awareness scale in Exhibit 11.4.

Remember This

A top goal for today’s organizations is to ensure that all people are given equal opportunities and treated with fairness and respect, but leaders vary in their diversity awareness and openness to other attitudes, values, and ways of doing things.

Leaders evolve through stages of personal diversity awareness and action ranging from minimum efforts to meet affirmative action guidelines to valuing diversity as an integral part of organizational culture.

Microaggressions are statements or actions that are instances of indirect or subtle discrimination against members of a marginalized group.

An ally is a person who is White or otherwise in the majority and actively works to support the advancement of people of color, women, and others who are underrepresented in the organization.

The ultimate goal for leaders is to build organizations as integrated communities in which all people feel encouraged, respected, and committed to common purposes and goals.

11-5. How Leaders Encourage the Advancement of Underrepresented Employees

Personal diversity awareness is the first step to creating a culture that embraces diversity and inclusion and enables all people to reach their potential, thereby enabling the organization to perform at its best. Four effective approaches for ensuring that more people of color, women, and other underrepresented employees move to higher levels of the organization are employee resource groups, sponsorship, coaching and feedback, and expanded recruitment efforts.

11-5b. Sponsorship

Put It Into Practice 11.7

Imagine yourself being in an employee resource group made up of other people like you on dimensions important to you. What positive feelings arise? Make a list of how you might help other people experience those same feelings.

Sponsorship is one of the most effective ways in which organizations can promote capable women, people of color, and other underrepresented employees to the first rung up the management ladder and beyond. Sponsorship refers to strong support from a powerfully positioned executive who is willing to put their reputation on the line to promote an individual’s advancement to higher organizational levels. Sponsorship is mentorship on steroids. Mentors are important because they offer advice and guidance, but a sponsor actively helps the protégé develop relationships with other powerful people and advocates for the individual when big projects or promotions come up. TJ Wright says the ability as a Black women to move from being a bank representative at Synchrony Financial to being assistant vice president in the company’s consumer-banking operations is due in part to two senior level executives who sponsored her and vigorously campaigned for her as she sought larger roles in the company.

Sylvia Hewlett, author of Forget a Mentor, Find a Sponsor, led a two-year study that shows that sponsorship makes a measurable difference in career advancement for women and people of color. Sponsors make sure their protégés get considered for important projects and have opportunities to show what they can do. In addition, people with sponsors are more likely to ask for stretch assignments, request salary increases, and seek opportunities. Yet research also shows that only about 5 percent of underrepresented employees have sponsors compared to 21 percent of White male employees. Just as with job promotions, when senior leaders pick someone to sponsor, they almost automatically turn to people like themselves. Companies such as American Express, AT&T, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deloitte, Genentech, and Morgan Stanley have made sponsorship more accessible for women and people of color by making sure senior executives know of high-potential underrepresented candidates.

Dame Inga Beale, the first female CEO of insurance giant Lloyd’s of London (she stepped down from the job in 2019) and a powerful spokesperson for equality, is very aware of the challenges underrepresented employees face. When the Financial Times first featured Beale in its list of influential LGBT+ executives, she says she received hate mail telling her she “didn’t deserve to be alive.” Beale worked tirelessly at Lloyd’s to build a culture of inclusiveness and encourage sponsorship of talented underrepresented employees. She knows the difference a sponsor can make because she turned down her first promotion offer (in the insurance division of General Electric) because she says, “I didn’t think I was capable enough and I was petrified.” After her boss’s boss (a woman) took Beale out to dinner and told her to believe in her own ability and go for what she wanted, Beale took an assertiveness training course and then went back to the office, asked for the promotion she had previously turned down, and got it.

11-5c. Coaching and Feedback

According to a 2019 survey by Glassdoor, 10 percent of hiring managers said they believed they would lose good employees over the next year because of a lack of diversity and inclusion programs. The most effective companies include diversity training on an ongoing basis, addressing issues such as racism and sexism, discrimination, stereotyping, and unconscious bias. At a training session at Eli Lilly, Shannon Alston Rush talked about how it felt to be the only Black woman in a room many times during her career, “to be in the room where you’re leading the [profit-and-loss statement] yet no one is asking the questions.”

Many companies provide coaching to help diverse employees advance. Coaching in organizations is the process of someone engaging in regular conversations with an employee that facilitate learning and development by supporting strengths and overcoming obstacles to improve behavior and performance. Eli Lilly set up relationship-building and leadership development programs for Black, Hispanic, and Asian women, with the CEO and other top executives devoting three days of their time to the sessions. BioMartin Pharmaceutical also provides executive-level coaching to women and employees from underrepresented groups who show leadership potential. Since the program began, 35 percent of the participating women and 14 percent of the men have been promoted into new jobs. Lilly’s CEO says diversity and inclusion problems can’t be solved by “waving your CEO wand,” giving orders and getting results.

Personal feedback is an important aspect of coaching programs. Many lower-level managers from underrepresented groups don’t get the kind of candid, constructive feedback that research indicates is important for career advancement. For example, research by Shelley Correll, a professor of sociology and organizational behavior at Stanford, shows that leaders frequently give male employees specific, and sometimes harsh, feedback that helps them achieve specific goals, while they more commonly give vague, personality-based feedback to female employees. Correll analyzed more than 200 performance reviews and found that 60 percent of developmental feedback linked to business outcomes was given to men, with only 40 percent given to women.

Chapter-12

Chapter 12. Leadership Power and Influence

Your Leadership Challenge
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

12-1

Explain how leaders use power and politics to help accomplish important organizational goals.

12-2

Describe the four major styles of influential leadership—transformational, charismatic, coalitional, and Machiavellian.

12-3

Explain the difference between soft power and hard power and identify specific types of power used by leaders.

12-4

Describe structural, human resource, political, and symbolic frames of reference and political tactics for applying power.

12-5

Understand that effective leaders don’t use power to exploit others for personal gain.

Introduction

George Zimmer started Men’s Wearhouse in 1973 with one store in Houston, using a cigar box as his cash register. By the time he turned over the CEO job to his hand-groomed successor, Doug Ewert, television commercials in which Zimmer smilingly promised, “You’re gonna like the way you look. I guarantee it,” were famous. Men’s Wearhouse had stores all over the country and a growing digital presence. After almost 40 years, Zimmer resigned as CEO and stepped into the role of executive chairman, turning over the day-to-day operation of the company to Ewert and his top executive team. But Zimmer and Ewert soon began to clash. Tensions boiled over at a board meeting after the company announced that it wanted to sell a deep-discount menswear chain bought under Zimmer’s leadership. Zimmer strongly opposed selling the chain, and he was also furious that the board had voted to increase key executive salaries by as much as twofold without consulting him. The power struggle continued for a couple of months, after which Zimmer was fired. Late-night television show host Jimmy Kimmel joked that it was like firing Santa Claus.

George Zimmer learned the hard way that when he turned formal authority over to Doug Ewert, he lost most of the power that had enabled him to exert nearly absolute control at Men’s Wearhouse for decades. His role as founder and former CEO did not give him authority to run the company after stepping into a figurehead position—a bitter lesson in the reality of formal power. Power struggles frequently occur in organizations, and formal authority is only one type of power leaders might use to influence others to accomplish the goals they desire. Zimmer apparently did not try to use informal sources of power that may have been available to him.

This chapter explores the topic of leadership power and influence in detail. The chapter opens with a consideration of four types of influential leadership. We next examine what we mean by the terms power and influence, consider different leader frames of reference that affect how leaders think about and use power, look at the differences in using soft power versus hard power, and outline ways leaders exercise power and influence through political activity. Finally, we briefly consider some ethical aspects of using power and influence.

12-1. Four Kinds of Influential Leadership

New leaders often think of leadership power as something granted by an organization through the leader’s position, and formal position can indeed be a strong source of power, as illustrated in the opening example. However, leaders also have power that doesn’t depend on job authority, and they influence people through a variety of means. Power often depends on much more than a job title. Four types of influential leadership that rely on a leader’s personal style and relationships are transformational, charismatic, coalitional, and Machiavellian-style leadership.

12-1a. Transformational Leadership

Transformational leadership is characterized by the ability to bring about significant change in both followers and the organization. Transformational leaders have the ability to lead changes in an organization’s vision, strategy, and culture as well as promote innovation in products and technologies.

One way to understand transformational leadership is to compare it to transactional leadership. The basis of transactional leadership is a transaction or exchange process between leaders and followers. The transactional leader recognizes followers’ needs and desires and then clarifies how those needs and desires will be satisfied in exchange for meeting specified objectives or performing certain duties. Thus, followers receive rewards for job performance, whereas leaders benefit from the completion of tasks. Transactional leaders focus on the present and excel at keeping the organization running smoothly and efficiently. They are good at traditional management functions such as planning and budgeting and generally focus on the impersonal aspects of job performance. Transactional leadership can be quite effective. However, because it involves a commitment to “follow the rules,” transactional leadership maintains stability within the organization rather than promoting change.

Transactional skills are important for all leaders. However, in a world in which success often depends on continuous change, organizations also need transformational leadership. Rather than analyzing and controlling specific transactions with followers using rules, directions, and incentives, transformational leadership focuses on intangible qualities such as vision, shared values, and ideas in order to build relationships, give larger meaning to separate activities, and inspire people to participate in the change process. Transformational leadership is based on the personal values, beliefs, and qualities of the leader rather than on an exchange process between leaders and followers.

Put It Into Practice 12.1

Take a step toward transformational leadership on a team you’re involved with at school or work by expressing enthusiasm and optimism about achieving the team’s purpose and helping other team members see how they can contribute to that purpose.

Studies support the idea that transformational leadership has a positive impact on follower development, performance, and even organizational profitability. Moreover, transformational leadership skills can be learned as they are not ingrained personality characteristics. Transformational leadership differs from transactional leadership in four significant areas.

Transformational leadership paints a grand vision of a desired future and communicates it in a way that makes the pain of change worth the effort. The most significant role of the transformational leader may be to articulate a vision that is significantly better than the old one and to enlist others in sharing the dream. It is the vision that launches people into action and provides the basis for the other aspects of transformational leadership. Without vision, there can be no transformation.

Transformational leadership inspires followers to go beyond their own self-interests for the good of the group. Transformational leaders motivate people to do more than originally expected. They make followers aware of the importance of change goals and outcomes and, in turn, enable them to transcend their own immediate interests for the sake of the whole organization.

Transformational leadership elevates the concerns of followers from lower-level physical needs (such as for safety and security) to higher-level psychological needs (such as for self-esteem and self-actualization). Lower-level needs are met through adequate wages, safe working conditions, and other considerations, but the transformational leader also pays attention to each person’s need for growth and development. Therefore, the leader sets examples and assigns tasks not only to meet immediate needs but also to elevate followers’ needs and abilities to a higher level and link them to the organization’s mission.

Transformational leadership develops followers into leaders. Instead of strictly controlling people, transformational leaders strive to bring out the best in followers. They rally people around the mission and vision and define the boundaries within which followers can operate with greater freedom to accomplish goals. They enlist followers in identifying problems and help them look at things in new ways so they can bring about productive change to reach the vision.

Jeff Shell, CEO of NBCUniversal, is acting as a transformational leader to bring change to the entertainment giant’s many divisions, including the NBC network, news division, cable channels including Bravo and USA, and the company’s film studios and theme parks. One significant change involves pushing new movies onto digital platforms for home rental faster, rather than waiting months for Hollywood movies to run exclusively in theaters. Shell saw an opportunity to implement that vision when the COVID-19 pandemic forced theaters to close in the spring of 2020. For example, he had Universal release Trolls World Tour on a host of digital services rather than waiting for theaters to reopen, and it was a financial success. Shell has also shifted resources from broadcast and cable networks to the company’s new Peacock streaming-video service. Preaching the need for rapid adjustment, Shell says “pivot” so often that the Peacock team had the word printed on the front of T-shirts. Chris Meledandri, chief executive of Illumination Entertainment, the studio behind Universal’s lucrative Minions franchise, says he at first resisted the changes, wanting “to hold onto the world as I knew it.” But Shell’s leadership is having an impact. “I am certainly heading toward his vision of the future,” Meledandri said.

Put It Into Practice 12.2

When you are participating with a group in some school, work, or sports activity that you genuinely enjoy, try telling a brief personal story about your love of the activity that will appeal to people’s emotions. What effect did telling the story have on you? On others?

Effective leaders exhibit both transactional and transformational leadership patterns. They accentuate not only their abilities to build a vision and empower and energize others, but also the transactional skills of designing structures, control systems, and reward systems that can help people achieve the vision.

12-1a. Transformational Leadership
Transformational leadership is characterized by the ability to bring about significant change in both followers and the organization. Transformational leaders have the ability to lead changes in an organization’s vision, strategy, and culture as well as promote innovation in products and technologies.

One way to understand transformational leadership is to compare it to transactional leadership. The basis of transactional leadership is a transaction or exchange process between leaders and followers. The transactional leader recognizes followers’ needs and desires and then clarifies how those needs and desires will be satisfied in exchange for meeting specified objectives or performing certain duties. Thus, followers receive rewards for job performance, whereas leaders benefit from the completion of tasks. Transactional leaders focus on the present and excel at keeping the organization running smoothly and efficiently. They are good at traditional management functions such as planning and budgeting and generally focus on the impersonal aspects of job performance. Transactional leadership can be quite effective. However, because it involves a commitment to “follow the rules,” transactional leadership maintains stability within the organization rather than promoting change.

Transactional skills are important for all leaders. However, in a world in which success often depends on continuous change, organizations also need transformational leadership. Rather than analyzing and controlling specific transactions with followers using rules, directions, and incentives, transformational leadership focuses on intangible qualities such as vision, shared values, and ideas in order to build relationships, give larger meaning to separate activities, and inspire people to participate in the change process. Transformational leadership is based on the personal values, beliefs, and qualities of the leader rather than on an exchange process between leaders and followers.

Put It Into Practice 12.1
Take a step toward transformational leadership on a team you’re involved with at school or work by expressing enthusiasm and optimism about achieving the team’s purpose and helping other team members see how they can contribute to that purpose.

Studies support the idea that transformational leadership has a positive impact on follower development, performance, and even organizational profitability. Moreover, transformational leadership skills can be learned as they are not ingrained personality characteristics. Transformational leadership differs from transactional leadership in four significant areas.

Transformational leadership paints a grand vision of a desired future and communicates it in a way that makes the pain of change worth the effort. The most significant role of the transformational leader may be to articulate a vision that is significantly better than the old one and to enlist others in sharing the dream. It is the vision that launches people into action and provides the basis for the other aspects of transformational leadership. Without vision, there can be no transformation.

Transformational leadership inspires followers to go beyond their own self-interests for the good of the group. Transformational leaders motivate people to do more than originally expected. They make followers aware of the importance of change goals and outcomes and, in turn, enable them to transcend their own immediate interests for the sake of the whole organization.

Transformational leadership elevates the concerns of followers from lower-level physical needs (such as for safety and security) to higher-level psychological needs (such as for self-esteem and self-actualization). Lower-level needs are met through adequate wages, safe working conditions, and other considerations, but the transformational leader also pays attention to each person’s need for growth and development. Therefore, the leader sets examples and assigns tasks not only to meet immediate needs but also to elevate followers’ needs and abilities to a higher level and link them to the organization’s mission.

Transformational leadership develops followers into leaders. Instead of strictly controlling people, transformational leaders strive to bring out the best in followers. They rally people around the mission and vision and define the boundaries within which followers can operate with greater freedom to accomplish goals. They enlist followers in identifying problems and help them look at things in new ways so they can bring about productive change to reach the vision.

Jeff Shell, CEO of NBCUniversal, is acting as a transformational leader to bring change to the entertainment giant’s many divisions, including the NBC network, news division, cable channels including Bravo and USA, and the company’s film studios and theme parks. One significant change involves pushing new movies onto digital platforms for home rental faster, rather than waiting months for Hollywood movies to run exclusively in theaters. Shell saw an opportunity to implement that vision when the COVID-19 pandemic forced theaters to close in the spring of 2020. For example, he had Universal release Trolls World Tour on a host of digital services rather than waiting for theaters to reopen, and it was a financial success. Shell has also shifted resources from broadcast and cable networks to the company’s new Peacock streaming-video service. Preaching the need for rapid adjustment, Shell says “pivot” so often that the Peacock team had the word printed on the front of T-shirts. Chris Meledandri, chief executive of Illumination Entertainment, the studio behind Universal’s lucrative Minions franchise, says he at first resisted the changes, wanting “to hold onto the world as I knew it.” But Shell’s leadership is having an impact. “I am certainly heading toward his vision of the future,” Meledandri said.

Put It Into Practice 12.2
When you are participating with a group in some school, work, or sports activity that you genuinely enjoy, try telling a brief personal story about your love of the activity that will appeal to people’s emotions. What effect did telling the story have on you? On others?

Effective leaders exhibit both transactional and transformational leadership patterns. They accentuate not only their abilities to build a vision and empower and energize others, but also the transactional skills of designing structures, control systems, and reward systems that can help people achieve the vision.

12-1c. Coalitional Leadership

Transformational and charismatic leadership both suggest it is the individual leader who acts as a catalyst for bringing about valuable change toward achieving a goal or vision. Yet in most cases, successful change results from the efforts of a coalition of people rather than those of a single leader. Coalitional leadership involves building a coalition of people who support the leader’s goals and can help influence others to implement the leader’s decisions and achieve the goals. Coalitional leaders observe and understand patterns of interaction and influence in the organization. They are skilled at developing connections with a broad network of people and can adapt their behavior and approach to diverse people and situations.

Coalitional leaders develop positive relationships both within and outside the organization, and they spend time learning others’ views and building mutually beneficial alliances. Coalition building seems to be especially important in the political arena. A recent book titled The Man Who Ran Washington describes the political savvy of James A. Baker, who served as White House chief of staff during Ronald Reagan’s first term as U.S. president and went on to hold powerful positions as Treasury secretary in Reagan’s second term and secretary of state for George H. W. Bush. Baker flourished in politics partly due to his networking and coalition-building skills, fostering smooth relationships with Congress as well as aides, the media, and other outsiders.

Failing to build a coalition can allow conflict and disagreements to derail a leader’s decision, particularly if the opposition builds a powerful coalition of its own. Leaders always have to anticipate resistance, talk with people all across the organization, and make sure their decisions will benefit the overall organization. For example, leaders of the Los Angeles Rams knew that hiring a new head coach was a decision that would change the football franchise’s future for better or worse. Franchise owner and chairman Stan Kroenke and other top Rams leaders first came up with a list of about 30 desirable candidates, then involved people throughout the franchise in evaluating them. One name on the list was 30-year-old Sean McVay. Some leaders were apprehensive about the possibility of hiring a head coach who was 38 years younger than the team’s defensive coordinator. To make sure everyone would support the final decision, the interviewing process with McVay took place over a period of eight days and involved McVay meeting with players, staff members, and managers throughout the organization. The decision to hire Sean McVay turned out to be a good one. Two years later, he took the Rams to the Super Bowl, where he was the youngest head coach ever to reach the Super Bowl game and was eight years younger than the quarterback of the opposing team, Tom Brady.

Leaders can be more successful if they follow four steps for effective coalitional leadership:

Coalitional leaders talk to lots of people. Leaders have informal conversations with people from all across the organization to gather information and get a clear sense of the challenges and opportunities they face.

Coalitional leaders visit customers and other stakeholders. Coalitional leaders also solicit the views and input of customers as well as other potentially influential stakeholders, such as board members, government agencies, creditors, or others. When Jan Frank assumed leadership of the California State Compensation Insurance Fund in 2007, she found that this was a big part of her efforts to bring change to the agency, which was reeling from financial scandal, ethical violations, and a criminal investigation. In addition to talking with managers, employees, and board members, Frank met regularly with lawmakers and regulators to solicit their input regarding how to repair the agency’s credibility. She knew their support was crucial to achieving what she wanted for the agency.

Coalitional leaders may develop a map of stakeholder buy-in. Leaders typically find that there are some people who strongly support their goals and plans, some who adamantly oppose them, and a large percentage who could swing either way. As illustrated in Exhibit 12.2, in mapping the level of buy-in for any significant change, about 10 percent of people can typically be classified as advocates, those stakeholders inside and outside the organization who are strong supporters and will help lead the change effort. Another 10 percent might be partners, who support and encourage the change but will not actively lead it. Twenty percent are typically strongly opposed to the change. These resisters might even disrupt or sabotage change efforts. The remaining 60 percent are classified as observers because they have a neutral attitude toward the proposed ideas and changes.

Coalitional leaders break down barriers and promote cross-silo cooperation. The final critical step in coalitional leadership is continually breaking down barriers and promoting cooperation and collaboration across departments, divisions, and levels. At Tesla, Elon Musk sent an e-mail some years ago in which he cautioned that department managers “should work hard to ensure that they are not creating silos within the company that create an us vs. them mentality or impede communication in any way…. Always view yourself as working for the good of the company and never your department.”

Exhibit 12.2 Mapping Stakeholder Buy-In

Details

Source: Data are adapted from materials supplied by Experience Point, Inc., in conjunction with the Global Tech simulation, 2007.

Put It Into Practice 12.3

Practice building a small coalition for a cause or issue you care about at school or work. Talk to two people one-on-one to find out how they feel about the issue and try to identify people who might be advocates, partners, observers, or resisters, as defined in the text. Think of ways you might turn observers into partners or advocates.

12-1d. Machiavellian-Style Leadership

Niccolò Machiavelli was an Italian philosopher, historian, and political strategist who wrote The Prince in 1513 as a guide for political leaders of the day on how to acquire and use power. The term Machiavellian is often associated with unscrupulous, even diabolical behavior aimed at increasing one’s power for personal gain, but in reality Machiavelli’s essential argument in The Prince is that the welfare of the state must come first and foremost and that leaders must often do tough, even ruthless things in the spirit of the ends justifying the means. In other words, power is a tool used for securing the safety and stability of the organization. Despite the emphasis today on agreeableness and collaboration, many organizational leaders, scholars, and politicians agree with Machiavelli that it isn’t possible in an imperfect world to lead with “perfectly clean hands.”

Jeffrey Pfeffer, Stanford University professor and an expert on organizational power and politics, refers to the need for leaders to sometimes use bare-knuckle strategies to attain the clout they need to accomplish great things. As further described in the Leader’s Bookshelf selection for this chapter, Pfeffer believes that despite laudable personal achievements, power and politics almost always trump performance as a source of impact, so leaders had better be comfortable acquiring and using these tools. In today’s less-hierarchical organizations, leaders actually need more power than before to influence people. When Zia Yusuf, now a senior partner and managing director at Boston Consulting Group, was an executive vice president at SAP, he advised and taught the people who worked for him how to court favor with the top 50 people in the company. Yusuf knew that having people in high places increases power and helps accomplish goals. Yusuf was in charge of an initiative that linked suppliers, users, and developers and had to influence many people over which he had no formal authority, not only from across SAP but from many different organizations. Yusef succeeded because he was skilled at what he called “organizational dynamics”—the ability to influence people to get them to do what needed to be done.

As discussed in the previous sections, many types of leadership are used to influence people. Each style—transformational, charismatic, coalitional, and Machiavellian—relies on different assumptions and behaviors. With Machiavellian-style leadership, the leader is willing to use any means necessary to preserve and protect the well-being of the organization. The characteristics of Machiavellian-style leaders include the following:

They are always on guard for risks and threats to their power. Machiavellian-style leaders assume that people are basically fickle, greedy, and deceitful, so the leader is always alert to shifting loyalties and is not above using manipulation or pitting people against one another to retain or acquire more power to achieve goals.

They don’t mind being feared. Machiavelli warned that striving to be the most-liked leader can backfire when difficult times call for tough actions. By being too merciful and generous, leaders can ultimately allow disorder to destroy the organization.

They will use deception if necessary. The Machiavellian-style leader has no problem maintaining or using power by deceptive means to ensure the safety of the organization.

They use rewards and punishments to shape behavior. Machiavellian-style leaders don’t mind exploiting the fears and desires of people to get them to follow the rules and do what is necessary for the overall good.

Leader’s Bookshelf Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t

by Jeffrey Pfeffer

Managers may be granted positions of authority, but real power doesn’t just fall into a person’s hands. It takes ambition, resolve, energy, and skill to accumulate the power a leader needs to be effective and successful, Jeffrey Pfeffer says in Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t. Think doing a good job gets you power? Think again. As Pfeffer puts it, “welcome to the real world—not necessarily the world we want, but the world that exists.”

Power in the Real World

To accumulate power, you need to get noticed. Here are some of Pfeffer’s tips for doing so.

Play Up to the Boss. Pfeffer advises regularly asking people who have power what aspects of your job they think are most crucial and how they think you should be doing them. This is one tactic for making your boss and other people with power feel good about themselves. “The surest way to keep your position and to build a power base is to help those with more power enhance their positive feelings about themselves.” In Pfeffer’s view, flattery really can get you everywhere.

Master the Art of Networking. Try to forge a link between different parts of the company or between the company and important outsiders so that you become the center of a network. Build relationships with people that you can help and who can help you with information and resources. Playing the political game is necessary for acquiring power and getting things done.

Be Forceful but Pick Your Battles Carefully. People who appear forceful and self-confident gain power, whereas those who seem uncertain fade away. Something as simple as interrupting others in a meeting expresses confidence. Pfeffer says Andy Grove of Intel used to insist that his brilliant but shy managers attend wolf school where they “learned how to lean into a superior’s face and shout out an idea or proposal.”

Judiciously Break Some Rules. “The practice of flouting rules and violating norms actually creates power, as long as the culprit gets away with the behavior,” says Pfeffer. The rules favor the people who make the rules—those who already have power, and they don’t always benefit those who want to acquire it.

Is This the Right Way for a Leader to Act?

Pfeffer’s book has been criticized for failing to acknowledge that too much focus on obtaining power—and power itself—can be corrupting. Yet, as Pfeffer points out, without power leaders and organizations cannot hope to succeed. In addition, Pfeffer cites research showing that powerful people are wealthier, have more friends, enjoy a better quality of life, and even live longer, healthier lives. He offers this book as a how-to manual for getting and keeping power.

Source: Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t, by Jeffrey Pfeffer, is published by HarperCollins.

Like coalitional leaders, Machiavellian-style leaders are highly political, but whereas coalitional leaders focus on reaching out and working with others, Machiavellian-style leaders typically focus on gaining and using individual power. They may strive to gain control over information and resources such as jobs, rewards, financial support, and materials so that people depend on them for what they need, which increases their power. These leaders may also use any means necessary to preserve their power, but they do so because they believe the organization can be secure only if it has powerful leaders. There are times in every organization when tough, even bare-knuckle leadership is needed.

Suzanne Evans says she used Machiavellian-style leadership to save her family. Evans was newly married, finishing a dissertation for her Ph.D. in history, and caring for four children under the age of 8. It was total chaos, but like many mothers dealing with blended families, Evans was trying to be kind and generous to the children. “Yet as I read The Prince,” she says, “I realized that the more things I gave them, the more they expected and the less grateful they became.”

Leadership Practice: Know Yourself 12.2. What’s Your Mach?

Instructions: Leaders differ in how they view human nature and the tactics they use to get things done through others. Answer the following questions based on how you view others. Think carefully about each question and be honest about what you feel inside. Please answer whether each item is Mostly False or Mostly True for you.

   
Mostly False

Mostly True

1.

Overall, it is better to be humble and honest than to be successful and dishonest.

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2.

If you trust someone completely, you are asking for trouble.

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3.

A leader should take action only when it is morally right.

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4.

A good way to handle people is to tell them what they like to hear.

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5.

There is no excuse for telling a white lie to someone.

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6.

It makes sense to flatter important people.

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7.

Most people who get ahead as leaders have led very moral lives.

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8.

It is better to not tell people the real reason you did something unless it benefits you to do so.

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9.

The vast majority of people are brave, good, and kind.

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10.

It is hard to get to the top without sometimes cutting corners.

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Scoring and Interpretation

To compute your Mach score, give yourself one point for each Mostly False answer to items 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9, and one point for each Mostly True answer to items 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10. These items were drawn from the works of Niccolò Machiavelli, an Italian political philosopher who wrote The Prince in 1513 to describe how a prince can gain the power to protect and control his kingdom. From 8 to 10 points suggests a high Machiavellian score. From 4 to 7 points indicates a moderate score, and 0 to 3 points would indicate a low “Mach” score. Successful political intrigue at the time of Machiavelli was believed to require behaviors that today might be considered manipulative. A high Mach score today does not mean a sinister or vicious person but probably means the person has a cool detachment, sees life as a game, and is not personally engaged with people. Discuss your results with other students, and talk about examples of politicians or top executives whom you think would likely have a high or a low Mach score.

Source: Adapted from R. Christie and F. L. Geis, Studies in Machiavellianism (New York: Academic Press, 1970).

Evans decided that a tough Machiavellian-style approach might be just what was needed. Rather than respond with money to the children’s temper tantrums while shopping, she “guarded against a reputation for being too generous” on the next trip to Target by giving each one $10 and telling them to use it wisely because it was all they would get. To help her son Daniel do better in school, Evans used “divide and conquer” by pitting him against her daughter Teddy. When Teddy brought home a near perfect report card, she received a celebratory dinner at her favorite restaurant while Daniel got nothing. When Evans and her husband desperately needed a break, she used “be deceptive” by telling the children they were going on a business trip to avoid the whining and crying that would ensue if the children were excluded from a weekend getaway. The strategies worked. Shopping trips went smoothly, Daniel started receiving excellent report cards, and Evans and her husband had a great weekend away.

Although Machiavellian-style leadership appears to be the approach most motivated to gain and use power, all leaders rely on the use of power to influence others and get things done. In the following sections, we examine various types of power and how leaders apply power through influence tactics.

Remember This

Leaders use power and political processes to influence others and get things done. Four types of influential leadership that rely strongly on a leader’s personal characteristics and relationships are transformational, charismatic, coalitional, and Machiavellian-style leadership.

Transformational leadership is leadership characterized by the ability to bring about significant change in followers and the organization, in contrast to transactional leadership, which is based on a transaction or exchange process between leaders and followers.

Charismatic leaders have a strong emotional impact on people, and they inspire and motivate followers to do more than they would normally do, despite obstacles and personal sacrifice. Applied wisely and ethically, charismatic leadership can lift the entire organization’s level of energy and performance.

An example of a charismatic leader is Jack Ma, who cofounded and built Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. by articulating a bold vision to create a flagship enterprise that would give China a renewed sense of purpose and inspire other Chinese to realize that they could transform the world.

Leaders have learned that the use of facial expressions, physical gestures, and even tone of voice that contribute to powerful charismatic communication can be constrained in a digital setting, so they must pay more attention to both verbal and nonverbal communication.

In most cases, successful change results from the efforts of a coalition of people rather than those of a single leader. Coalitional leadership involves developing allies and building a coalition of people who support the leader’s goals and can help influence others to implement the leader’s decisions and achieve the goals.

To have broad influence, coalitional leaders develop relationships with others, listen to others’ needs and goals, and promote cooperation.

Leaders at the Los Angeles Rams used coalitional leadership to make the decision about hiring a new head football coach.

Machiavellian-style leadership is based on the belief that leaders must often do tough, even ruthless, things in the spirit of protecting the organization. Machiavellian leaders focus on acquiring individual power more than on collaborating with others.

12-2. Using Hard versus

Soft Power

Power is often defined as the potential ability of one person to influence others to carry out orders or to do something they otherwise would not have done. Other definitions stress that power is the ability to achieve goals or outcomes that power holders desire. “Simply put, [power is] the ability to have things your way.” The achievement of desired outcomes is the basis of the definition used here. Power is the potential ability of one person in an organization to influence other people to bring about desired outcomes. It is the potential to influence others within the organization with the goal of attaining desired outcomes for power holders.

Power can be categorized as either hard power or soft power. Hard power is power that stems largely from a person’s position of authority. This is the kind of power that enables a supervisor to influence direct reports with the use of rewards and punishments, allows a manager to issue orders and expect them to be obeyed, or lets a domineering CEO force through their own decisions without regard for what anyone else thinks. This is the approach to power typically taken by Machiavellian-style leaders. Transformational, charismatic, and coalitional leaders also use hard power, but they rely more often on soft power, which is based on personal characteristics and interpersonal relationships. Similarly, Machiavellian-style leaders also sometimes use soft power.

Power is realized through the processes of politics and influence. Influence refers to the effect a person’s actions have on the attitudes, values, beliefs, or actions of others. Whereas power is the capacity to cause a change in a person, influence may be thought of as the degree of actual change. For example, as a child you may have had the experience of playing a game you didn’t really want to play because one person in the group influenced others to do what they wanted. Or you may have changed your college major because of the influence of someone important in your life, or shifted your beliefs about some social issue based on the influence of political or religious leaders.

12-2a.

Hard Power

Most discussions of power include five types that are available to leaders. Exhibit 12.3 illustrates the five types of leader power, categorized as either hard power or soft power. Hard power includes legitimate, reward, and coercive power, which are defined largely by the organization’s policies and procedures.

Exhibit 12.3 Five Types of Leader Power

Hard Power

Soft Power

Legitimate: Based on leader holding a formal position or title. People accept leader’s right to issue orders or direct activities.

Expert: Based on leader’s special knowledge or skills. People trust and respect decisions because of leader’s expertise.

Reward: Based on leader having the ability to provide or withhold rewards. People comply in order to obtain desired rewards.

Referent: Based on leader’s personal characteristics. People admire and respect leader, like to be around them, and adopt the leader’s viewpoint.

Coercive: Based on leader’s ability to punish or to recommend punishment. People follow orders to avoid punishments.

Legitimate Power

Legitimate power is the authority granted from a formal position in an organization. For example, once a person has been selected as a supervisor, most employees accept that they are obligated to follow the person’s direction with respect to work activities. Certain rights, responsibilities, and prerogatives accrue to anyone holding a formal leadership position. Followers accept the legitimate rights of formal leaders to set goals, make decisions, and direct activities. Mark Zuckerberg, cofounder and CEO of Facebook, has been using his legitimate power to assert stronger control over the company in recent years. As described in Chapter 10, Zuckerberg made a number of changes that put him more directly in charge of decision making regarding key issues such as how to address criticism of the company’s effect on U.S. politics. Zuckerberg also used his legitimate power to replace the outside founders of Instagram and WhatsApp with managers loyal to him and to swap out five of the board’s nine members.

Reward Power

Power that stems from the authority to bestow rewards on other people is called reward power. For example, appointed leaders may have access to formal rewards, such as pay increases or promotions. As one example, to encourage more environmentally sustainable practices, top leaders at Royal Dutch Shell are setting three-year and five-year goals each year for cutting carbon dioxide emissions and linking pay raises of its executives to achieving the targets. Moreover, organizations allocate huge amounts of resources downward from top leaders. Leaders control resources and their distribution. Lower-level followers depend on leaders for the financial and physical resources to perform their tasks. Leaders with reward power can use rewards to influence subordinates’ behavior.

Put It Into Practice 12.4

Reflect on how you might develop personal relationships to increase your influence with others. Write down how you feel about developing relationships to increase your influence.

Coercive Power

The opposite of reward power is coercive power. It refers to the power to punish or recommend punishment. Supervisors have coercive power when they have the right to fire or demote subordinates, criticize, or withhold pay increases. Sometimes, leaders rely too strongly on their coercive power. For example, as reported in The New York Times and The Hollywood Reporter, dozens of former employees of Hollywood producer Scott Rudin, whose films include The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, said the powerful producer had a long history of “terrorizing” employees, attacking them verbally, hitting walls or desks when angry, or even hurling staplers, cell phones, or other items at people. An office manager reportedly was taken away by ambulance after having a panic attack. One intern was fired for moving too slowly to alert maintenance about a flickering ceiling light and another employee was fired for falling asleep while working late. Rudin recently announced that he was stepping back from active participation in his projects to “become a better person and address my [anger management] issues.” Coercive power is the negative side of legitimate and reward power.

12-2b. Soft Power

It is important to remember that position power and leadership are not the same thing. As we discussed in Chapter 1, a person might hold a formal position of authority and yet not be a leader. Even if they hold a formal position of authority, effective leaders don’t rely solely on their hard power to influence others. In today’s world, soft power is, more than ever, the tool of the leader. An example of the use of soft power comes from China’s Didi Chuxing, the largest ride-hailing platform in the world. Cheng Wei, the founder and CEO of Didi Chuxing Technology Company, focused on building personal relationships with leaders at companies such as Alibaba Group, Tencent, and Lenovo Group, seeking advice about how to best compete against Uber. The soft power approach helped to squash Uber’s bold ambition to conquer the Chinese ride-sharing market. After two years of operating in China and racking up more than $2 billion in losses, Uber managers agreed to sell the company’s Chinese business to Didi Chuxing.

Leaders in most of today’s successful organizations use soft as well as hard power to influence others and accomplish their goals. Soft power includes expert power and referent power, as shown in Exhibit 12.3.

Expert Power

Power resulting from a leader’s special knowledge or skill regarding tasks performed by followers is referred to as expert power. When a leader is a true expert, people go along with recommendations because of the leader’s superior knowledge. Based on one scholar’s research, leaders who are high in expert power are three times more influential than those without this type of power. Leaders at supervisory levels often have experience in the production process that gains them promotion. At top management levels, however, leaders may lack expert power because subordinates know more about technical details than they do. People throughout the organization with expertise and knowledge can use it to influence or place limits on decisions made by people above them in the organization.

Referent Power

This kind of power comes from leader personality characteristics that command followers’ identification, respect, and admiration so they want to emulate the leader. When workers admire a supervisor because of the way the leader interacts with them, the influence is based on referent power. Referent power depends on the leader’s personal characteristics rather than on a formal title or position. For example, Andrew Glincher, CEO and managing partner of the big law firm Nixon Peabody LLC, says he leads by asking a lot of questions and really focusing on the response. “I don’t learn much by what comes out of my mouth,” Glincher says. “Our assets go home every night. They have the choice whether or not they want to come back the next day. You can’t take that for granted.” Connecting with people and listening enables Andrew Glincher to influence people using soft, personal power as well as the hard authority of his position.

Soft power is especially visible in the area of charismatic leadership. As described previously, charismatic leadership is intensely based on the relationship between leader and followers and relies heavily on either referent or expert power. However, all good leaders make use of these types of power rather than using position power alone. The Think on This box talks about the far-reaching impact of referent power.

12-2c. Follower Responses to the Use of Power

Leaders use the various types of power to influence others to do what is necessary to accomplish organizational goals. The success of any attempt to influence is a matter of degree, but there are three distinct outcomes that may result from the use of power: compliance, resistance, and commitment, as illustrated in Exhibit 12.4.

Exhibit 12.4 Responses to the Use of Power

Details

When people successfully use hard, position power (legitimate, reward, coercive), the response is compliance. Compliance means that people follow the directions of the person with power, whether or not they agree with those directions. They will obey orders and carry out instructions even though they may not like it. The problem is that in many cases, followers do just enough work to satisfy the leader and may not contribute their full potential. Recall our earlier definition of observers in the discussion of coalitional leadership. These people don’t actively resist or sabotage the leader’s efforts, but they don’t fully participate in achieving the vision. However, if the use of hard power, especially the use of coercion, exceeds a level people consider legitimate, some followers will actively resist the attempt to influence. Resistance means that employees will deliberately try to avoid carrying out instructions or will try to disobey orders. Thus, the effectiveness of leaders who rely solely on position power is limited.

The follower response most often generated by soft, personal, and interpersonal power (expert, referent) is commitment. People become partners or advocates, rather than resisters or observers, as defined earlier. Commitment means that followers adopt the leader’s viewpoint and enthusiastically carry out instructions. Needless to say, commitment is preferred to compliance or resistance. Although compliance alone may be enough for routine matters, commitment is particularly important when the leader is promoting change. Change carries risk or uncertainty, and follower commitment helps to overcome fear and resistance associated with change efforts. Successful leaders exercise both personal and position power to influence others.

Think on This: The Ripple Effect

Do you want to be a positive influence in the world? First, get your own life in order. Ground yourself in this single principle so that your behavior is wholesome and effective. If you do that, you will earn respect and be a powerful influence.

Your behavior influences others through a ripple effect. A ripple effect works because everyone influences everyone else. Powerful people are powerful influences.

If your life works, you influence your family.

If your family works, your family influences the community.

If your community works, your community influences the nation.

If your nation works, your nation influences the world.

If your world works, the ripple effect spreads throughout the cosmos.

What do you think?

Source: John Heider, The Tao of Leadership: Leadership Strategies for a New Age (New York: Bantam Books, 1985), p. 107. Copyright 1985 Humanic Ltd., Atlanta, GA. Used with permission.

‘Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment.”

Mahatma Gandhi

Remember This

Power is the potential ability to influence others to reach desired outcomes, whereas influence is the effect a person’s actions have on the attitudes, values, beliefs, or actions of others.

Power can be characterized as either hard power or soft power. Hard power includes legitimate, reward, and coercive power, which are associated with a leader’s formal position of authority. Soft power includes expert and referent power, which are based on the leader’s knowledge, expertise, and personal qualities.

Legitimate power is based on the authority granted from a formal position. Power that stems from the authority to bestow rewards is reward power. The authority to punish or recommend punishment is called coercive power.

Expert power results from a leader’s special knowledge or skill. Referent power is based on personality characteristics that command followers’ attention, respect, and admiration so that they want to emulate the leader.

Three distinct outcomes may result from the use of power: compliance, resistance, and commitment.

The effective use of hard, position power generally leads to follower compliance, which means people follow the directions of the person with power regardless of how much agreement there is with that person’s directions.

The excessive use of position power—particularly coercive power—may result in follower resistance, which is the act of disobeying orders or deliberately avoiding carrying out instructions.

The follower response most often generated by personal (soft) power is commitment, which means people adopt the leader’s viewpoint and enthusiastically carry out instructions.

12-3. Increasing Power Through Political Activity

Acquiring and using power is largely a political process. Politics involves activities to acquire, develop, and use power and other resources to obtain desired future outcomes when there is uncertainty or disagreement about choices. Politically skillful leaders strive to understand others’ viewpoints, needs, desires, and goals, and use their understanding to influence people to act in ways that help the leader accomplish their goals for the team or organization.

For example, leaders at most organizations engage in some degree of political activity aimed at influencing government policies and decisions because government choices represent a critical source of uncertainty for businesses as well as nonprofit organizations. As one illustration of this, the American Hotel and Lodging Association, which counts some of the largest hotel chains among its members, has forcefully lobbied local, state, and federal officials to control Airbnb. The group has been able to get bills signed to impose steep fines on Airbnb hosts who break local housing rules, for instance. Airbnb is a significant threat to the hotel industry, so its trade group has implemented a long-term “multipronged, national campaign” to fight back.

Individuals also engage in political activity within organizations. Although some people have a negative view of politics, the appropriate use of political behavior serves organizational goals. Politics is a natural process for resolving differences among organizational interest groups. Political behavior can be either a positive or a negative force. Uncertainty and conflict are natural in organizations, and politics is the mechanism for accomplishing things that can’t be handled purely through formal policies or position power.

12-3a. Leader Frames of Reference

The appropriate use of power and politics to get things done is an important aspect of leadership. Before exploring political tactics, let’s consider leadership frames of reference and how a political approach combines with other leadership philosophies.

A frame is a perspective from which a leader views the world, and it influences how the leader interacts with followers, makes decisions, and exercises power. Four leader frames of reference illustrated in Exhibit 12.5 are structural, human resource, political, and symbolic. Leaders often begin with a limited structural perspective and develop the other frames as they mature and climb higher in their leadership development, thus achieving a more balanced mindset and approach.

Exhibit 12.5 Four Leader Frames of Reference

Details

Sources: Based on Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal, Reframing Organizations (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991); and L. G. Bolman and T. E. Deal, “Leadership and Management Effectiveness: A Multi-Frame, Multi-Sector Analysis,” Human Resource Management 30, no. 4 (Winter 1991), pp. 509–534. Thanks to Roy Williams for suggesting the stair sequence.

The Structural Frame

The organization as a machine is the dominant image in the structural frame of reference. Leaders strive for machine-like efficiency and value hard data and analysis for decision making. The structural frame places emphasis on plans, goal setting, and clarifying expectations as a way to provide order, efficiency, and stability. Leaders rely heavily on the power and authority granted through their organizational position to influence others (position power), and they emphasize clear job descriptions, rules and procedures, and administrative systems. This frame views the organization as a rational system and strives for clarity of direction and control of results.

The Human Resource Frame

According to the human resource frame, people are the organization’s most valuable resource. This frame defines problems and issues in interpersonal terms and looks for ways to adjust the organization to meet human needs. Leaders do not rely solely on their position power to exert influence. Instead, they focus on relationships and often lead through empowerment and engagement. Leaders use the human resource perspective to involve followers and give them opportunities for personal and professional development. The images in this view are a sense of family, belonging, and the organization as a clan.

Put It Into Practice 12.5

Imagine using the political frame more at work or school. Make notes about how your behavior would change and your feelings about engaging in those behaviors.

The Political Frame

The political frame views organizations as arenas of ongoing conflict or tension over the allocation of scarce resources. Leaders spend their time networking and building coalitions to influence decisions and actions. As with the coalitional leadership style we discussed earlier in this chapter, leaders with this frame of reference strive to build a power base, and they use both position and personal power to achieve desired results. The mindset in the political frame is to be aware of the organization as a jungle. Power and politics are considered a natural and healthy part of organizational life.

The Symbolic Frame

To use full leadership potential requires that leaders also develop a fourth frame of reference—the symbolic frame—in which leaders perceive the organization as a system of shared meaning and values. Rather than relying only on the use of formal power or the use of political tactics, leaders focus on shared vision, culture, and values to influence others. The dominant image is to see the organization as theater. Leaders are concerned with spirit and meaning, and they focus on harnessing followers’ dreams and emotions for the benefit of the organization and all of its people. Charismatic leaders, for example, often are engaged in this frame.

Each of the four frames of reference provides significant possibilities for enhancing leadership effectiveness, but each is incomplete. Many new leaders have not yet developed a political frame. Leaders can first understand their own natural frame, recognize its limitations, and then learn to integrate multiple frames to achieve their full leadership potential. Complete the questionnaire in Leadership Practice: Know Yourself 12.3 to understand your dominant frame of reference.

12-3b. Political Tactics for Asserting Leader Influence

A leader’s power is useless unless it is applied to influence others to implement decisions, facilitate change, and accomplish goals, which requires both skill and willingness. Not all attempts to use power result in actual influence. Some power moves are rejected by followers, particularly if they are seen to be self-serving. Leaders have to determine the best approach for using their power—that is, the approach that is most likely to influence others—by considering the individuals, groups, and situations involved. In addition, they understand the basic principles that can cause people to change their behavior or attitudes.

Put It Into Practice 12.6

Among a group of friends, attempt to influence the decision of where to go for lunch or which movie to see by gathering facts and data and logically arguing for the choice you prefer. Write down what attempting to influence others felt like.

Leaders often use a combination of influence strategies, and people who use a wider variety of tactics are typically perceived as having greater power and influence. One survey of a few hundred leaders identified more than 4,000 different techniques by which these people were able to influence others to do what the leader wanted. However, the myriad successful influence tactics used by leaders fall into basic categories of influence actions. Exhibit 12.6 lists six principles for asserting leader influence. Notice that most of these involve the use of soft, personal power rather than relying solely on hard, position power or the use of rewards and punishments.

Leadership Practice: Know Yourself 12.3. Your Leadership Orientation

Instructions: This questionnaire asks you to describe yourself as a leader. For each of the following items, give the number 4 to the phrase that best describes you, 3 to the item that is next best, and on down to 1 for the item that is least like you.

1.

My strongest skills are:

blank 1 a. Analytical skills

blank 1 b. Interpersonal skills

blank 1 c. Political skills

blank 1 d. Flair for drama

2.

The best way to describe me is:

blank 1 a. Technical expert

blank 1 b. Good listener

blank 1 c. Skilled negotiator

blank 1 d. Inspirational leader

3.

What has helped me the most to be successful is my ability to:

blank 1 a. Make good decisions

blank 1 b. Coach and develop people

blank 1 c. Build strong alliances and a power base

blank 1 d. Inspire and excite others

4.

What people are most likely to notice about me is my:

blank 1 a. Attention to detail

blank 1 b. Concern for people

blank 1 c. Ability to succeed in the face of conflict and opposition

blank 1 d. Charisma

5.

My most important leadership trait is:

blank 1 a. Clear, logical thinking

blank 1 b. Caring and support for others

blank 1 c. Toughness and aggressiveness

blank 1 d. Imagination and creativity

6.

I am best described as:

blank 1 a. An analyst

blank 1 b. A humanist

blank 1 c. A politician

blank 1 d. A visionary

Scoring and Interpretation

Compute your scores as follows:

Structural = 1a + 2a + 3a + 4a + 5a + 6a = blank 1

Human Resource = 1b + 2b + 3b + 4b + 5b + 6b = blank 1

Political = 1c + 2c + 3c + 4c + 5c + 6c = blank 1

Symbolic = 1d + 2d + 3d + 4d + 5d + 6d = blank 1

Your answers reveal your preference for four distinct leader orientations or frames of reference. The higher your score, the greater your preference. A low score may mean a blind spot. “Structural” means to view the organization as a machine that operates with efficiency to be successful. “Human Resource” means to view the organization primarily as people and to treat the family well to succeed. “Political” means to view the organization as a competition for resources and the need to build alliances to succeed. “Symbolic” means to view the organization as a system of shared meaning and values and to succeed by shaping the culture.

Do you view politics in a positive or negative light? Most new leaders succeed first by using either or both of the structural or people orientations. New leaders often have a blind spot about politics. As managers move up the hierarchy, they learn to be more political or they miss out on key decisions. The symbolic view usually comes last in a leader’s development. Compare your scores to those of other students and see which orientations are more widely held.

Source: Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership, 5e, Bolman. Copyright © 2013 Lee G. Bolman. Reproduced with permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Appeal to a vision or higher purpose. One effective way to attract people to new behaviors or to make significant changes is to frame the request in a way that emphasizes the vision or higher purpose of the change. Providing people with meaning can help them see that the effort of doing what you ask is worthwhile. For example, when he was president of Spectrum Health Hospital Group, Matt Van Vranken needed a way to influence 10,000 overworked, stressed-out health care professionals to go beyond their job descriptions and provide exceptional patient service. One key approach he used to influence people to make the right decisions was to connect their daily tasks to the welfare of individual patients. Every so often, Van Vranken would bring groups of employees together to hear former patients talk about their experiences and how the actions of individual workers affected their health and well-being.

Use rational persuasion. Perhaps the most frequently used influence tactic is rational persuasion, which means using facts, data, and logical arguments to persuade others that a proposed idea or request is the best way to complete a task or accomplish a desired goal. Indeed, a recent analysis of 11 frequently used influence tactics showed that rational persuasion is the one tactic that was consistently effective for all leaders. It can be effective whether the influence attempt is directed upward toward superiors, downward toward direct reports, or horizontally, because most people have faith in facts and analysis. Rational persuasion is most effective when a leader has technical knowledge and expertise related to the issue (expert power), although referent power is also used. Frequently, some parts of a rational argument cannot be backed up with facts and figures, so people have to believe in the leader’s credibility to accept their argument.

Help people to like you. We all know it’s easier to say yes to someone we like than to someone we don’t like. One author of a book on influence tells a story about an American working in Saudi Arabia, who learned that getting information or action from government offices was easy when he’d drop by, drink tea, and chat for a while. Cultural values in Saudi Arabia put great emphasis on personal relationships, but people in all cultures respond to friendliness and consideration. When a leader listens, shows concern for what others want and need, finds common ground, demonstrates respect, and treats people fairly, people are more likely to provide help and support by doing what the leader asks. In addition, most people will like a leader who makes them feel good about themselves. Leaders never underestimate the importance of praise.

Rely on the rule of reciprocity. A primary way to turn power into influence is to share what you have—whether it be time, resources, services, or emotional support. There is much research indicating that most people feel a sense of obligation to give something back in return for favors others do for them. This is one reason that organizations like Northrup Grumman, Kraft Heinz Foods, and Pfizer make donations to the favorite charities of House and Senate members. Leaders attempt to curry favor with lawmakers whose decisions can significantly affect their business. The “unwritten law of reciprocity” means that leaders who do favors for others can expect others to do favors for them in return. Leaders also elicit the cooperative and sharing behavior they want from others by first demonstrating it with their own actions. Some researchers argue that the concept of exchange—trading something of value for what you want—is the basis of all other influence tactics. For example, rational persuasion works because the other person sees a benefit from going along with the plan, and making people like you is successful because the other person receives liking and attention in return.

Develop allies. Reciprocity also plays an important role in developing networks of allies, people who can help the leader accomplish their goals. Leaders can influence others by taking the time to talk with followers and other leaders outside of formal meetings to understand their needs and concerns, as well as to explain problems and describe the leader’s point of view. Leaders consult with one another and reach a meeting of minds about a proposed decision, change, or strategy. One study found that political skill, particularly network building, has a positive impact both on followers’ perceptions of a leader’s abilities and performance and on the actual, objective performance of the work unit.

Leaders also actively work to build bridges and win over potential opponents. Gary Loveman, who left a position as associate professor at Harvard Business School to be the chief operating officer (COO) of casino company Harrah’s (now Caesar’s Entertainment), provides a good example. Some Harrah’s executives, including the CFO, resented Loveman’s appointment and could have derailed his plans for the company. Because he knew the CFO’s information, knowledge, and support would be critical for accomplishing his plans, Loveman made building a positive relationship with the CFO a priority. He stopped by his office frequently to talk, kept him informed about what he was doing and why, and took care to involve him in important meetings and decisions. Building positive relationships enabled Loveman to accomplish goals that eventually led to him being named CEO in 2003, and he continued to serve as CEO of Caesar’s until 2015. Some leaders also expand their networks through the hiring, transfer, and promotion process. Identifying and placing in key positions people who are sympathetic to the desired outcomes of the leader can help achieve the leader’s goals.

Ask for what you want. Another technique for influencing people is to be clear about what you want and openly ask for it. An example comes from Drugstore.com, where Jessica Morrison used direct appeal to get a new title and a salary increase. Morrison researched pay scales on PayScale.com and approached her boss armed with that and other pertinent information. Her direct appeal, backed up with research, won her the promotion. Leaders must be willing to sometimes argue forcefully to persuade others to their point of view. If leaders are not willing to ask and persuade, they seldom get the results they want. Political activity is effective only when the leader’s vision, goals, and desired changes are made explicit so the organization can respond. Leaders can use their courage to be assertive, saying what they believe to persuade others. In addition, leaders can use techniques of persuasion such as listening, building goals on common ground, and appealing to people’s emotions, as described in Chapter 9, to get what they want. Machiavellian-style leaders may even manipulate people’s emotions, such as activating peer pressure or phrasing a request in a way that emphasizes the potential loss rather than the potential gain. People will often go along with the request because people respond more strongly to a potential loss (loss aversion) than to a gain, as described in Chapter 8.

Exhibit 12.6 Six Principles for Asserting Leader Influence

Details

Put It Into Practice 12.7

Think of a time when you did a favor for someone and when someone did a favor for you. Write down the effect of these behaviors on both you and the other party.

Leaders can use an understanding of these tactics to assert influence and get things done. When leaders ignore political tactics, they may find themselves failing without understanding why. For example, former U.S. deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz doomed his career as president of the World Bank by trying to wield power without building the necessary relationships he needed to assert influence. Most World Bank leaders had been in their positions for many years when Wolfowitz arrived, and they were accustomed to “promoting each other’s interests and scratching each other’s backs,” as one board member put it.

Wolfowitz came in and tried to assert his own ideas, goals, and formal authority without considering the interests, ideas, and goals of others, quickly alienating much of the World Bank leadership team and board. Several high-level officers resigned following disputes with the new president. Eventually, the board asked for Wolfowitz’s resignation. “What Paul didn’t understand is that the World Bank presidency is not inherently a powerful job,” said one former colleague. “A bank president is successful only if he can form alliances with the bank’s many fiefdoms. Wolfowitz didn’t ally with those fiefdoms. He alienated them.”

Wolfowitz realized too late that he needed to use a political approach rather than trying to force his own agenda. Even when a leader has a great deal of power, political tactics are more effective than force for turning power into influence.

Remember This

Politics involves activities to acquire, develop, and use power and other resources to obtain desired future outcomes when there is uncertainty or disagreement about choices. Having a political perspective on the organization is important because leaders need to use politics to accomplish important goals.

A frame is a perspective from which a leader views the world; it influences how the leader interacts with followers, makes decisions, and exercises power. Four leader frames of reference are structural, human resource, political, and symbolic.

A leader with a primarily structural frame places emphasis on planning, setting goals, and clarifying expectations as a way to provide order, efficiency, and stability.

The human resource frame defines problems and issues in interpersonal terms and looks for ways to adjust the organization to meet human needs.

The political frame is a leader frame of reference that views the organization as an arena of conflict or tension over the allocation of scarce resources.

To use full leadership potential requires that leaders also develop a fourth frame of reference, the symbolic frame, which perceives the organization as a system of shared meaning and focuses on shared vision, culture, and values to influence others.

Leaders typically begin with a structural frame and develop other frames of reference as they mature in their leadership responsibilities and understanding.

Leaders use a wide variety of influence tactics, but they fall within some broad categories based on general principles for asserting influence. Six principles for asserting leader influence are appeal to a higher vision, rational persuasion, liking and friendliness, reciprocity, developing allies, and direct appeal.