Forster N. - Maximum performance (2005)(en)

270 MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE

promotion of equal opportunities and employee diversity are central pillars of their HR strategies (Corporate Research Foundation, 2003).

Successful modern leaders and managers are chameleons

Contrary to what a lot of male managers might believe, and many feminist writers would argue, successful leaders and managers possess a combination of female, male and neutral qualities, attributes and characteristics. However, as we have seen, what combination of these is actually used by men and women is still heavily influenced by the organizational contexts and cultures in which they work. It has also been suggested that men and women should be comfortable using a hybrid leadership and management style because it is – by far – the most flexible and effective one to use in modern organizations.

Men must change

I hope that the issues raised in this chapter have made men (and maybe some women) question some common-sense notions that they might have had about what masculinity ‘is’ and what women ‘are’. Implicitly, this suggests that men too must change. However, it is certainly true to say that many men, in their more private and reflective moments, are uncertain what this might mean. Some are genuinely afraid of what they regard as the feminization of organizations and the emasculation of their male identities. Being a leader/manager is such an integral and deeply ingrained part of the masculine psyche that men may have to find new sources of self-affirmation. This will not be easy because, as Amanda Sinclair has put it, ‘When men observe other men leading differently, there is often disbelief, censure, marginalisation, even ridicule. The man trying a new path by, for example, limiting the hours he works, is seen as “under the thumb” (masculinity compromised by an assertive wife); “not up to it” (finding an excuse for failure in the big-boy’s world); or hopelessly diverted and rendered a limp and impotent SNAG [Sensitive New Age Guy]’ (Sinclair, 1998: 74).

Consequently, many men still react by behaving like the proverbial three monkeys and simply ignore, resist or fight back against the inexorable changes going on about them. However, at least in western industrialized countries, there is little prospect that most men will ever be able to revert back to becoming warrior breadwinners, with dependent stay-at-home wives. In this context, it’s also worth remembering that the ‘normal’ nuclear family type consisting of a stay-at-home wife, a couple of kids and a single male breadwinner is an historical anomaly that only emerged in the mid-19th century in western industrialized countries. The sheer number of women coming into small, medium and large organizations will continue to grow for the foreseeable future. So the only option for most men in most organizations is to

THE EMERGENCE OF WOMEN LEADERS 271

change and change fast. Denying that there is a need to change does not remove the pressing need for men to make this transition.7

Attitudes are changing

Earlier in this chapter, we described the changing role of women in the military, which has been the subject of heated debate in many countries in recent times. However, there is clear evidence that generational attitudes towards this issue are changing fast. For example, in June 2001, The Australian commissioned a NEWSPOLL survey of 1200 respondents, which asked the question, ‘Are you in favour or against women being allowed to serve in combat roles in the Australian Army?’ The total number ‘In favour’ was 63 per cent (61 per cent for men and 65 per cent for women). However, what is more revealing is the generational breakdown. In the 18–34 age group, 84 per cent were in favour, in the 35–49 age group, 68 per cent and in the 50+ age group 44 per cent were in favour. This indicates that attitudes towards women in many traditionally male occupations and professions are undergoing a sea change at the moment, particularly amongst Generations X and Y, and there is every indication that this will continue for the foreseeable future.8

My son has taught me so many valuable lessons. How to kick a football. How to build Meccano. How to tie a rig for herring, or sisters. He enables me to get inside the male mind, and even more importantly, he throws me down a rope so I can climb out of it again. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not one of those people who believe than men are from Mars and women are from Venus. Indeed, I think that the use of inter-planetary metaphors for human behaviour is totally sophomoric and unhelpful. Anyway, why limit yourself to the solar system when there’s a whole universe out there? ‘Men are like Black Holes and Women are like the Asteroids Who Get Sucked In.’ (Susan Maushart, The Weekend Australian, 9–10 March 2002)

Another example of changing attitudes over the last half-century is the use of more gender-neutral terms, such as the prefix Ms. Although this was first used as long ago as 1949, it did not start to enter the public’s consciousness until the late 1970s (often in the face of much derision from men, who complained vociferously about having to use ‘politically correct language’). Ms become more widespread in the late 1980s and, by the late 1990s, most people had become comfortable using this when formally addressing a single woman. The use of the neutral word ‘chair’ (rather than chairman) had an equally long period of incubation, before its use became widespread and taken for granted by both men and women (Bryson, 1994: 427). It’s worth remembering that, for almost all of human history, the nature of what woman ‘were’ was entirely defined and circumscribed by men, and our language reflected this hegemony in many subtle (and not so subtle) ways. While women, particularly in the last three decades of the 20th century, have begun to

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challenge this, it will take time for both men and women to renegotiate their respective roles in society and in organizations, and to redefine what it means to be a man or a woman at the beginning of the 21st century.

An important (and perhaps controversial) suggestion made in this chapter was that the generic qualities, attributes, skills and competencies of successful leaders and managers apply to both men and women. For example, just three out of 66 pages of Leadership Skills for Women, by Marilyn Manning and Patricia Haddock, contain information on leadership and management skills that are unique to women. Seventeen out of 23 ‘female’ styles and strategies identified by Amanda Sinclair (1998: 113–14) are ones that many men also use. This reinforces the idea that we may be witnessing the emergence of a hybrid style of leadership and people management that will eventually transcend traditional male/female archetypes. This implies that embracing an exclusively male or female style alone will be inadequate in the future, and a fully functioning adult (man or woman) should be capable of embracing the best of both. Is this too great a step for men and women to take? Is there, as Amanda Sinclair has suggested with understandable exasperation, ‘a desire to grow up from it or beyond it’ (ibid.: 53)?

There is no use having cleverness about the place unless it is tapped efficiently. There are many reasons other than femaleness for the neglect of talent, but it is without doubt the most spectacular cause for the waste of intelligence in organizations.

(Alistair Mant, Intelligent Leadership, 1997)

Exercise 6.5

Having read through this chapter, think about how you can utilize any new insights you may have acquired in your leadership and people management practices in the future.

Insight

Strategy

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

THE EMERGENCE OF WOMEN LEADERS 273

Notes

1A question that might be asked is, ‘Can a man ever really understand the problems that women can encounter at work?’ No, I can’t. I cannot ever fully appreciate what it is like for a woman (or women from ethnic minorities) to encounter routine discrimination in the workplace, but hopefully this chapter reflects some appreciation of this.

2Woman Hitler.

3In any event, to dub one sex hormone as exclusively ‘male’ or ‘female’ is an oversimplification. Both hormones are needed by each sex; men need oestrogen and women need testosterone to develop normally. For example, both men and women require oestrogen if their bones are to develop normally. In fact, the average man has more oestrogen swimming around his body than a woman does after menopause. Surprisingly, oestrogen in men is now thought to play a role in sperm production, and high levels in the brain are indicative of sexual arousal in both men and women. This is not to say that testosterone has no influence on male/female behaviours. One recent study confirmed the findings of earlier research, showing that girls whose mothers had high levels of testosterone during pregnancy preferred games and activities more commonly associated with boys. Conversely, levels of oestrogen or testosterone had no effect on the expected gender-role behaviour of boys (Hines, 2002).

4Even this could change in the not too distant future. Genetic manipulation, bioengineering and biorobotics may mean that women could become physically enhanced to the point where differences in the physical strength of men and women could cease to exist (see Chapter 11).

5Herstory Quiz answers

What percentage of women fought with men as front-line combat troops in the Red Army during World War II and in the Vietcong during the Vietnam War?

About 20 per cent and 30 per cent, respectively.

Ten inventions or innovations made by women

(Ironically) X and Y chromosomes (Nettie Stevens); automatic flight controls (Irmgard Flugge-Lutz), the calculus (Maria Gartena Agnes), the brown paper bag (Margaret Knight), liquid paper (Bette Graham), computer languages (Grace Murray Hooper), penicillin (various), smallpox inoculation (Lady Montagu), star-mapping in astronomy (Henrietta Leavit and Annie Cannon) and DNA (Rosalind Franklin). Franklin was instrumental in ‘discovering’ DNA, but was airbrushed out of history by Crick and Watson, who plagiarized her research, and went on to claim the Nobel Prize. It’s a little known fact that DNA was first identified in 1869, by a Swiss scientist, Johann Meischer. However, it took another 80 years before people realized that this apparently simple structure formed the basis of the reproduction of all life on Earth. Perhaps the most famous woman scientist in history, Marie Curie, who jointly discovered radioactivity with her husband, is the only person in history to have been awarded Nobel prizes in both physics (1903) and chemistry (1911). Women also played pivotal roles in the development of bullet-proof vests, astronomy, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser printers. This is remarkable, given the very limited opportunities they had to pursue careers in science in the past.

As a postscript to this, women are often regarded as being more intuitive than men. This is often viewed, in management circles, as something negative. In fact, intuition is an underrated and underresearched leadership and management competency. For example, many inventions and innovations in the past would not have seen the light of day if the people who created these had relied on either common sense or the empirical method. Inventions and innovations as diverse as Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, the airplane, the Sony Walkman and the Post-It were as much the result of intuition as empirical logic. This suggests that successful (male) innovators and inventors are already in touch with ‘female intuition’. For more information on this, please refer to Chapter 9. It is also interesting to note that intuition became

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one of the management fads of 2003, with several consulting companies offering coaching in intuition and, in one case, ‘Caribbean Intuition Cruises’.

Every Microsoft product has a Certificate of Authenticity attached to it: a watermark with a picture of a woman on it. Who was she and why does her face appear on this?

Augusta Aida Byron (Countess Lovelace) who is credited with being a pioneer of the earliest computer programming languages way back in the 1860s. Charles Babbage, who developed the first detailed plans for a punch card controlled calculator (the precursor of modern computers), described her as ‘My enchantress of numbers’.

What do these giants of 19thand 20th-century thinking and literature have in common: Simone de Beauvoir, Gertrude Stein, Doris Lessing and Germaine Greer?

Amazingly, given their enormous impact on western thinking and the emancipation of women, none of them appeared in The Australian’s 2000 series on ‘Great Thinkers and Leaders of the 20th Century’.

Can you guess what the following comments, made in the Australian Parliament in 1983, were about? ‘This is a stupid bill that most women won’t understand. It will rot the social fabric; will force women into work against their will. It will be a deterrent to those who seek to create employment opportunities and will cause a large increase in male unemployment.’

The introduction of Australian Equal Opportunity Legislation.

Can you name ten (or more) women heads of state in the last 30 years?

Isabel Peron (Argentina, 1974–6), Margaret Thatcher (UK, 1979–90), Mary Charles (Dominica, 1980–95), Janet Jagen (Guyana, 1997–9), Vigdis Finnbogadottir (Iceland, 1980–96), Mary Robinson (Ireland, 1990–97), Indira Gandhi (India, 1966–77, 1980–84), Golda Meir (Israel, 1969–74), Agatha Barbara (Malta, 1982–7), Helen Clark (New Zealand, 1999–2004), Gro Harlem Brundlandt (Norway, 1981, 1986–9, 1990–96), Hanna Suchoka (Poland, 1992–3) and several others.

Can you name ten (or more) women CEOs or vice-presidents of international companies?

During 2003–4: Marjorie Scardino (Pearson Publishers), Carly Fiorina (HewlettPackard), Marina Berlusconi (Finivest), Belinda Stronach (Magna International), Christine Tsung (China Airlines), Mary Minnick (Coca-Cola Asia), Maureen Darkes (GM Canada), Barbara Kux (Ford Europe), Ho Ching (Singapore Technologies), Val Gooding (BUPA), Margaret Jackson (Qantas), Linda Cook (Shell Gas and Power), Rose Marie Bravo (Burberry), Dominique Dubreil (Rémy Cointreau), Anne Mulcahy (Xerox), Theresa Gattung (Telecom New Zealand) and many others. Fortune publishes a survey of the top 100 women global business leaders each year.

How many EEC countries allow women to fly as front-line fighter pilots?

They all do. Italy was the last EEC country to allow women to train as fighter pilots (in 1999). Half of the 13 000 candidates in Italy who applied for just 136 training places in 2000 were women. While they generally showed ‘more motivation and general knowledge than the men’, their numbers were restricted to 20 per cent of the total intake, with 16 would-be pilots and 12 would-be navigators accepted for training (Follain, 2000). All future new members of the EEC will also have to allow women to fly in their air forces.

What is Dhammanada Bhikkhuni’s claim to fame?

In December 2003, she was the first woman to be ordained as a Buddhist priest in Thailand (at that time, the only one out of 300 000 male priests).

What is Christina Sanchez’s claim to fame?

She was the first professional female bullfighter in Spain.

What are Valentina Tereshkova, Dr Sally Rides and Eileen Collins’ claims to fame?

Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman into space in 1963, Dr Sally Ride was the first American woman in orbit in 1983, and Eileen Collins became the first woman to captain a space shuttle mission on 21 July 1999.

THE EMERGENCE OF WOMEN LEADERS 275

What was Babe Zaharias’s claim to fame?

She was the last woman to qualify to compete in a PGA tour event, at the Los Angeles Open in 1945. Annika Sorenstam was the first woman since then to be invited to play in a PGA event in May 2003 at the Bank of America tournament. She missed the cut for the final round but beat many top-ranked male golfers. Suzy Whaley became the first woman to qualify for a men’s US PGA Tour event since 1945, teeing off in the Greater Hartford Open in July 2003.

What do the following people have in common: George W. Bush Snr., Ronald Reagan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Samuel L. Jackson, Meryl Streep and Madonna?

They were all, in their younger days, cheerleaders. Cheerleading dates back to 1898, when the first organized group of what were initially described as ‘yellers’ took to the field at the University of Minnesota. Women were excluded from taking part in cheerleading until 1923, because it was feared they would become too ‘masculinized’. After World War II, women came to dominate cheerleading teams, and a cultural icon became embedded in the American national consciousness. While cheerleading has often been accused of pandering to sexist stereotypes of women, there are increasing numbers of mixed cheerleading teams in the USA and also a few men-only cheerleading teams (Pratt, 2002: 24).

6If your organization is considering the introduction of family-friendly employment policies, a good starting point is the UK-based Work-Life Research Centre and its comprehensive guide, The Work-Life Manual: Gaining a Competitive Edge by Balancing the Demands of Employees’ Work and Home Lives.

7Although it is beyond the remit of this book, the revolution in the aspirations of women does have profound implications for men. If you’d like to find out more about this, have a look at Fay Weldon’s 1999 book, Godless in Eden, for a powerful account of the difficulties confronting men in a post-feminist world (see ‘Girls on top’, ‘The fish and the bicycle’, ‘Pity the poor men’, ‘Today’s mother’ and ‘Has feminism gone too far?’).

8A discussion of discrimination on the grounds of race, sexual orientation or physical disability is beyond the scope of this book, but many of the principles and ideas discussed in this chapter can be applied to the stereotypes that surround these. First, in most western industrialized countries, it can be very expensive for organizations that are found guilty of discrimination on these grounds. Second, when it is an employee’s character, abilities and skills that really matter in organizations these days, it’s going to affect organizational efficiency if negative attitudes about these groups are allowed to flourish. Third, if these are tackled head-on, it will probably help your business or organization. Most private-sector companies now understand the economic value of the ‘pink’ and ‘ethnic’ dollar, but far fewer seem to know about the purchasing power of disabled people. For example, the Western Australian companies, Jonstyle Ltd and Spotlight Ltd, were awarded two of the Prime Minister’s ‘Employer of the Year’ awards in 1999. They received these awards because they had demonstrated an ‘outstanding commitment to employing people with disabilities’. The profits of both companies have risen each year since (personal communication from a University of Western Australia, Graduate School of Management MBA student, July 2002).

7Managing power, politics and conflict

Objectives

To define power, politics and conflict and describe their positive and negative effects.

To identify the principal sources of power and political influence in organizations.

To describe how conflicts can arise at work and some practical strategies for dealing with these.

To show how you can become a Machiavellian political operator, if the situation demands it.

Introduction

Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

(Henry Kissinger, former US President ‘Tricky-Dicky’ Nixon’s Foreign Secretary)

Politics is not a science . . . but an art. (Otto von Bismarck)

For many people power and politics are dirty words, signifying dominance, aggression, brute force, autocratic control, repression and exploitation. However, as we will see, these are not simply ‘black arts’; they are an essential part of leadership and people management. The word ‘power’ is derived from the Latin, potere, meaning ‘to be able’, and is defined here as the ability to influence/and or change the behaviour, attitudes and beliefs of others. The word ‘politic’ is derived from the Latin, politicus, meaning judgment or prudence. It is defined here as the ability to mobilize people and resources, in order to achieve desirable outcomes for oneself or the group to which one belongs. Consequently, when used in the right way, power and politics can be very positive forces for good, giving individuals increased freedom, influence, choice and strength, and an enhanced ability to mobilize

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MANAGING POWER, POLITICS AND CONFLICT 277

people and resources in order to accomplish personal goals, work tasks and organizational objectives. Powerful leaders and managers can also achieve more for their followers because they possess ‘clout’, and people will work harder for a boss that they believe has real power, credibility and influence within an organization. For example, Bennis and Nanus (1985) interviewed 90 people who had been nominated by their peers as being the most influential leaders in the USA in business, politics and society. They found that these individuals all shared one characteristic: they made other people feel powerful and had used their power to enable other people to aspire to exceptional achievements. They had also learnt how to build strong personal power bases within their organizations, businesses or spheres of influence. And, as we have seen in preceding chapters, power can be an even more positive force if an organization has empowered employees from top to bottom, who are able to move collectively, with speed and purpose, towards achieving their short-, mediumand long-term objectives. In contrast, employees are less willing to work for weak leaders that lack genuine personal authority and credibility or those who tend to be bossy and dictatorial.

Conflict too is often regarded as a largely negative aspect of organizational life. This word is derived from the Latin, conflictus, meaning striking together, shock or fight. It is defined here as an interaction characterized by disagreement, strife, arguments, quarrels, fights, emotional outbursts or personality clashes. Almost all organizations are made up of disparate individuals and groups with different interests, values and objectives. These may be competing for finite resources and rewards. In turn, this competition creates the potential for conflict, because not everyone’s interests can be catered for equally at all times. However, this does not mean that all conflict is bad. In some situations, it can serve useful functions. In fact, power, politics and conflict are ‘two-faced’ phenomena, and can be used for both good and evil ends. Furthermore, they are inextricable features of organizational life, and in all large companies and bureaucratic organizations they are inevitable. Consequently, an understanding of these, and how to deal with them effectively, is essential for leader/managers, particularly for those who occupy senior positions in organizations.

Power and politics in context

Before reading through the next section, please complete self-develop- ment Exercise 7.1.

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Exercise 7.1

Machpower* rating

Please rate the extent to which you agree or disagree with the following statements, where

1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neither agree nor disagree, 4 = agree, 5 = strongly agree, NA = not applicable

My main goal is to get to the top of my
profession/organization, regardless of whom
I have to step over to get there	1	2	3	4	5	NA
Honesty is not always the best policy when
dealing with colleagues at work	1	2	3	4	5	NA
Fear is the best motivator to use with
employees	1	2	3	4	5	NA
I only communicate information to colleagues
that benefits me personally	1	2	3	4	5	NA
I will use information given in confidence if this
will benefit me	1	2	3	4	5	NA
I try to hire people who will help me to get
ahead in my career/organization	1	2	3	4	5	NA
I prefer to hire people who are willing to accept
my decisions and authority	1	2	3	4	5	NA
I never help anyone at work unless there
are tangible personal benefits for me	1	2	3	4	5	NA
Power is more important to me than praise
or rewards	1	2	3	4	5	NA
It’s OK to use someone else’s ideas
if I benefit from these	1	2	3	4	5	NA
I like to tell as many people as I can
about successes I have at work	1	2	3	4	5	NA
I will praise my colleagues in public
if they are successful, even though
I may privately resent doing this	1	2	3	4	5	NA
I prefer to use my positional authority
to get what I want at work	1	2	3	4	5	NA

	MANAGING POWER, POLITICS AND CONFLICT					279
When I have had serious conflicts with
co-workers, I will do everything I can
to undermine them	1	2	3	4	5	NA
I prefer to tell my bosses what they
want to hear	1	2	3	4	5	NA
I expect my subordinates to do what
I tell them, without questioning my
decisions	1	2	3	4	5	NA
The decisions I make at work are
primarily influenced by their political
consequences	1	2	3	4	5	NA
I like to get even with people who’ve
crossed me at work	1	2	3	4	5	NA
I use flattery to get what I want	1	2	3	4	5	NA
Teamwork is OK, but the buck stops
with the leader	1	2	3	4	5	NA
In the final analysis, leadership is about
exercising power, authority and control
over employees	1	2	3	4	5	NA

(* Machiavellian power)

Please add up your total score ______

Scoring key

21–42: Rarely use Machiavellian political strategies to influence others or for personal gain, although use may be made of these on rare occasions. A very broad repertoire of alternative power strategies, but may want to consider utilizing some Machiavellian power and influencing strategies in the future if the situation warrants it.

43–63: In most circumstances, prefer not to use Machiavellian political strategies to influence others or for personal gain, although use may be made of these if the situation demands it. A broader repertoire of power and positive influencing strategies.

64–84: A love of power and its trappings, but how this is used is sometimes moderated. Probably regarded by colleagues as political, self-interested and untrustworthy. A limited repertoire of alternative power and influencing strategies.

85–105: Obsessed with the acquisition and use of Machpower. Will consider any behaviour or actions to pursue personal goals, regardless of moral or ethical considerations, or the effects these might have on colleagues and subordinates. A very limited repertoire of positive power and influencing strategies.