Who serves who? Who are you?

NOTE! The views presented herein are those of the author only and do not necessarily represent my affiliations in any fashion whatsoever.

With more than 9,000 published theories on leadership and management we can safely assume that there is literally a plethora of categorizations of leaders. All these approaches have merit in that they focus on leadership in certain dimensions. One I would like to discuss here is a very simple one – the master/servant perspective. Despite being a simple perspective, it says a lot about people and work environment. 

Basically, you have the leader who believes that the employees are there to make him look good, i.e., serve him, or you have the leader who believes that he is there to help his employees succeed. 

For many people, this is a no-brainer. Yet, every now and then you stumble into dinos who seriously believe that it is more important that they look good upwards than they working for the frontline and make them as effective and efficient as possible, i.e. serve the employees. If you think of business as war, it is relatively easy to understand that the army where the soldiers are well fed and have enough guns and ammo will do a lot better than the army where the general have the nicest uniform. One of the greatest military commanders in history, the Chinese general Zhuge Liang wrote about 2000 years ago:

Good generals of ancient times took care of their people as one might take care of a beloved child. When there was difficulty they would face it first themselves, and when something was achieved they would defer to others. They would tearfully console the wounded and sorrowfully mourn the dead. They would sacrifice themselves to feed the hungry and remove their own garments to clothe the cold. They honored the wise and provided for their living; they rewarded and encouraged the brave. If generals can be like this, they can take over anywhere they go.

He enjoyed great respect also among his enemies – he never lost a battle. Unsurpassed.  Thus, there is no doubt which leadership produces results and which pretends to produce results!

Clearly, this ancient wisdom and modern management and leadership have much of the same ideas in this case. So, how come we still have these dinos? I believe that the distribution of human qualities throughout history is relatively constant although they materialize differently in different contexts. Thus, this is not a generational issue – that would follow a simple linear view of history leading to erroneous conclusions. 

No, they have an entirely different source. They come from themselves, which is why it was stated earlier that this perspective tells you a lot about the leader as a person. They come from themselves in the sense they are self-serving first, and serving the corporation second (at best). 

Some of them are strayed and misdirected people being formed by equally strayed misdirected people before them. Some are just unsure and use this to cover their insecurities. Some of them, however, are political chameleons as discussed in an earlier post using it to achieve their own ends often at the expense of others. This is particularly true if the corporation has a politicized culture where who you know and who says what is unusually important.  In this environment, there are typically more such people than in other corporations.  In a sense, we are facing an organizational version of Gresham’s law (bad money drives out good).  Thus, in such corporations, bad people drives out good people.  There are probably more ways at looking at it too, but the point is that we cannot be conclusive about the type of person, but we can be conclusive that it is a person to watch out for. 

Some of the clues these people give out is statements of the kind:

·       Your job is to make me look good (few are this direct, but they exist).

·       I must choose <something> first (thereby sending a signal of being more important). 

·       You must prioritize my meetings first (even at the expense of meeting customers and other key stakeholders). 

All these statements come from an assumption these power people make either explicitly or tacitly that they are more inherently more important than you. If the person makes these assumptions explicitly that indicates that they are power-seeking people and aware of it. This means it is a rational calculation on their part, but you are merely means to an end. Yet, since they are rational about it, it is still possible to reason with them. 

If the person makes these assumptions tacitly that indicates a much deeper problem. They are not aware of themselves, but they seek power and they probably feel an entitlement compared to their subordinates. These people are not rational and therefore impossible to reason with. Naturally, we are talking about shades of grey – probably more than 50 too – but over a little period of time it becomes clear which is which. The difficult question then arises – so what? 

Are you to conform, be authentic or exit? The people with the tacit assumption about entitlement and power are difficult, and the literature typically advice to exit. However, if you do have support from more powerful people higher up, take them on so that the ones above can take them out. The most challenging part comes when these people have a diagnosis consisting of the dark triad of narcissist, psychopath/sociopath and Machiavellianism, as discussed in an earlier post. They have an ability to look good upwards and hence the only option is exit. The conformist approach leads to your own destruction as an authentic individual whereas being authentic will lead to being fired (or death in the old days). 

The rational people are different. Since they can be reasoned with, being authentic is a viable approach because they may respect you for it and find you useful. However, they must not feel threatened in any way or it is out. So, in the end of the day you must decide how important it is to be authentic for you. It is the riskiest approach when facing such people, but as discussed in an earlier post; being authentic is the only way for the true professional whether you are a leader or not. The Vikings had a saying for this situation in the poem H?vam?l (The speech from the High, i.e. Odin):

Om spjutet honom sparde, daudan kjem like kvar [1] .

This might be slightly too dramatic for most, but I think the drive of being authentic lies in most of us. Copies are often discarded in favor of the original, and those that serve many are normally honored unlike those that serve themselves. However, somewhere along the road many realize that there might be a cost of being authentic so they conform instead. This can be exploited by people who view others as their servants. 

With these observations, there is a simple conclusion as to the initial question. There is always a risk regardless of who serves who. With only two certainties in life – taxation and death – the only issue is what risk are you willing to take. As an employee, there is a risk of being fired because you are authentic towards a power-wielding leader or there is a risk of self-destruction due to conformity. As a leader, there is a risk of having to execute because you are authentic or there is a risk of dishonor due to unnecessary power wielding. 

To live life to the fullest, we cannot be riddled with guilt and anxiety over what to say, what to do, who thinks what about what, can I lose my job, what will my boss think and so on. Our boss and our work are only practicalities – there is always something else we can do and work for somebody else.  There is no reason to attach the happiness of our life to these temporal issues.  Attachment will hinder us from being authentic and limit ourselves psychologically, morally and take away our ability to think and execute. A word from the great Hindu sage Krishna comes to mind (Bhagavad Gita 2:62 - 63);

When you keep thinking about sense objects, attachment comes.

Attachment breeds desire, the lust of possession that burns to anger.

Anger clouds the judgment; you can no longer learn from past mistakes.

Lost is the power to choose between the wise and the unwise, and your life is utter waste.

[1] English translation; “If the spear spared him, death comes anyhow”. Meaning, if he lived another day by accepting injustice or whatever wrong that was perpetrated, he will nevertheless die one day. It is important to be aware of that for the Vikings dying in combat was the best death – surest way to Valhall located in the grand fortress of ?sgard. Those that died of old age or lack of courage, i.e. did not fight went to a boring, peaceful place called Helheim. Honor through death was therefore preferable. This explains their ferocious attitude in war – they had nothing to lose, on the contrary, regardless of outcome.