Forster N. - Maximum performance (2005)(en)

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and burnout (see Chapter 2). Outside work, they are more likely to engage in domestic violence against their partners when compared to non-toxic personalities (Murray, 2000). People with deeply toxic personalities can affect people in a similar fashion to the evil Dementors in the popular Harry Potter series, who ‘glory in decay and despair, and drain peace, hope and happiness out of the air around them’, and – literally – eat people’s souls (Rowling, 1999: 140).6

Some toxic personalities may become fully-fledged psychopaths. In a widely publicized research project on 105 psychopaths in Scottish jails in 1996, the British psychologist Lisa Marshall revealed that politicians and stockbrokers share many of the characteristics of criminal psychopaths. The only difference is that career high-flyers (a category that includes people in business) usually manage to stay within the law or at least not get caught. To be labelled ‘psychopathic’, an individual needs to display ten out of 16 psychopathological tendencies. These are selfishness, callousness, remorseless use of others, lying, cunning, failure to accept responsibility for actions, extreme egotism, extreme sense of self-worth, emotional instability, anti-social tendencies, need for constant stimulation, behavioural and emotional problems in childhood, juvenile delinquency, irresponsibility, unrealistic long-term goals and a sexually deviant or promiscuous life-style (Bennetto, 1996). Politicians, throughout the world, seem to be particularly prone to fraud and corruption and the financial and sexual temptations that come with high office. In the UK, for example, one of the reasons why the Conservatives were thrown out of office in 1997 was the widespread perception among the public that too many Tory MPs were sleazy, corrupt and sexually deviant.

In 2001, one of the shining lights of the Tory Party, Jeffrey Archer, was jailed for four years for perverting the course of justice in a 1987 libel case where he was accused of paying off a prostitute whose ‘services’ he had used. During his trial it was revealed that he had tried to cover up this indiscretion with a bribe, and had bullied his secretary into making false entries in his diary in order to provide an alibi for his whereabouts at the time. He also had to pay back the £500 000 damages awarded at the first trial in 1987. It was alleged at the time, by his exmistress, that Archer routinely used the services of prostitutes over a ten-year period, after his wife had refused him ‘marital privileges’. Archer faced further police investigations in 2002 over the ‘disappearance’ of £12 million from an aid fund called, with supreme irony, ‘Simple Truth’. Despite warnings from public officials who tried to remind politicians that Archer had also been declared a bankrupt in the 1970s, £10 million was donated to the fund by the Conservative administration. He was described at the time by the British psychologist

Adrian Furnham as having many of the characteristics of a psychopath (Leppard and Chittenden, 2001; The Sunday Times, 2001).

In an ideal world, toxic personalities would all herd together into their own organizations where they could play out the manipulative mind and power games that their damaged psyches seem to crave. Unfortunately, like an unwelcome virus, they seem to have spread themselves around almost all organizations. As Alistair Mant observed more than two decades ago, there is a disturbing number of toxic leaders and managers, ‘who seem to survive and flourish, spewing their neuroses all about them right to the bitter end’ (Mant, 1983: 5). They also appear to be particularly attracted to careers in politics, the law, finance and stockbroking or get-rich-quick scams and, in a few cases, even managing to juggle two or three of these at the same time (an issue we will return to in Chapter 12).

Something is wrong with – what shall we call it? Wall Street, Big Business. We’ll call it Big Money. Something has been wrong with it for a long time, at least a decade, maybe more. I don’t fully understand it. I can’t imagine it’s this simple: a new generation of moral and ethical zeroes rose to run Big Money over the past decade, and nobody quite noticed that they were genuinely bad people who were running the system into the ground. Those who invested in and placed faith in Global Crossing, Enron, Tyco or Worldcom have been cheated and fooled by individuals whose selfishness seems so outsized, so huge, that it seems less human and flawed than weird and puzzling. Did they think they would get away with accounting scams forever? Did they think they’d never get caught? We should study who these men are – they are still all men – and try to learn how they rationalised their actions, how they excused their decisions, and how they thought about the people they were cheating. I mention this because I’ve been wondering if we are witnessing the emergence of a new pathology: White Collar Big Money Psychopath.

(Abridged from Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal On-Line, 1 July 2002)

Toxic behaviour can cause significant problems in any workplace. It may result in lower morale and work performance as well as increased absenteeism, and possible legal costs associated with handling workplace bullying claims. In one survey, it was estimated that workplace bullying claims cost one Australian state, Victoria, $A26 million a year. Ray Catanzarita, a senior partner in the law firm Clayton Utz, made these comments at the time: ‘Examining the figures independently has highlighted the significant costs of bullying in the workplace. Aside from the immense financial cost, bullying can result in severe emotional and even psychological damage. With this point in mind, it may be timely to consider national standards to provide employers and employees with guidance on how to prevent, or at least minimise, workplace bullying. Violence and bullying are undesirable in any workplace, and any measure which may facilitate their reduction is a step in the right direction’ (abridged from Catanzarita, 2002). This

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suggests that a technique that is often used in selection and recruitment, psychometric testing, should be employed with anyone who applies for leadership or senior management positions in organizations. Perhaps this could also be extended to anyone who stands for elected public office, although this practice might impose impossible demands on the already overstretched psychiatric health resources of industrialized democratic countries.

Leaders who engage in unethical behaviour, who bully and intimidate other people or who discriminate against other people, on the basis of gender or race for example, are psychologically and behaviourally dysfunctional. Their obsession with money, status, power and control is often the source of their ultimate downfall, although a sizeable number of these people do get away with it. Nevertheless, this does have important implications for how we can deal with these characters (a topic we will return to in Chapter 7). The good news is that, if you are reading this book, it is highly unlikely that you are this type of leader or manager. You are likely to be someone who is regarded as a good ‘corporate citizen’, who is conscientious, altruistic and courteous to other people. You probably subscribe to the suggestion made by Peter Drucker many years ago, that leadership is not only about doing the right things but also about doing things in the right way (Drucker, 1966). You also realize that the kind of conduct described above is, by far, the most ineffective and unproductive way of leading and managing people at work.

With these thoughts in mind, let’s now turn to look at what kind of leader you would like to become in the future.

Exercise 1.3

What kind of leaders do you admire?

Below you will find a list of qualities, attributes and competencies that have been associated with business leaders and organizational leadership. Take a few minutes to reflect on these, and then circle the five that you would consider to be essential characteristics of a leader you would willingly follow in the future.

Before looking at the results of the two surveys below, please note your first five selections here

Your top five:

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Source: Adapted from Kouzes and Posner (1997).

Now, please compare your choices with the following two surveys.

Professor Barry Posner, Australian Institute of Management Leadership Conference, Hyatt Regency Hotel, Perth, Western Australia, 10 March 2004

‘What do you admire in a leader that you would willingly follow?’

Honesty/integrity

Competence/credibility Forward-looking/visionary Inspiring/motivational Fair-minded/equitable

(Communication that appeals to people’s hearts, hopes and dreams*)

* Communication was included in the ‘inspirational’ category

Source: based on Posner’s surveys of 220 000 managers and leaders worldwide over a 15-year period.

Graduate School of Management, Perth, Western Australia, Master of Business Administration Leadership Seminars 1997–2003

‘What do followers want from their leaders?’

Honesty and integrity

Competence/credibility

Inspiration and motivation

Creates direction/vision

Good two-way communication skills

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Parity and equity

(Another desired quality that often appeared in the top six was a good sense of humour)

Source: summary results from 15 seminars on leadership, attended by 478 MBA students, 1997–2003.

It is also noticeable how often these leadership qualities appear in the repertoire of admired fictional leaders. On a cultural and symbolic level it appears that all normal people respond in a very positive way to leaders who exhibit these qualities and characteristics. To illustrate this point, here are two well-known examples of such leaders.

Leadership qualities of Professor Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwart’s School for Wizards and Witches

Honesty and integrity Competent and credible Inspirational and motivational Brave and decisive

Good communication skills Fair and equitable

(Sense of humour)

Source: the first five Harry Potter books.

Leadership qualities of Jean-Luc Picard, Captain of the Starship Enterprise

Honesty and integrity Competent and credible Inspirational and motivational Brave and decisive

Good communication skills Fair and equitable

(Sense of humour)

Source: many enjoyable hours watching Star Trek: The New Generation.

A similar exercise can be carried out with some of the principal characters in Tolkien’s trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. A comparison of these preferred and admired leadership qualities, attributes and characteristics is presented in Table 1.2.

How did your choices compare with the above? At this stage in our journey, it doesn’t matter if they are different. However, it is worth reflecting for a few minutes about why these desired leadership attributes appear again and again, in academic research, in leadership and management development workshops, in seminars with MBA students, in fictional contexts and in the real world. If we look in more detail at these desired qualities, attributes and characteristics, the leaders/ managers that most people want to follow demonstrate the following.

Honesty and integrity

The word ‘honesty’ comes from the Latin honestas, meaning ‘quality’ or ‘honour’, and ‘integrity’ is derived from integra, meaning ‘wholeness’. These are almost always identified as the most important leadership qualities whenever this exercise is used with MBAs, or with groups of managers in leadership workshops. This indicates that almost all managers and professionals have great respect for leaders who do not engage in Machiavellian political games, and who exude professional trust, integrity, empathy and reliability. These leaders do not make promises they cannot keep, and do not break their promises once they have been made (see Chapters 3, 4, 7 and 12).

Competence and credibility

Not surprisingly, these are highly valued leadership attributes, and are often associated with industry-relevant experience, practical business knowledge, intelligence and dynamism. There is little doubt that followers do respond more positively to leaders who they believe have ‘clout’, who possess ‘smarts’, who can represent the best interests of their followers, who are able to make difficult and important decisions and see their ideas through to execution (see Chapter 8).

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Inspiration and motivation

Often ranked as the most important attribute of good leaders by many MBAs is a willingness to treat their followers as intelligent, creative human beings who will contribute more to any organization, given the right encouragement, opportunities and rewards. To be more accurate, this ability is actually a consequence of an understanding of how not to demotivate one’s followers (see Chapters 3–5).

Vision/sense of direction for the future

To be visionary requires an ability to be creative, innovative and adaptable to change, combined with a high capacity for learning (see Chapters 8–11). This also implies the ability to make brave decisions when followers are uncertain, vacillating or full of doubt. Human beings will respond to these capabilities in the same way as they have done for millennia, because they still want to be shown a way, a road or a path to the future by leaders they trust and respect.

Good communication skills

These invariably appear in managers’ selections of desirable leadership attributes. This complex cluster of skills and competencies includes a capacity to listen actively, knowing how to appeal to hearts as well as minds, the ability to build relationships through dialogue, to communicate with everyone in a direct and personal way, and a capacity to walk the talk and lead by example (see Chapters 3 and 8).

Equity/parity

This is an attribute of leaders who treat all their followers fairly, equitably and with respect, and do not create in-groups of favourites. They do not make prejudicial judgments about people on the basis of their ethnicity, culture, race, gender, sexual orientation or physical abilities. When they do make judgments about other people, these are made on the basis of their character, values, abilities, work performance and the tangible contributions they make to their organizations (see Chapters 4 and 6).

A sense of humour

The German sociologist Max Weber once described charisma as being ‘the joker in the pack’, in his pioneering work on the growth and

characteristics of bureaucratic organizations in western industrialized nations (Gerth and Wright-Mills, 1977: 245–8). The real joker in the pack these days is probably a significant and often overlooked attribute of effective leaders: a good sense of humour (GSOH).

Why could a GSOH be an important leadership/management attribute, and why might followers respond positively to this? When you have some free time, browse through the hundreds of job advertisements for senior managers and business leaders that appear in your local newspapers. You’ll be struck by the very high calibre of senior staff that companies seek to attract. Frequent references are made to the need for ‘exceptional communication skills’, ‘enhanced ability to lead teams’, ‘the ability to motivate and mentor staff’, ‘highly developed people management skills’, ‘exceptional leadership abilities’ and so forth. One might reasonably conclude from this that public and private sector organizations throughout the world are crammed full of leaders and managers who exhibit these admirable qualities. But are they? Try this quick test: get a piece of paper and write down the names of ten senior managers or leaders whom you have worked under that possess the positive attributes, qualities, characteristics and skills identified in this section. Almost all job advertisements are very predictable, repetitive, stale shopping lists of ideal competencies and qualities that seem to have little connection with the characteristics that some recruits actually exhibit once appointed. One has to search very hard to find advertisements like the Roc Oil Company advert in 1997, that ended with the memorable line, ‘Doom merchants, office politicians and prima donnas need not apply for these positions’, or the Apple Computer advertisements that sought ‘Raging, inexorable, thunder-lizard evangelists’ to work for them during the late 1980s. Remarkably, one essential factor missing from every single job advertisement I’ve ever seen is, ‘Having a good sense of humour’.

‘Humour’ comes from the Latin word, umor, meaning ‘fluidity’ or ‘flexibility’, and has been the subject of academic research since the mid-19th century (Spencer’s The Physiology of Laughter, 1860). Contemporary research indicates that this is an overlooked leadership/management attribute, even though it would appear to be common sense that it should be an important part of leadership. For example, evidence presented at the British Psychological Society’s Annual Conference in January 1999 indicated that staff give far greater credence to humour in their senior managers than they do to intelligence and are more productive than staff who work for humourless managers (Forster, 2000a). A survey by the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and

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Industry of 53 medium and large businesses revealed that employers are looking for certain personal attributes in addition to technical job skills these days. These included positive self-esteem, a balanced attitude to work and family life, excellent communication skills, motivation, enthusiasm, commitment and, above all, a sense of humour (Stock, 2002). This indicates that an important quality for aspiring leaders to acquire is a good sense of humour. It may not be essential for effective leadership, but it definitely helps. Why? Because all humans are born with a hard-wired capacity to laugh, even those who may appear to be humourless. Babies start to smile after a few weeks, and laugh at three to four months. All normal people become hardand soft-wired to respond to humour and fun. According to the ancient Greeks, ‘Laughter is the language of the Gods’, and if we can infuse our leadership style with some humour, we will get a positive response from almost all of our followers (Bushell, 2002). As Brian Tracy has observed,

At almost any time, you can measure how well you are doing in your personal and work relationships by one simple test: laughter. How much two people, or a family laugh together is the surest single measure of how well things are going. When relationships are truly happy, people laugh a lot. When a relationship turns sour, the very first thing that goes is the laughter. This is true for companies as well. High performing, high profit organizations are those in which people laugh and joke together. They enjoy one another and their work. They function smoothly and happily as teams. They are more optimistic, more open to new ideas, more creative and more flexible. I used to think that people were an important part of any business. Then I learnt a great truth: people are the business.

(Tracy, 1995: 3)

Intuition tells us that a sense of humour is an important but often overlooked personal attribute of effective leaders. Humorous people often have the desirable leadership attributes described in this chapter in abundance, because they are usually psychologically healthy, don’t take themselves too seriously and have a real interest in other people. Humorous people are often good to work with and laughter is one of the best on-the-job stress relievers we know about (see Chapter 2). In almost all circumstances, humour can be used to defuse tensions and conflicts. According to the godfather of lateral thinking, Edward de Bono, humour is also closely linked to creative and innovative abilities, a suggestion we will return to in Chapter 9. In contrast, humourless people often have overbearing egos, are unable to listen to others and are toxic to some extent. So, if you are already a leader, why not ask job candidates to tell a few jokes or cite instances when they have used humour to diffuse tense or difficult situations at work? This approach may well help in the process of sorting the ‘doom merchants, office politicians and prima donnas’ from the people you really want to hire and work with.

Furthermore, some companies have built the concept of fun into their organizational cultures. These include the SAS Institute (the largest privately owned software company in the world), Scandia, Cisco Systems, Southwest Airlines, Google, Deloittes and Diageo (formerly Guinness UDV). At Google HQ, The Googleplex, more than 230 employees work within an organizational culture that ‘pampers’ their employees and encourages fun:

The prevailing mood of Silicon Valley’s hottest company is similar to that of a classroom full of teenagers. People whisper jokes to each other and there are frequent interruptions of laughter. One could scoff at the [exercise] balls or dismiss the lava lamps as juvenile. But when it certainly doesn’t harm production innovation, or popularity, what difference does it make? You may as well pull up a ball, sit down and realise that in five years every boardroom in the world will have its own set of big plastic balls and a pingpong table. It’s a fun-loving crowd. They really enjoy life and are very enthusiastic about being around one another. They spend a lot of time there when they’re not working.

(Abridged from Bouleware, 2002)

In Deloittes, the culture is based around seven core values, ‘Recruit and retain the best, talk straight, empower and trust, continuously grow and improve, aim to be famous, think globally, and have fun and celebrate.’ In the UK company Diageo, ‘Celebrations and social events are a key part of the culture. It attempts to foster happiness at work, believing that it is essential for the workplace to be filled with fun and good humour for everyone.’ The Australian divisions of these two companies were ranked in the top 30 ‘Best companies to work for in Australia’, during 2002 (Corporate Research Foundation, 2003: 64, 74).

Southwest Airlines (SA), selected by Fortune as ‘The best company in the USA to work for’ in 1998, has a number of core values underpinning its people management policies. The first two are ‘Work should be fun . . . it can be play . . . enjoy it’ and ‘Work is important . . . but don’t spoil it with seriousness’. As O’Reilly and Pfeffer observe, ‘Part of taking care of employees at Southwest entails an emphasis on having fun at work. Humour is a core value and part of the Southwest style and spirit’ (2000: 32). One of Herb Kelleher’s first actions, after he became chairman of the company in 1978, was to order the personnel department to hire people with a sense of humour. Southwest pilots and flight attendants were encouraged to make safety and other announcements fun, and to be creative in the process.

Passengers have been greeted by attendants dressed as leprechauns on St Patrick’s Day, and have had safety instructions delivered in the form of a stand-up comedy. This philosophy of fun gradually pervaded the entire company. Despite what more traditional managers might think, there was genuine method to this apparent madness. In 1982, when