LEADERSHIP AND LOYALTY
The difference between
personal loyalty, professional loyalty and organisational loyalty and
implications for leadership
A
while ago I wrote that I have a couple of ideas for blogs which may be
interesting/useful for the Leadership Forum
(list below) and asked which would
people be interested in. The above title got the vote, so here goes…
I always find it interesting to ask “Who do you work for?” and then listen carefully to the response.
I always find it interesting to ask “Who do you work for?” and then listen carefully to the response.
The answer may be I work in IT, or I work
for the XYZ Organization, or I work for ABC Department. These are all
legitimate answers, but in their difference they betray how we identify
ourselves and our affiliations. Which tribe(s) we are a member of, and which
tribes we regard as “family”.
Similarly “What do you do?” might elicit
something about their profession (I’m an accountant), something about their product
(I work in a widget factory) or something about their customers (I export
widgets for making wodgets faster)
This becomes interesting in organizational dynamics
because how we identify ourselves and our contribution will affect our loyalty
to our profession, our organization, our product, our customers or our values.
For example, someone who works in Health
and Social Care might be expected to have values about patients and caring that
outplay other considerations of cost and value. If they are an accountant they
might be expected to focus principally on the numbers, value for money etc.,
over other factors.
However this is too simplistic and stereo-typical.
What if they are an accountant in Health and Social Care? Clearly they will
feel the need achieve a balance of servicing two masters: their professional obligations
(follow the ‘accounting rules’) and their role obligations ensuring the smooth
operation of the organization. Usually these things can co-exist happily, but periods
of change can bring challenges.
If someone has worked in XYZ Organization,
or indeed for ABC Department for 20 years they are likely to have built loyalty
to the people, processes and circumstances that surround that dynamic. It
therefore seems counter-initiative that they might align themselves to a new
leader whose tenure is short and whose tenancy is temporary. Similarly someone
fresh to the organization in the absence of well-established roots might
gravitate to the new and novel.
The challenge for leaders is to create an environment
or narrative that allows people to maintain some stability, to save face, to preserve
integrity but potentially to but their efforts in a wholly different direction,
potentially with new people, processes and systems and possibly toward a
different end.
Leaders like loyalty, but good leaders don’t
like “Yes people”. Loyalty is highly valued. But misplaced loyalty is
dangerous. Someone who sticks by the rules may be irksome, or have integrity.
Someone who bends the rules may be flexible, or untrustworthy. The same
circumstances can be seen very differently by others with a different
perspective. Is a whistleblower a hero or a villain?
As far as change management goes I have noticed
that the organizations who are loyal to the long-established friendships and
patterns of behavior are the most difficult to change. Those whose loyalty is independent
of the organization (eg happy to be an accountant in any organization) change most quickly.
The challenge for leadership is to leverage
people’s loyalty (to values, beliefs,
relationships) to serve their own ends. We would recognize that great leaders like
Winston Churchill managed to galvanize a nation at a time of war, but failed
when it came to peace.
In today’s current geo-political environment
we are seeing populations challenge themselves and their leaders about what
they believe in, about their purpose and about the ends and means. As we enter
a post-Brexit and President Trump era it will be interesting to see the effect
of loyalty (to whom and for what) will play a part in what we change and how we
change.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tim Rogers is an AMPG Qualified Change
Practitioner, a PRINCE2 Project Manager, with an MBA in Management Consultancy.
Past projects have included the incorporation of Ports of Jersey and Operations
Change and Sales Support for RBSI and NatWest. He is a tutor/lecturer for the
Chartered Management Institute and a
past curator for TEDx (TEDTalks)
Web: http://www. AdaptConsultingCompany.com
Twitter: @AdaptCCompany
No comments:
Post a Comment