Beyond “Déjà vu”: Uncertainty and the Need for Leadership

Why do we need leaders? Before trying to answer the question “why” we need leaders, it might be useful to consider the question “when” do you need leadership? What occasions and circumstances require “leadership” rather than other solutions (such as management)? When is leadership more effective than any other solution and how does that relate to the business environment?

I once attended a lecture by Keith Grint, a professor of public leadership, who taught a real eye-opening concept of when leadership is necessary. The start point is that management is dealing with the “déjà vu” (seen this before) whereas leadership is dealing with “jamais vu” (never seen this before). Elaborating on this, Grint built a theory (which appears in the British Association of Medical Managers “Clinical Leader”, 2008, Vol. 1, No.2) of how leadership is all about dealing with uncertainty.

Here’s a summary followed by my culturally biased critique (“et alors”).

“Wicked Problems and Clumsy Solutions: the Role of Leadership.”

Grint defines two key axes for analysing a given situation: one reflects the increasing level of uncertainty about a solution to a problem; the other reflects the increasing requirement of “collaborative compliance” required to achieve a solution. Moving across these two axes simultaneously, one can see the three following situations:

Command

·         There is no uncertainty about the solution as the crisis requires an immediate answer.

·         To achieve a solution, coercion, physical strength or authority is required.

·         The form of the “solution” is therefore “commanding” – providing answers.

Management

·         There is little uncertainty about the solution to the problem as it is usually a “tame” problem i.e. whilst possibly complicated, it has been seen before and is resolved in a linear fashion.

·         To achieve a solution, “calculative compliance” is required using a rational process.

·         The form of the “solution” is therefore “managing” – organising processes.

Leadership

·         There is high uncertainty about the solution to the problem as it is usually a “wicked” problem i.e. inevitably complex, contextual and with no clear link between cause and effect it might never have been seen before.

·         To achieve a solution, authority is passed from the individual to the collective because only collective engagement can hope to address the problem (cf. “normative compliance”).

·         The form of the “solution” is therefore “leadership” – asking questions.

Et alors?

It might look like the problems faced by any given business are “tame”, but if you look again and put the business in the context of the complex and fast-changing, never-before-seen environment then it could be argued that all the problems faced by businesses today are “wicked”. With the relative position changing every day, we therefore need leaders to constantly adapt the business towards an uncertain future.

As Grint says, the “irony” of leadership is that it is often avoided where it might seem the most necessary! Unfortunately, this seems apparent in large industrial companies where there is a legacy of “engineering mite” always having provided a solution to very complicated issues. Unfortunately, given that perfectly tried-and-tested processes are in place to solve “tame” issues, when a “wicked” problem comes along, it is often treated as another “tame” problem. Beyond “engineering culture”, is the dilemma of trying to solve “wicked” problems as if they were “tame” more evident in French culture than elsewhere?

Professor Geert Hofstede analysed national cultures to see how they affect values in the workplace. One of his five dimensions is the Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) which deals with a “society's tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity”. To quote Hofstede, “It indicates to what extent a culture programs its members to feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. Uncertainty avoiding cultures try to minimize the possibility of unstructured situations by strict laws and rules, safety and security measures, and on the philosophical and religious level by a belief in absolute Truth; 'there can only be one Truth and we have it'.” On this scale, French culture scores highly (86) while Anglo-Saxon cultures score low (e.g. USA, 46 and UK, 35).

Can we therefore conclude from Hofstede’s study that French society is organised to avoid uncertainty (including uncertain solutions); and in combination with Grint’s theory, that the French workplace culture is therefore likely to try and categorise problems as “tame” so they can be solved using management “solutions”? In uncertain times, businesses need to find as many solutions as possible and given the “engineering cultures” along with the tendency to ordinarily avoid uncertainty within French culture, leadership is needed now more than ever in large French industrial companies! Grint elaborates on the questions to be asked: think of reflecting rather than reacting; think of constructive dissent rather than destructive consent; think of empathy and collective intelligence rather than egoism and individual genius... and then you have the framework of questions to build “leadership” in an uncertain environment.

The Difference between Management and Leadership

“Most US corporations today are over managed and under led”. This statement by Kotter could equally apply to European corporations but on this side of the Atlantic there is not necessarily the reflex that the solution to this problem is more (or even some) leadership. In France, the word for leadership is “le leadership” – it is often treated as an Anglo-Saxon concept that is literally quite foreign. A big problem for leadership development programs in France is that you cannot necessarily expect candidates to arrive at a course knowing what leadership is, wanting to learn it and wishing to apply it! The starting point is therefore to at least explain what leadership is…

The first “defining” article on this subject was written by Abraham Zaleznik in 1977 and asked the question “Managers and Leaders: are they different?”; however it is Kotter’s later simplicity which drew me back to his 1990 article looking at “What Leaders Really Do”. (Reprint R0111F at www.hbr.org). He builds on Zaleznik’s earlier work and whilst clarifying the differences, he also emphasises that management and leadership are complimentary.

Here's the summary followed by my culturally biased critique (“et alors”).

The difference between Management and Leadership, or “What Leaders Really Do”.

Management is about coping with complexity whereas leadership is about coping with change. They both involve deciding what needs to be done; creating networks of people to accomplish the objective; and then ensuring that the work actually gets done. However, managers and leaders achieve these tasks in different manners:

Planning and budgeting versus setting direction

·         Managers try to predict long-term orderly results from a complex environment.

·         Leaders have a vision of where the business ought to be in the future and direct strategies to achieve that goal.

Organising and staffing versus aligning people

·         Managers get the right people in the relevant positions to ensure processes and plans are followed correctly and efficiently.

·         Leaders constantly communicate their vision and strategy to all stakeholders and empower employees with a clear sense of direction.

Controlling activities and solving problems versus motivating and inspiring

·         Managers follow up on the plan, the budget and the process and then correct as necessary.

·         Leaders energise people – they inspire people with their vision and know how to motivate people at a human level.

Et alors?

Kotter really has made it simple. Unfortunately, in its simplistic form it can appear to readers working in big corporations the only place for leadership is at the very “top” of the organisation; however that is not the case (and not Kotter’s message).  There is room in big corporations to add value through leadership at all levels of the hierarchy. There are always going to be changes to be made at all different levels and those changes will require leaders to achieve them. Visions, strategy and direction don’t necessarily have to be sky-high – they need to be relevant and targeted at the right level.

Planning versus direction? What about those big corporations working in mature industries built on expert technical and engineering knowledge? The strategy department usually takes care of the long-term plan and it does not always seem like a change is even possible! In France, the difficulty starts with the “vision” thing. There are leaders in France and they do have visions, the trouble is however that those visions have to go through a complete Cartesian review to make sure that they can “survive” as a vision. Things might have moved on by the time the vision is “released”. A famous quote from a French government official once was “yes we know it works in practice, but does it work in theory?” The visions have to be “bullet-proof” in the French environment. Accordingly, the downside is that the occasional pragmatic try-and-see approach is not going to get very far; the upside is that when a vision does appear, it really is absolutely brilliant!

Organising versus aligning? With the occasional brilliant vision the old-style French leader never really felt compelled to embark on an Anglo-Saxon marketing campaign to “align” his stakeholders. Customers could be confused; partners would be baffled; governments might rather talk to others; and staff could argue but to no avail (better to spend some time getting back to the long-term plan)! But the vision made absolute sense and the responsibility was on others to make the effort to understand! Alas, this approach is no longer viable. In a multicultural context, leaders in large corporations of whatever national origin are going to have to “sell” their visions to all the stakeholders. Expectations amongst customers, partners, governments and staff are all going to be different in different countries and for the French, there are not many other countries in the world with a Cartesian mindset!

Controlling versus motivating? Without any sense of irony I have had French colleagues approach me saying “I can’t understand it, but my team is really unmotivated” as if it were none of their responsibility and the staff themselves were at fault (like naughty children)! An even more common phrase heard in French offices is “that new person on the team – she’s really well motivated”. The locus of motivation is more on the individual than on the manager in France, in contrast to the American model where the responsibility for providing motivation seems to rest with the leader. Is the solution not somewhere in between? Both the staff and the hierarchy have to provide some motivation. As Kotter said, management and leadership are complementary. So here’s hoping that all those big corporations in France continue to have good managers, but let’s not neglect the leadership aspect!

Towards Ethnorelativism: A development Model of Intercultural Sensitivity

Where to start? A question I have been asking for the last two weeks since I began this “leadership project”, but one thing is clear to me: there has to be an intercultural aspect added to leadership training going forward. The problem – intercultural sensitivity (or lack thereof) is often an issue in multinational companies headquartered in a particular nation. The need – most new employees signing up to a multinational company also expect it to be multicultural. The competitors – many companies are actively trying to promote intercultural awareness and believe there is a competitive advantage to be achieved. The market – suppliers are flooding it with intercultural training offers. An intercultural aspect has to be added!

So to start, I sought out the work of Milton Bennet, “Towards Ethnorelativism: A developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity” from “Education for the Intercultural Experience”, R M Paige (ed.), Intercultural Press, 1993.

Here’s the summary followed by my culturally biased critique (“et alors?”)

Towards Ethnorelativism: A Development Model of Intercultural Sensitivity

Ethnocentrism is, according to Bennet, “the assumption that one’s own culture is central to all reality”. To move “away” from this, he suggests three “Ethnocentric pitfalls” to overcome and then three “Ethnorelative approaches” to achieve, thus:

Pitfall 1: Ignore differences

• Probably ignorance due to isolation, it could also be denial.

Pitfall 2:  Recognise differences but evaluate them negatively

• Manifested by at first seeing others as inferior, then your (or another) culture as superior.

Pitfall 3: Recognise differences but minimize their importance

• In this pitfall people say “we are all the same” and focus on the similarities.

Approach 4: Recognise and accept differences

• Respect and appreciate all cultural differences, values, norms, assumptions, as well as the tangible aspects of the culture (not just the food)! 

Approach 5: Adaptation to differences

• Adaptation of behavior occurs but does not mean adoption (or assimilation). Empathy is used to try and see the world from the other culture’s relative viewpoint.

Approach 6: Integrate differences

• Instead of only temporarily adapting behavior, any situation at any time can be seen from any cultural viewpoint.

Et alors?

“Integrating differences” appears to be a nirvana-like state we can only hope for! I have rarely seen people at this level where according to Bennett “you are outside all cultural frames of reference by virtue of your ability to consciously raise any assumption to a meta-level” And that’s without losing your own sense of identity! Still there’s always that “expat void” where having lived overseas for a while you no longer feel fully connected to your home culture, nor completely connected to your host culture. Not quite the same though…

Anyhow, that’s probably not a level we will be seeing here just yet! Back in France, we need to learn to walk before we can learn to run this journey away from ethnocentricity… Having said that, perhaps France is not in pitfall number one: but then who is? Some isolated states in the mid-West USA… Perhaps Europeans are guilty of pitfall number two – seeing others (such as in the example above) as inferior and by definition, Europeans as superior? Generally speaking, that unfortunately seems to be the case. Take any European newspaper, any day of the week and there will be an article wherein it is noted that the Americans are inferior whereas the readers are smarter, better educated and always superior! Pitfall number two “seeing your culture as superior” does seem to be prevalent in this great nation. Who else has a city as wonderful as Paris, a language as rich and as beautiful as French, Cartesian logic, codified laws and who else has had a Napoleon? Surely everyone else is just catching up? Other cultures might achieve certain things, but no one has put it all together to anything which could possibly resemble France? Alas, that can sometimes be the start line here!

Pitfall number three appears to be common in the work environment: “Recognising differences but minimizing their importance” could be a tag-line for corporate diversity. This seems to be particularly notable amongst “grand-ecole” graduates who like to think that there is only one essential: intellect! Other aspects (including culture) are not important! Unfortunately, even at this inner-Cartesian core there are still cultural values, norms and assumptions which continue to have an impact on the way we behave. I once had a “grand-ecole” colleague insist that even if we are not all the same, we are all in the same company and should therefore behave according to the corporate culture. A good point, but unfortunately, the remark was hardly celebrating cultural diversity; instead, cultural differences were being minimized (and what if that corporate culture is ethnocentric to start with?)!

Approach number four, “recognize and accept differences” is something which can also be seen here in corporate France. (It is not just all pitfalls!) Many executives have been expatriated or otherwise exposed to an international environment. Differences are recognized and accepted, but not necessarily all the time: outside work and in general conversations – yes; when at work and talking business – no! Then it’s usually back to one of the pitfalls! Again, the corporate culture can quite often be inextricably linked with the local national culture and so it is difficult to move away from one of the ethnocentric pitfalls during work. Finally, approach number five, “adaptation to differences” is still a project. Yes, “you need to adapt” – that is what is often said, but what tends to be meant is that people arriving in a new culture (“expatriates”) need to adapt to that (“host”) culture. Unfortunately, if we are going to truly move away from ethnocentricity we all need to adapt. The expatriates and the host: both need to adapt to the differences of each other!