The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence.
Aldous Huxley
Let's not confuse language with action
This Sunday morning blog takes a closer look at the dangerous cult of 'leadership', its beliefs, its language, and its hidden influence in stamping out intelligent thinking and intelligent action in organisations.
I will do this through the eyes of two of the great writers who warned us of the very real dangers of totalitarian leaders. George Orwell and Alduous Huxley.
And how leaders use a type of 'newspeak' to manipulate and control the workers.
Here is an example from Animal Farm. Read this in the light of the exponential increase in CEO pay to median employee pay from 20:1 a few short decades ago to a genuinely disturbing 300:1 in some cases today.
And listen to the silence as we acquiesce. It is all for our own good!
"Comrades!' he cried. 'You do not imagine, I hope, that we pigs are doing this in a spirit of selfishness and privilege? Many of us actually dislike milk and apples. I dislike them myself. Our sole object in taking these things is to preserve our health. Milk and apples (this has been proved by Science, comrades) contain substances absolutely necessary to the well-being of a pig. We pigs are brainworkers. The whole management and organisation of this farm depend on us. Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for your sake that we drink the milk and eat those apples."
And then we have Comrade Napoleon pronouncing on what leadership today would call diversity, equality and inclusion. You are welcome to take any current quote from any member of our Club of 200, to filter through the linguistic nonsense, to find out what is really being said.
"I trust that every animal here appreciates the sacrifice that Comrade Napoleon has made in taking this extra labour upon himself. Do not imagine, comrades, that leadership is a pleasure! On the contrary, it is a deep and heavy responsibility. No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?"
Now, in case the workers get confused, that in this new world of equality their opinions may actually matter, the protagonists are given a short history lesson.
"In the past the need for a hierarchal form of society has been the doctrine specifically of the High. It had been preached by kings and aristocrats and the priests, lawyers and the like who were parasitical upon them, and it had generally been softened by promises of an imaginary world beyond the grave."
THE LEADERSHIP LANGUAGE GAME
Orwell was a past master at understanding the power of language and how corrupt leaders may use it to manipulate and disempower others. Think of all forms of media today, from news channels to all social media, none of us is immune from our own agendas. Objectivity simply cannot exist biologically.
Orwell has some sharp and piercing words on the dangers of leadership gobbledegook.
"Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:
I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Here it is in modern English: (You are welcome to insert any quotes here from your favourite leadership 'guru' and their daily soothing and superficial soundbites.)
Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account."
Sound familiar?
Our current leadership lexicon is brimmed full to capacity with nonsense words. My favourite current one is 'transformation.' Meaningless on the surface. Meaningless deeper down. To most CEO's and boards it probably means, we are going out of business, so we better do something soon to avoid this. We have no idea really what to do, and neither does our HR department. So let's just tell the shareholders we are busy with transformation.
In the real world all organisations have to compete on a complex, chaotic and dynamic landscape, where things are largely unknowable, and evolving continuously. That's right. Everything evolves continuously. Everything you say or do is for the first time. We cannot reverse this arrow of time.
To survive on this ever evolving landscape the solution for organisations is blindingly obvious. They must learn to evolve continuously or die. It is a simple choice.
To be clear. Transformation is not evolution. So let's start using the correct language.
Evolution is a simple, science backed word. Leaders need to be taught the basic principles of both evolutionary thinking and action.
Transformation remains deceptive newspeak.
Leadership gobbledegook in Management Journals
In their HBR article "Why Likable Leaders Seem More Effective" (McAllister, Moss and Martinko October 29 2019) the authors raise some important issues.
Their analysis over five years of six major major management journals unearthed 134 articles on leadership "promoting at least 29 leadership theories including "authentic," "transformational," "charismatic," "ethical", and "servant."
A similar review of HBR showed 161 similar leadership articles adding several other unique styles including "artful" and "humble."
The real danger of course is that the important subject of leadership in organisations becomes so vague that the very word becomes meaningless and annoying at best and downright manipulative and dangerous at worst.
Huxley throws some important light on our struggle to define leadership.
"Man is so intelligent that he feels impelled to invent theories to account for what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations. So that when he acts on his theories, he behaves very often like a lunatic."
Leading is acting. "Leadership" remains a word game
Leading is acting. It is about actions and behaviours in Harari's real world of 'rivers, trees and lions.'
It should never be confused with the language of 'leadership'.
Richard Branson once gave the most sensible and practical advice on business and management that I have ever heard.
"If you are going to get in the water with sharks, make sure you can swim faster than them. Otherwise get out of the water."
Refreshing.
A final word from Alduous Huxley in The Brave New World and a warning to be aware of the very real dangers that can be hidden in leadership language.
"A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude."
― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World