Many recent graduates in business and public administration find themselves valued by their “bosses” because they bring new and “cutting-edge” ideas and skills to the organization.  For example, a young woman with strong analytical and methodological skills is hired into a rather conservative accounting-oriented budget office in a local government.

The new employee, let’s call her Susan, immediately feels pushed aside by the existing group.  There are “sniping” conversations in the hall, there are rumors and stories about Susan’s past work, and the older group generally leaves Susan out of anything that might be welcoming.

Susan tries to be friendly and goes out of her way to develop positive relationships with her colleagues.  She asks them to participate in her projects, she invites them to lunch, and she tries hard to keep a smile on her face – even when it’s tough.

But much of the situation is out of her control. Her manager gives her the choice assignments (knowing that she alone can get the specific work done).  He also asks her to make presentations to the City Council on her projects and joins the Council in praising her for her excellent work. That’s good, but it only fans the flames of jealousy in the office.

Susan faces a dilemma and is now considering leaving the organization just to find a more supportive environment in which to work.  As she considers her options, there are several things on her mind.

• She might talk with her boss about the situation, though recognizing that there’s little that he can do. (On the other hand, if he doesn’t know what’s happening, there’s nothing he can do.)  See below for some options.

• Susan could leave for greener pastures. At some point, the work environment can become simply too oppressive for someone to remain. Of course, Susan’s experience will help her sort out in advance the office culture in a new location.

These possibilities are often discussed, but here our interest is in what the manager or leader does in this situation?  One response might be that this is small potatoes – there are many more important things to do.  And to some extent that’s true. The manager might also take the position that, as an adult, Susan will simply have to work out these difficulties on her own. And to some extent that’s true as well.

But such a hands-off approach by the manager has its downsides as well. We talk a lot about the complexities of major changes or organizational transformations, but sometimes forget that small changes can be disruptive as well. If the manager sees the skill set and perspective that Susan brings to the organization as important for the future, he should be attentive to not only rewarding that new perspective (which seems to be happening), but also creating an environment in which that perspective and the people who hold it can flourish.

We know that the full engagement of people in organizations depends in significant part on the social support they find on the job.  Clearly, if Susan is not finding such support within her work group, then the manager should look for other opportunities to bring her into contact with others elsewhere in the organization that share her perspective.

This could be done through temporary assignments in other parts of the organization, through creating cross-functional team projects, or through leadership development programs aimed at the next generation of top managers in the city. (Note that all of these suggestions have a explicit purpose of contributing to the work of the city, but an implicit purpose of bringing together “the best and the brightest” to form a network of support for new ideas and perspectives.)

It’s always worth the manager’s time to consider the social support (or lack thereof) that employees like Susan are receiving.  Their continued engagement depends on it.

Recently I posted a critical view of the notion of organizational vision, especially as the term vision has evolved into specific targets for production or behavioral change.  I talked soon after with my friend John Dick from British Columbia about this and he suggested that I take a look at the life and works of Sir William Slim.

John told me that of one the most outstanding examples of institutional transformation occurred in World War II in Burma and is described in Field Marshal Sir William Slim’s autobiography “Defeat Into Victory”.

To set the historical context:   In early 1942 Slim was appointed commander of Burma Corps, described by a compatriot as “a promotion one would not have wished on an enemy, let alone an old friend”.  In late 1932, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the newly organized 14th Army Group comprised of a polyglot of British, Hindu and Muslim Indian, Gurkha, and East and West African formations.

His 14th Army (known as the “Forgotten Army) fought in difficult terrain against a highly committed enemy and did so with limited resources and with one of the most ethnically diverse forces in history. He led that army through a long retreat, restored morale, then led it to victory.

Slim recognized that one of his first tasks following the retreat would be to strengthen the morale of the defeated and shattered army.  He reasoned that “morale, if it is to endure, must have certain foundations: spiritual; intellectual; and material.  Spiritual first, because only spiritual foundations can stand real strain. (Slim wasn’t using the term spiritual to refer to a particular religion – and of course he had many different religions represented among his troops.  It is likely he intended something more like “connected to a larger purpose, emotional, intuitive.”) Intellectual next, because people are swayed by reason as well as by feelings.  Material last – important, but last because the very highest kinds of morale are often met when material conditions are lowest.

He elaborated the foundations of morale as follows:

Spiritual

1. People must be made to feel that they are engaged in a good and noble enterprise that is important to society.
2. The method of achievement must be active.
3. People must feel that what they are and what they do matters towards the goals of the enterprise.

Intellectual

1. People must believe that the goals can be achieved; that they are not out of reach.
2. People must believe that the organization they work for is an efficient one that will provide a context for the effective employment of their efforts; that it will not squander their time and emotional resources on useless or irrelevant activities

Material

1. People must feel that they will get fair and respectful treatment from their superiors and from the organization.
2. People must be given a voice in decision-making.
3. As far as possible people must be given the legal and material tools to carry out their jobs effectively and efficiently.

From late 1943 to May 1945 Slim totally changed the culture of the 14^th Army Group, then fought a brilliant series of offensive battles that led to the defeat of all Japanese forces in Burma – the single biggest land-based defeat of the Japanese in the war.

On rebuilding the moral and effectiveness of the British/Indian army, Slim ascribed the failures of his predecessors to overly rigid strategies that became liabilities when situations were in rapid change.  He defined a good strategy as “a commonly understood and accepted framework or basis from which to adapt to uncertainty and change.”

He points out that a strategy begins to enter obsolescence the moment it’s formulated, and thus is time-limited and must be regularly revisited.  He attributes his successes to the creation of a flexible strategy that provided both enough direction to ensure cohesion and sufficient latitude for his field officers to make plans, take decisions and initiate action based on local conditions and changing circumstances – not a bad objective for any organization!

Slim also wrote about leadership and management: “What is leadership? I would define it as the projection of personality. If leadership is this projection of personality then the first requirement is a personality to project. The personality of a successful leader is a blend of many qualities – courage, will power, knowledge, judgement and flexibility of mind.”

And, finally, he clearly thought of leadership as an art: “Leadership is of the spirit compounded of personality and vision; its practice is an art. Management is of the mind, more a matter of accurate calculation, of statistics, of methods, time tables, and routine; its practice is a science. Managers are necessary; leaders are essential.”

What strikes me is that writing over seventy years ago, Slim captures the essence of the most contemporary thinking on leadership!  Contemporary leaders would do well to listen to this “voice from the past.”

Yesterdy Pope Francis delivered a blistering critique of the Catholic Church’s administrative apparatus directly to the leaders of that body, the Roman Curia. Citing fifteen “ailments” that afflict the church bureaucracy, the Pope addressed problems of that group, but more generally raised questions that should be thoughtfully considered by all who work in large organizations, whether corporate or governmental.

The Pope began by remarking on the limits of a bureaucracy “that is not self-critical, does not stay up-to-date, (and) that does not seek to improve itself.” This condition is fed by leaders or managers who consider themselves indispensable, and “transform themselves into masters, (believing) themselves superior to others, rather than at their service.”

The Pope also derided the tendency of those in large bureaucracies to lose their “inner serenity, vivacity, and boldness” and become “working machines.” In doing so, he pointed out, leaders, managers, or others lose their capacity for empathy and emotional “sensibility.”

There is also excessive planning and functionalism, in which “the apostle plans everything in detail and believes that, by perfect planning things effectively progress….” In contrast, and very much in keeping with the contemporary critique of stale and tradition-bound organizations, the Pope recommends “freshness, imagination, and innovation.”

Next is the sickness of poor coordination, where the organization “loses its harmonious functionality and its temperance” and where “members do not collaborate and do not work with a spirit of communion…..”

The Pope also took aim at “excessive industriousness,” the failure to rest, to reflect, and to replenish, both spiritually and physically. The result of this lack of recovery time is stress and agitation, both of which are antithetical to individual health and to job performance.

After several ailments pointed more directly at the Curia, the Pope also noted the tendency for those in large organizations to become indifferent toward others, losing “the sincerity and warmth of personal relationships.” Among managers and leaders, this tendency may become even more acute, as they come “to treat others – especially those they consider inferior – with rigidity, hardness, and arrogance.”

Finally, there is the disease of accumulation, when “the apostle seeks to fill an existential emptiness of the heart by accumulating material goods” or when “the apostle transforms his service into power, and his power into goods to obtain worldly profit or more power.”

In my view, the Pope provided not only a critique of the church bureaucracy but provided enormous insight into what we might call the “bureaucratic personality.”  Certainly many organizations are adopting more progressive practices, emphasizing creativity and innovation at the organizational level and meaningful engagement at the personal level.

Still today, most of us live in the shadow of organization, acting out an organizational ideology that makes us more objective, impersonal, and aloof than we would, upon reflection, prefer. Despite changes at the institutional level, an increasing number of today’s managers and leaders seem to exhibit heavy-handed, top-down management styles.

How often, even recently, have we seen managers and leaders who consider themselves superior, even indispensable, who lose touch with “the real people,” and who display excessive ego? How often have we seen those same people become rigid and harsh in their relations with subordinates?

Similarly, we can easily think of managers and leaders who plan excessively, impose their own vision, and fail to adapt to changing conditions.  And we have we seen managers and leaders forsake the ideals of their organizations in pursuit of wealth and personal power, resulting in dramatic inequities in income and rewards.

Individually we have often failed to engage in self-reflection and self-critique, which might lead to positive change in the way we act.  We have let stress and “agitation” overcome us. We have failed to collaborate and to commit to the team. And, in pursuit of machine-like efficiency, we have neglected personal relationships and failed to engage with others in an empathetic and caring fashion.

In all of these areas, without even conscious thought, we forgive our managers and leaders and ourselves, saying that’s just the way things work – that’s how things have always been done. But, as the Pope points out, things don’t have to be that way – whether in the church bureaucracy or our own.

I would suggest that the first corrective is simply a recognition and an articulation of the human problems of large organizations, something the Pope provided for the Catholic Church, and something we might do for each of our own groups and organizations. A period of self-reflection, self-critique, and dialogue might appropriately follow.

We need to focus on opening new spaces for freedom, autonomy, empathy, humility, patience, commitment, caring and concern in our workplaces.  We need to address ways to get work done without damage to the human spirit. We need to talk about these things – not through gossip or finger-pointing – but through patient, tolerant, and reasoned conversations.

Just as it will not be easy for Pope Francis to reform the bureaucracy of the Catholic Church, it will not be easy for us to reform our own organizations. But the fact that the Pope chose the holiday season, a time of reflection and new commitments, to make his statement, suggests that this might be an opportune time for all of us to think about how we might build more humane organizations and encourage more communal and supportive leadership.

Perhaps this is the season to address the human concerns of autonomy, collaboration, and engagement in large organizations – not in pursuit of greater productivity and economic gain – but in pursuit of greater significance in our lives and in the lives of those we lead.

Denhardtleadership.com

Research tends to show that workers who are passionate about their jobs and consider their work meaningful are more productive than those who don’t. But there are limits to what leaders can do to create meaningful jobs that people can be passionate about, especially at the lower levels of organizations.

Think about how one might identify and pursue one’s passion. Some may be able to identify a passion early on. And for some, doing what they most enjoy becomes a career – professional golfers come to mind.

But these folks are rare. There are limited openings in the “passion professions” and only those with the right combination of skill, talent, connections and just plain luck are allowed to enter.

Others who make that effort and fall short typically find themselves in pretty low paying and often dead-end jobs. And, frankly, it’s a lot easier to be passionate when you have money.

For the rest of us, even if we can identify our passions (which is hard enough), pursuing those passions as a part of our career may not be so easy.

We are likely instead to find ourselves in jobs that provide limited opportunities for self-expression, much less passion. And for many that’s okay – we are willing to work in meaningless jobs in order to have enough money to pursue passions completely outside work.

Others are left searching for the quick self-discovery the self-help gurus recommend – either at work or elsewhere – and often feeling guilty because they can’t figure it out.

Many jobs simply are not all that meaningful, hardly the kind of thing to arouse passion. Maybe the leader can articulate a set of values that some will find compelling, but values stated at the top rarely permeate an organization with general enthusiasm. And indeed there’s an ethical question about whether leaders should even try to “make” followers passionate about their work – or anything else. That’s a personal choice,

If passion, meaning, or purpose lead to increases in productivity, leaders might follow one of two strategies: 1) hire for technical skill and teach the personal qualities or 2) hire for personal qualities and teach technical skills. There are some indications that an increasing number of companies are using the latter strategy.

For example, Southwest is known for its casual, relaxed, and funny flight attendants. But the company doesn’t run a “comedy school.”  Instead it hires people who already fit the image the company desires. Google’s hiring process has much the same orientation.

We are also beginning to discover that having specific achievement goals accompanied by measurable objectives is not the best way to discover one’s passion or calling. Both leaders and others would do well to consider their purpose (not their passion), better stated in terms of “big ideas,” “directions,” or “sets of values.”

This may (happily) lead to the direct opposite of the rationalized life, as in Natalie Imbruglia’s musical response to those who tell her to get some direction: “Intuition tells me, how to live my day.  Intuition tells me, when to walk away.  Could have turned left, but I turned right. But I ended up here (bang) in the middle of a real life.”

It is appropriate and in fact healthy for people to engage in serious reflection and discussion about what is most significant in their lives. Doing so is an important exercise for individuals and especially for potential leaders who want to better understand themselves in order to lead others. But requiring that this be a rational process may be quite limiting.  “Real life” is better built around emotion, intuition and beauty.

There’s a lot of talk these days about finding a passion and sticking with it throughout your life. But identifying your passion is neither easy nor perhaps even wise, especially early on. Why should we expect someone with little experience to know what he or she wants to pursue the rest of his or her life?  Some do, most don’t.  That’s a decision that requires maturity and wisdom, possibly even the wisdom of decades.

What’s more, many people don’t recognize their passion until they have achieved it.  They go through life following many interests and opportunities, only later recognizing the central thread that holds it all together.  In his well-known Stanford commencement address in 2005, Steve Jobs put it this way: “you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”The Nashville Bluegrass Band is even more to the point: “When I get where I’m goin’, that’s when I’ll know where I’m bound.”

In addition, the find-your-passion advice can morph into an extremely rationalized process of personal goal setting, especially as passions are translated into specific goals and objectives. Where do I want to be in ten years? What are the steps that will get me there? What are the metrics that I can use to measure my progress?  Be careful not to over-rationalize the process called “life” – which is sterile indeed without emotion, intuition, and beauty.

Finally, the word “passion” carries a somewhat whimsical, fleeting character. It’s here today, gone tomorrow, and often formed without any basis in ethics or values. It’s built around an individual’s own personal (self) interest and may or may not build or contribute to the larger community. It’s just not as powerful or enduring as direction or commitment or purpose.

For this reason, I would suggest that, instead of passion, you focus on a personal sense of purpose. By that I mean: a direction based in your values, one to which you commit yourself fully and show the patience, persistence, drive, and determination to stay with – until a better path comes along.  Fill in the blank: “I exist to . . . .”

As a leader, you will also be called upon to articulate an organizational sense of purpose, which, in my mind, should be defined in the same way as above: a direction based in your values, one to which you commit yourself fully . . . until a better path comes along.  Fill in the blank: “Our organization exists to: . . . .”

Should your personal sense of purpose be the same as your organizational direction – and vice versa?  Some say yes, because both require a value choice and your values should be consistent. Some say no, because you need a life outside work.  I would merely say that the two must not be incompatible. And if they are I’d say it’s time to find a different line of work. Personal purpose and values take precedence over organizational purpose and values.

That’s not to say that leaders should not be passionate.  Indeed, passion in pursuit of one’s purpose is a virtue (as long as that passion is not blinded by ego).   For the leader, perhaps the most fitting purpose is to lead, to integrate, to focus, and to give life to the many separate and often conflicting purposes and passions that dwell in any organization or group. And that is something a good leader can and will be both purposeful and passionate about.