Leadership and Behavioral Science
[Submitted CA. Girish Borkar,
FCA,
Mumbai, Maharashtra]
February 15, 2009
I have been thinking of writing a few lines based on what we learnt in management and what I have experienced over the years in real life. Academically there are quite a few styles of management – namely Autocratic, Bureaucratic, Charismatic, Democratic/Participative, Laissez-faire, People oriented/relations-oriented, Servant, Task-oriented, Transactional and Transformational.
These different approaches or “styles” to leadership are based on various assumptions and theories. The style that fits one may not fit another as they are based on a combination of beliefs, values and preferences as well as on the corporate or organizational culture wherein the norms may encourage some styles and discourage others.
Autocratic and Bureaucratic styles are self explanatory. I would like to analyze the charismatic style in slightly more detail as this method is more individualistic and could vary from person to person – though remaining the same at the core. Charismatic relies on the charisma of the leader – this style could involve pumping in large doses of encouragement and enthusiasm into the team to motivate them to deliver organizational goals. The trouble with this kind of leadership is that the charismatic leader tends to believe more in himself than in the team. If you observe a charismatic leader in operation you will note that these guys are good at picking up the moods and concerns of both individuals and larger audiences and moulding their responses accordingly. When speaking such people make the person/s across the table feel that he/they are the most important people in the world thereby gaining their trust and getting their work done. Later acts may belie the trust reposed but that does not affect the organizational objective which would, by then have been achieved. This kind of leadership is very interactive and sometimes can go out of hand if the leader starts giving personal attention to the smallest detail in spite of having a professional team in place.
Leadership at the highest level in an organization should focus on growth and business strategy to give a vertical direction to the business. Sometimes due to overenthusiastic personal relations with the employees, such leaders tend to believe what is told to them by their “friends” and to show that they care, tend to take uninformed decisions, more out of emotion than reason. There are two sides to every coin and such decisions usually end up harming or polluting the business environment.
The charismatic form has a lot to do with behavioral science also as such leaders are invariably a very good judge of people and use this knowledge to their advantage. Such leaders are not immune to lying or giving out mis-information or dis-information to get what they want. The trouble is when you start deviating from the truth to achieve organizational goals and start believing more in your charisma, the human tendency is that one actually starts to believe the fib to be the fact. One actually starts getting enmeshed in ones own web of perceived facts till you reach a point where the actual facts do not really matter in the eyes of the leader – as long as the goal is achieved.
In these days where corporate oversight is quite literally intrusive and corporate governance norms are becoming stringent this kind of leader would need to do a lot of explaining on overall corporate objectives. But you will notice that they get out of tight situations because they are good judges of people and are glib talkers, explaining in extremely convincing fashion the goals, objectives and targets along with their plans to achieve them.
Sometimes you may find such leaders working in teams – wherein one plays the good cop and the other the bad cop. This team works beautifully to get things done, wherein the bad cop questions everything and the good cop plays the role of mediator to achieve the desired objective.
All the other forms of leadership mentioned above are also self explanatory. Servant style is in a way similar to democratic style wherein a group makes a discussed and informed decision.
I would like to end this post with a very relevant quote by William James – “The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook”.
