Wielding Power with Generosity and Support

Laughter and smiles are often signs of relaxed comfort, quite the opposite of hierarchal power imposed on the organizational structure, where scowls are more common than smiles. In such status-based organizations, power is assigned according to rank, and there is little wiggle room for the free expression of inner resources on the part of “lower-ranking” subordinates. Here status reigns supreme, not open awareness.

True power can never be lost, except at the point of a gun, of course. In a free and open culture, an effective leader who wield power with generosity and support will merely become a more steadfast and credible leader, resulting in greater loyalty and commitment within the organization. This approach to leadership and management encourages much more creative productivity within the organization. The hierarchical approach, ironically, results in further conflict and sense of frustration throughout the organization, since there is little opportunity to express and resolve such conflict. So the end result is low morale and high turnover, though no one admits to exactly why. The status quo is maintained with flagrant disregard for changing business realities.

Consultants often hop on the bandwagon of their employer’s status thinking and neglect to challenge existing ways. They often don’t appreciate the for enlightened management in business-what is going on out there in the marketplace, for instance-before leaping into new, reengineered makeovers. In his book Early Warning, Ben Gilad refers to this blind delusion as “cocoonism”, where there is little awareness of outside factors, allowing the Status Factor to reign supreme from within. From Gilad’s point of view, overdependence on those consultants that aren’t up to par, sometimes going from one to another, results in a situation where less and less is given to hearing the realities of the outside world.

According to Gilad in an explanation of his term industry dissonance from Early Warning, “Powerful leaders evoke powerful mechanisms to explain away the facts, sustain the denial, and dismiss the signals from the outside world that don’t support their views.” Once an organization reaches critical mass, often with the help of expensive but ineffective consultants, common sense and good management can get overrun. Gilad maintains that “when reality and conviction are at odds with each other, conviction often wins.” The hierarchy-driven delusion can lead to “groupthink,” creating a blind spot where awareness would otherwise have its rightful place. This is exactly the process that led to energy brokers at Enron, not to mention AIG and other financial institutions, giving in to greed and to the ultimate demise of the organization.