A Lesson In Leadership From An Older Generation
At a time when autocratic leadership was the norm, some held true to humanistic ethical values even if they didn't call it that.
I was chatting to my Dad recently about work, and in particular, about his forty years of management experience in the construction industry. He was in his prime during the 70s and into the 80s, a period of distinct depression and poverty in Ireland. The country had only recently joined the EU (EEC as it was called at the time), infrastructure was non-existent, and unemployment was in the high teens. Prospects weren’t great for kids like me at that time, and my parents knew it, so many families emigrated to the US, Canada, or Australia. He and my mother strongly considered it, too, until an opportunity to manage a Middle Eastern project came his way in 1978. So they packed up the family, and we headed east.
My Dad had a great way with blokes, the workers, the men who put everything together. He spoke their language and could relate to their circumstances. He understood the on-the-ground experience that every manual worker endures, and he fought, albeit subtly, for their interests. I say endures because the construction game is, in effect, an assault on the person. This is true even taking into account today’s improved working conditions. The work is adversarial, and even though surface level optics attempt to convince you otherwise, if you’re in the game, you know to watch your back. Building sites are dirty, noisy, dangerous places where before the advent of health and safety standards, men would literally risk their lives daily to earn a crust. It was only with the arrival of multinational corporations to Ireland that standards were improved. I have little time for corporates, but that’s one good thing that they brought.
My father’s role was to manage projects and get them done on time and budget. But rather than taking a hard-line autocratic approach which was all too common at the time, he was a diplomat. He inherently knew the game, working with blokes, connecting with them, and forming a bond. But not in a disingenuous way; after all, he was one of them. As such, he garnered widespread respect despite being the one responsible for letting lads go as projects came to a close. He had a sharp edge, too, often telling workers as he fired them, “now, I’m not sacking you, you’re sacking yourself.” Afterwards, they’d buy him pints and thank him for the opportunity. To him, lads were not merely resources to get a job done; they were human beings like him. But not everyone saw it that way.
“Work is about a search for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying”
-Studds Terkel | Author & Broadcaster
He reminisced about the “good” old days and told me of the challenge he had navigating the complexity of labour meetings. “The language and rhetoric were poisonous,” he said. “They had no relationship with the men, and in many cases, didn’t even know them. Yet, they held very strong opinions on whether certain men should be kept on or sacked. It was often outright character assassination,” he said. “These were guys I worked with and who performed for me year-in, year-out, and management wanted to get rid of them. They simply didn’t understand how things worked on the ground.” When labour strikes hit in the 70s, he found himself on the side of the men. What senior management didn’t understand was that they needed to be on the workers’ side to have workers on their side. But like I said, the construction game was, and still is, adversarial.
Not only is it so in the construction industry, but in many workplaces, the relationship between managers and staff on the ground is antagonistic. It may be cooperative but only under threat of reprimand. Workers are often not allowed to think critically, and as much as we’d like to think leadership in organisations has changed for the better, I’d argue it has not. Even where the visuals have become more palatable, the underlying premises remain unchanged. Do what you’re told, and don’t question the status quo. Fulfil the role and follow the protocols to the letter; that’s how you get ahead.
The predominant system of leadership and management is not one that is actively challenged but one of momentum. Yes, I know HBR, McKinsey, and a host of business & management publications have extolled the virtues of Transformational Leadership for perhaps decades. Still, the fact is that F.W. Taylor’s Scientific Management remains dominant in the psyche of the workplace. It’s us versus them. Corporations want productivity–bottom line, and they are prepared to do what is necessary to get it. After all, if they fail to do so, they cease to be viable entities.
Monkey see monkey do, and generations of “doing” serves to train would-be managers how to perform for the company despite policy. You can employ all the leadership and management training you want. Still, if the core fundamentals driving the individual don’t shift from hierarchical to that of diversified yet complementary leadership concepts, culture doesn’t change.
The difference lies in the character and the fundamental ethics that are inherent in him or her. They are the moral principles that person has been constructing since they were born, and arguably even before that. People can change, I mean really change for the better. But there is something in all of us that is elemental, primary, constitutional, and if that character structure cannot adopt a humanitarian perspective, then nothing changes. Other human beings remain a means to an end. A certain orange-faced, red tie-wearing so-called Republican comes to mind. For him, loyalty and subordination are more important than measuring a situation and making decisions that can benefit more than them.
Change is happening; I’ll grant that. But there are many leaders and managers in corporations, small and large the world over, that still operate from a do-it-or-else state of mind. I know because I was one of those. The pressure to perform and uphold a particular self-concept can drive us to do things we wish we hadn’t. I’ll put my hand up to that. Had I known better, I may have made better decisions. Nevertheless, experience teaches. Words and theory don’t teach. So maybe we’ve got to be bad leaders before we become good ones.
On a final note, I believe that the workplace is invariably at odds with our humanity. The workplace requires us to subjugate ourselves to the ideal image and that has a detrimental effect on people–both managers and workers. It asks us not to follow what we feel, but to follow rules. These rules don’t serve us, they serve others further up the hierarchical chain. This is so blatantly obvious I can’t accept that everyone doesn't see it. I mean it’s so basic to how workplaces operate. So in that light, what is the leader’s role?
I’m not sure. Maybe we can address our leadership shortcomings in the modern workplace, or maybe it’s a square peg in a round hole scenario. I’m not certain it’s something that can be resolved given how society is currently structured.
Thanks for taking the time to read this week’s issue of The Lead. If you enjoyed this essay, consider becoming a supporter.