With nonstop business and technology disruptions, current leaders at the top are either becoming irrelevant or less than qualified to lead the charge. Is it time for laissez-faire leadership where they become the followers of the people they lead—letting go of the control—allowing the workers to navigate through the haze who in the process develop themselves and their leaders?
Contributors

• • Susan Fowler, Author, Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work . . . and What Does
  • Samuel Sudhakar, Chief Information Officer and Vice President for Information Technology Services, California State University, San Bernardino

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Transcript 

Sanjog Aul [00:01:01]:

Hello, and welcome to this segment on CTN. To learn more, please visit ciotalknetwork.com. The topic is, Is It Time For Laissez-Faire Leadership?   And we have Samuel  Sudhakar, who’s the Chief Information Officer and Vice President for Information Technology Services, California State University in San Bernardino. Hi, Samuel . How are you?

Samuel  Sudhakar [00:01:24]:

Good morning, Sanjog Aul. I’m doing well.

Sanjog Aul [00:01:27]:

Alright. Great. Very good. Thank you so much. Lovely morning in Chicago. I’m enjoying it. We also have Susan Fowler, who’s the Author of Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work and What to Do Instead. Hi, Susan. How are you?

Susan Fowler [00:01:40]:

Hello, Sanjog Aul. Very well. Thank you.

Sanjog Aul [00:01:43]:

So as the first question, Susan, my approach to life has been where we have the answers to the questions whenever, then we are seen as leaders. When we don’t, then we are not seen in the Samuel e light. But then that’s the case with typical leader today where they don’t have answers and they’re looking for outside resources or someplace else, but they don’t have that answer. So can they still maintain the or can is it justified to where a leadership had about that department. 

Susan Fowler [00:03:29]:

Well, yes. I think it is. Because I think that even though you may not understand what disruption means in the moment, I think one of the things I hear a lot when I especially work with high-tech firms is how leaders may not have the specific skills necessary to manage or lead other people who have a certain type of expertise. But the thing is you can’t abdicate responsibility as a leader. And I think that the top-down leadership style, if you will, has never worked effectively the way we’ve defined it. But neither do I think laissez-faire leadership is the way to go. So I think that there’s some new science around motivation. There’s been so much wonderful research on effective leadership, and I think we have a pretty good handle on some of the behaviors that leaders need to be using, even in times of disruption. So I guess I want to put a little, I hope it’s not a wedge in what we’re talking about today, but I think we need to define our terms. And so I’d love to know what maybe you or Samuel  think laissez-faire leadership really is, because I don’t see an I feel like that’s a dangerous route to go because we don’t think that leaders have answers that they should be hands off.

Sanjog Aul [00:04:56]:

So, we will have to actually check what the rest of the world thinks, but on a regular, if you were to really look up laissez faire, they say that if leaders allow it. Let’s compare this to parenting, for example. If I were to always go and show direction to my children, that means I am trying to literally pave the road for those children versus allowing these children to develop themselves so that they can tackle or they can walk or tread any path that comes their way. So given the uncertainty we have, I don’t want to each time make a decision for my children. I would rather have them make their own mistakes. And given where I am not the most qualified to be able to make that decision because I’ve never seen this before. Decisions are essentially us applying certain, original experiences or data points to make a call on which direction we would go. But if it is totally new, frankly, I’m as good as my child.

Susan Fowler [00:06:11]:

Well, let’s use that as an example. Sanjog, let’s say that you don’t know how to do calculus or math. So you’re not the one teaching your child calculus or math. You trust teachers to teach your child, but you don’t abdicate responsibility for your child learning math or applying themselves and their effort towards math. So, for me, a laissez-faire manager is, and the way it’s actually defined by the people who came up with the term back in 1945 by the way, it’s, Bradford and Lippett who came up with the concept of laissez fare. And for them, a laissez-faire manager was someone who really just allowed what you’re saying, just allow people to do what they’re going to do. But there’s still a role for leaders, and I think that that’s what we need to be defining today is what is that role? If you don’t know math or calculus or you don’t know what disruption means to your team, what is your role as a leader? But I don’t think it’s hands off. I don’t think it’s like let people go and just make their own decisions.

Sanjog Aul [00:07:14]:

So, Samuel, what do you think? I mean, we could be butting heads all throughout the show on the definition, and which is a good thing. Right? It’s a good debate here. Samuel, what has been your perspective on the style of leadership, especially in these unpredictable times? And I would like to make sure that, Samuel , you are back. I know that you had to hang up and coming back. I’m back. Alright. Good. So I’m assuming you know what we are talking about here. You heard Susan talk about laissez faire, a leadership of being a thing of the past. What’s your thought?

Samuel  Sudhakar [00:07:56]:

Absolutely. I agree with Susan. It is a thing of the past. I’ve always believed that effective leadership necessitates followership. Good leaders need to be good followers, especially in this day and age where the leadership agenda not only involves the vision of the leader, it also involves external pressures that are coming from federal, state, and local agencies to get certain things done and be accountable, especially in a state university system such as us. We have accountability measures that we need to fulfill. So all these are new areas that are new to even the leaders, even seasoned leaders. So that being said, we need our teams to rally around these initiatives and help the institution fulfill not only the vision of the institution, but also the accountability measures put on us by different external agencies. So leaders need to be more learning coaches where they lead their team through these new times and help them navigate through these situations and help us accomplish the mission of the institution. So, reactionary or laissez-faire leadership is not an option. We have to be routinely proactive and innovative. In fact, we need to look at what is coming next. We are going into uncharted territories in all the areas of our leadership. So we have to be proactive. We have to be innovative in thinking about what’s coming next and how do we motivate our teams to follow effectively. And as leaders, we need to follow not only the leaders we report to but also follow our team members who have ideas and who have skills to help us accomplish the mission of the institution.

Sanjog Aul [00:09:58]:

So go ahead Susan.

Susan Fowler [00:10:00]:

Oh, yeah. I was just going to say, just to build on something that Samuel  just said, is that we have always depended on leaders to, quote, unquote, motivate people. And so let’s just say that in a laissez-faire approach, what you would say is, I’m going to let people kind of go their direction. And if they’re motivated to go in a particular direction, they will. And if they are not motivated, they won’t. I’d love to ask people to think about a different approach to that. And that is that you can’t motivate people. But what the leader’s role is is to create this environment where we’re tapping into what is most motivating for people in terms of the quality of their motivation. So one of the things that we know through the science of motivation is that people have three psychological needs, and I think that the primary role of a leader, in fact, I’ve just submitted a peer review to a journal on the science behind justifying three new leadership competencies that really would help leaders to create this environment where if people are going to be more autonomous, how do we create that environment for them where they can thrive. So I think that that is a real responsibility that leaders have. It’s not to motivate people, but it’s to create that environment where their psychological needs can be satisfied. And then I think that environment creates the conditions where we can deal with disruption and innovation and creativity much more effectively.

Sanjog Aul [00:11:44]:

So, based on the responses both of you have provided, and Samuel , I’ll come to you because you mentioned compliance and the mandates that come from different organizations. It’s almost like when we are setting up an organizational structure and the leader is part of that organization at the very least, what we are looking for is essentially trying to build a box, a very big box, lot of playroom in it, but it still is a box where we allow these people to have the freedom. It’s almost again comparing to parenting. I’m not going to say suddenly I’m sitting at home and you go, I’m in the suburbs and you go walk to Downtown Chicago, 40 miles away. We are saying you will still have a limit in the neighborhood where you will go, but then go do what you’re doing. I’ve given you the values. I’ve given you the principles. If you have to tackle that if there’s a car approaching, you have to stand on the walkway versus right in the middle of the road. So what I’m trying to convey here is you have to give these people a free hand for them to grow versus just being order takers. When on one hand we say, alright, I will like to grow you, but on the other side, we try to basically tweak that whole organization in the way we think, and we are not fully qualified in these uncertain times, then we are essentially introducing more risk. So, Samuel , how would you justify saying that, okay, we have these mandates, so you have to go this way and then we lose the value that we could have created if we allowed them the free hand, the people who we are leading the free hand.

Samuel  Sudhakar [00:13:36]:

That’s an interesting question. So, boundaries are important, but the boundaries don’t have to be so tight as they used to be before. Mandates are there, but the mandates can be fulfilled in many different ways. Innovation is unstructured. Once you start structuring innovation, it doesn’t become innovation. It becomes very procedural and process oriented. So what we do in our organization is give people the broad goals, what the institution is trying to achieve, and have them come up with ideas on how do we get to the end goal. There are many ways to skin a cat and there’s not one particular method because our students are so different. Our faculty are so different. The people that we work with are so different. So tapping into their unique skills and helping them innovate in an unstructured fashion within the boundaries of the organizational structure, which is not as tight as it used to be before, is important. As Susan alluded to, we need to tap into the personal aspirations of people. People come here not just to work, but they also have personal aspirations and dreams. And the more we can tap into their personal aspirations and help them achieve those along the way as they help us fulfill the mission of the institution and follow these mandates, the better off we are and the more they would bring to the table.

Sanjog Aul [00:15:08]:

Let’s take a quick break, listeners. When we are back, let’s talk about the value of collective intelligence versus the intelligence of the few. When we are saying we do not know what’s coming next or at least how to navigate through the haze, then aren’t we better off putting people in the trenches to go in there, make the mistakes, understand what’s going on, and then bring back that firsthand experience, if you will, and then put our heads together to find out how we will approach it again versus us saying, okay. We have a structured approach. We have a few people in the ivory tower, and they’re the ones who are going to make a decision without actually being in the trenches, and that’s how you’re going to move forward. I’m talking about current times. So what’s wrong with us allowing these people to go, give them a free hand, make their own mistakes, don’t repeat mistakes, but make new mistakes, and then use that to our advantage as an organization? Please stay tuned, listeners. We’ll be right back and explore. And, Susan, this is going to be a question for you.

Sanjog Aul [00:18:25]:

Welcome back. So, Susan, take it away.

Susan Fowler [00:18:28]:

Well, I wanted to build on something we were saying before we went to the break and also the question you asked. The boundaries are really important, and I think that that is still a leadership role: to help people understand the boundaries because you always need boundaries. People cannot operate without boundaries. If we had total autonomy, we would go crazy because we don’t have the competence to deal with total autonomy. So we need to have boundaries. I think what we haven’t learned yet very well as leaders is how to have conversations about the freedom that people have within those boundaries. Like, how do you stimulate the creativity and innovation within the boundaries? What I think you’re getting at, Sanjog Aul, is that sometimes the top-down kind of leadership is in concrete. I’ve got old ways of doing things, and I don’t really know what’s going on right now. It feels too restrictive. I work in a lot of industries like pharmaceuticals, for example, where those boundaries are very defined by the FDA and by government agencies. And so what we have to have is the freedom to talk about what can happen within those boundaries. And I think that what that requires is something that I don’t hear very often on leadership conversations. Maybe it’s time that leaders follow their people. The fact is we need to teach people how to be effective self-leaders. The research says that the most successful organizational initiatives are the ones where there are proactive individual contributors, where people have been taught how to be proactive. People don’t like being held accountable, but they want to be accountable. How do we help people have the mindset and the skill set so that they are effective self-leaders? So I don’t think leaders can begin to let go and follow their individual contributors until we’ve taught individual contributors how to be self leaders. And I do think that there’s a lot of really good research around what those skills are and what we need to be teaching self leaders to be effective and to be proactive.

Sanjog Aul [00:20:50]:

So it’s almost like holding the seat of a child as the child learns how to ride a bicycle. Exactly. And I totally agree with you. So they are there. The leader is there, but the leader will have to let go of the seat without the child noticing for them to eventually see, yes, I can ride it myself. If you keep holding it till the very end, then this child will always actually know that. But here’s the problem with that. Let me just say yes. We call that situational leadership, where you give a child high direction at the beginning and then you start to wean them off the direction. Ultimately, you give them support and then eventually you let go of both direction and support and the child’s riding the bicycle on their own. That’s exactly the example. But I think what I’ve heard you setting up is what if a parent doesn’t know how to ride a bike? What if a parent doesn’t know how to teach the child how to ride the bike? Then what? And that’s why I think what we need to be able to do is to teach individual contributors how to say, you know what? This has never been done before. And here’s a process for learning. Here’s a process for moving forward or progressing when nobody knows what we’re doing. See, okay. So this is interesting you bring it up. So Samuel , go ahead. Share your thoughts, please.

Samuel  Sudhakar [00:22:22]:

So, the other aspect of it is that the workforce that’s coming to us is changing and evolving. It’s not the workforce of the past where they take the direction from the leadership. The workforce now, especially the millennials coming into our workforce, are independent thinkers and they question the status quo. They question why things should be done in a certain way. There’s a nonprofit organization called Growing Leaders. They just did a survey and the survey concluded that 70% of millennials say that they learn more information from technology than they do from people. So people are looking out in the technology arena and technology has given new dimensions of doing things. So they no longer think that what their leader says is the only way to do things. So we allow them to explore within the boundaries, we allow them to explore the different ways they can do things and bring that all to the table. We take their input and then make decisions on how things need to be done. Of course, you can’t run a chaotic organization where everybody is doing their own thing. At the end of the day, you gotta bring everything together. But the direction we want to move to should be a result of the consensus that is built from all these varying and opposing views and the ways to do things.

Sanjog Aul [00:23:57]:

So I want to take an example and this comes from my own personal life. I was, I think, 16 years old and there was a situation which was a new situation which my dad had never encountered. So when I had to tackle it, I went to him, and his response was, every time you come to me with a new situation, you’re making me more experienced. When would you go out and make your own mistakes? So if we are talking about, for example, a situation that comes up in an organization where a new technology or new paradigm or a new set of compliance that have to be tackled, and people, of course, look up to a leader and that is more than if nothing else, it is a gut reaction to say, let me see if there’s a convenient way to have it solved by someone who I think knows more than me. So they’ll come to you, and you don’t know more than them. So what if you went to them like my dad told me, that when will you start making your own mistakes? And it’s not to be said that you’re hands off, but you’re essentially allowing them to go into the uncomfortable zone for them to flourish, to blossom, and allow them to develop a new muscle, which will allow you to tackle new situations every time yourself without coming to the leader. Isn’t that what a leader is supposed to do in the first place? Samuel .

Samuel  Sudhakar [00:25:31]:

Absolutely. I always say empower your employees and get out of their way. Many times we stand as impediments in the way of our employees innovating and being routinely proactive. And of course, as you mentioned, they’re going to make mistakes and that is a part of the growing process. There we can learn more from mistakes than we can learn from successes. So equip them, give them what they need to be successful, and see them blossom and contribute to the organization. And I’ve seen this time and again when you listen to your employees, because they are close to the ground, they’re close to the customers, and we give them the two tools that they need and just say, go on and do your thing. And if you need help, I’m here to help you. My door is open. But if you don’t reach out to me, I expect that this is going to be done and keep me informed. It’s more of a hands-off leadership than saying, okay, I’m just not going to be worried about this initiative. You still have to keep track of what is happening, but you empower them, you equip them, you enable them to move forward and watch the results. 

Sanjog Aul [00:26:51]:

So Susan, if someone, based on what Samuel  just said, argues that you cannot just be hands off and not worry about it, let’s take that point a little bit. If you start worrying, it means you’re going to start poking. And you’ll start investigating. You’ll start becoming nosy. When you are worried, that means there is an implied distrust in the people who you have delegated this responsibility to tackle. Even though it’s very new, even though you don’t know what it is like, you don’t know more than them, then why worry? It is all about the mindset. Right? So that’s why I’m saying why not leaders become less worried by placing trust in their people. So is there an inherent distrust in all leaders that, okay, I have to be nosy. I have to at least be made aware of what’s going on for it to be successful?

Susan Fowler [00:27:50]:

Here’s the thing. We know that people go through, and this is very well documented, learning curves. There’s a process to learning. And so when people first tackle something, they may have high commitment. They’re excited about doing it. They’re confident that they can do it. They want to do it, but they don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t have competence because they’ve never done it before. And so we, as leaders, want to take advantage of that confidence and that high energy, but we also need to direct it. Because if we don’t direct it, then organizations can’t afford timelines, minimize risk, and be able to meet deadlines, because what I do affects something down the road. You can’t just give people whatever time is necessary to go through that learning curve. There needs to be some kind of help along the way. And so then the next stage of learning is where I’m now discouraged because my confidence was great. But because I don’t have competence, I don’t know what I’m doing, I get discouraged. I get a little disillusioned. And so the leader’s role at this point is to say, you know what? Here’s the end game. Here’s a reminder of the rationale for why you’re doing what you’re doing. And so the leader’s role at that point is to help me continue to keep going. And then once I get into it and I’m starting to succeed, then the leader’s role is to back off and let me go. I don’t think we just empower people. What you have to do is understand what people are going through at any particular time. And as a leader, you have to either direct them, and maybe direction looks like making sure they have resources. Maybe direction looks like pointing them in a direction within the organization so that they can get the collective wisdom or gather information from other people. So, again, I don’t ever think that we just empower people. What I think is that we move towards this place where we can let people go. But you don’t just throw someone into a lake never having taught them how to swim and hope they don’t drown. Today, our assets are too valuable, timelines are too short, and the risks are too high. I think that we still need a role to help people become empowered. You can’t just empower them.

Sanjog Aul [00:30:38]:

Let’s take a quick break, listeners, and we’ll be right back. And Samuel , I’ll build upon what Susan just said that we need a role. Someone who is there. So would I call a leader a vending machine that when someone needs something out of it, you press a button and you get that resource, and then besides that, they play a passive role. Are we better off keeping that approach to leadership in this new age? Let’s not literally wipe out the whiteboard and write a brand new leadership definition for the times we are living in, where a leader is there, the role is there, there’s moral or emotional support available for the people, like children, that the person exists in case we need it. In case we need resources, we can go get money from the dad, buy a car. But besides that, let’s go find our own path to make ourselves successful and in the process, make the organization successful. Is that the direction we should pursue? Please stay tuned listeners. We’ll be right back and explore. Samuel , this is yours.

Speaker 0 [00:33:48]:

You are listening to CTN CIO Talk Network with Sanjog Aul. Now back to the show.

Sanjog Aul [00:33:57]:

Well, we started with the laissez-faire leadership style, but I guess we are building a new one, which is the vending machine leader. So, Samuel , based on what we just discussed, I don’t see that to be a bad idea where a leader, like a vending machine operator or a vending machine themselves, carries a set of resources. It could be the ability to talk to the people who come and press a button, to be able to offer them resources, to be able to remove stumbling blocks. So we could be that, and then in that process of them learning how to make the right choices, our people will grow, they will solve their problems, and life will be good for all parties. Do you think that’s such a bad idea?

Samuel  Sudhakar [00:34:43]:

No. It’s not a bad idea. Going back to your kids example, if you have two or three kids, every one of them is going to be completely different. There’s no kid—you can ask any parent and they will say, my kids are polar opposites from each other. Each one of them needs different kinds of motivation, different kinds of resources, and they do different things. They eat different things. So employees are the Samuel e way. Every employee is different. Their motivations are different. Their productivity levels are different. The way they report back to you is different. So while you give the broad freedom to all the employees, empower them, give them the tools, there are different accountability measures you need to put on different employees based on the style that they operate. There are some employees who you just don’t hear from, but you see the results they’re producing. There are other employees who work in the background. You have to probe them and say, how is it going? What can I do to help? And some of your employees, you have to be very prescriptive about the steps that they need to follow. So we just need to adjust our leadership styles to motivate and bring the best out of employees in their individual style of working.

Sanjog Aul [00:36:06]:

So Susan, aren’t we at all points looking at a leader, and maybe define a successful leader as not someone who just delivers the results, but also develops other leaders in the process. So if our focus becomes just results, then we might trample on people’s heads and do other bad things. But if we focus on building other leaders in the process, the outcome people are pursuing is likely to get better and plus you would have developed other better workers and leaders in the organization. So where do we choose the—yeah. Go ahead.

Susan Fowler [00:36:41]:

I just want to jump in because I love what you just said. I think that is one of the key roles of a leader: to develop their people. And by develop their people, what I mean by that is that every individual is at a different stage of learning and producing on whatever projects they’re working on. So, I might, Sanjog Aul, if I’m your manager and you’re leading the radio show this morning, I don’t have to give you a lot of direction because you’ve obviously demonstrated that you can do this and you’re really good at it. But as soon as we give you another task that might be writing a book or something like that that you’ve never done before, then I’m going to have to step in and be more directive and guide you through that process potentially or help you get a resource so that you can do that effectively. So as leaders, we need to change our leadership style depending on the development level of the person and on the particular task or goal that they’re working on. We also have to be attentive to their learning style and their personality type. As Samuel  was talking about, some people are at different development levels and they have different personalities. Some are introverted and some are extroverted, and some people learn by getting the general idea first and then the details. Some people want the details and then the big picture. So I think that the problem we’ve had with leadership is that it is complicated and it’s deep. It’s a practice. What I get so frustrated with is that we think that we’ve got to send doctors through all these years of schooling and training to be a doctor. Or if you’re a CPA. And leadership is one of the most vital roles, and I don’t think we do as good a job as we need to in training our leaders. And if we don’t develop our leaders, then how are our leaders developing our people? So, I just think that development is a huge, huge issue, and I would say yes. That’s the role that leaders have. And if leaders don’t understand the process that is required for people to learn how to do what we need them to do, then they can’t be a good leader. They need to understand that.

Sanjog Aul [00:39:06]:

So, Samuel , my question to you is, is there an inside ego that leaders have to carry at all times that, hey, if no one wants me, that means I cease to be a leader. In fact, I can share an example. I was talking to a very large company CIO, and I said, hey. Are you available now? And he says, yes. And I looked at the time. It was 03:45 in the afternoon, and that’s, I’m assuming, a very busy time for any leader in an organization. So he picks up the phone, says, hi. How are you doing? And I said, how could you be available at this hour? He says that if I am busy, that means I’m not doing my job. And I started thinking about it, and I said, why do you say that? He says, I worked very hard in my time making sure that the people not only develop a mind of their own, but also become resourceful. Because if they have to keep coming to the leader, that means they have not yet developed that resourcefulness. So if I have someone who develops the brains to go and make their own mistakes and have the courage to make their own mistakes and the brains to navigate through the haze, and finally also have the resourcefulness, so that if I want an answer, I’m not going to bug my leader all the time. I’m going to find my own answers. Have I not done justice to that very ecosystem where I have developed other leaders in that process? So is today’s leadership actually working? This person who I’m talking about is an exception because I see many leaders say if I’m not wanted, that means there’s something wrong. But in a way, it is a good thing, isn’t it?

Samuel  Sudhakar [00:40:49]:

I agree. Confident and secure leaders are not doing busy work that their team need to be doing. Not busy work, I mean hands-on work and confident and secure leaders empower and enable their teams. They’re hands off and they’re looking at the progress, they’re looking at the big picture, they’re strategizing what the next steps are for the organization, being proactive thinkers about what’s coming in the future rather than being involved in the minutiae of the operations. If you get involved as a leader in the minutiae of the operations, then you’re always going to be busy. You’re always going to be checking on things and being worried about things. So a confident and secure leader, I think, has times where they can say, yes, I’m available. And that’s kind of the leadership style that I employ. If I’m busy every minute of the day, then I’m really not doing my job. I should be spending time researching emerging technologies and how it impacts student learning and how we can help our faculty members—those kinds of things. Let me use an example. In the olden days when somebody went to a doctor, the doctor said, this is what you need to do and this is the medicine that you need to take and you take it as God’s word. Today, the patient goes to the doctor and says, well, doctor, I read in WebMD that this is what is going on with me, or the TV commercial said, if you have these symptoms, you need to take this medication. And the doctor needs to be well informed about all that is available on the web to advise the patient appropriately rather than saying, well, you either go to the web and get your own medication or you come to me. You can’t do that. So you have to work with the patient and use their information and help them make an informed decision about their own health. As leaders, we have been informed of everything that’s available on the web that our employees are exposed to and that will bring them to you and help our employees make informed decisions and lead them in a fashion that will benefit the organization.

Susan Fowler [00:43:06]:

And, Samuel , I guess I would build on that and just say that there are some people, depending on the nature of the work they’re doing, that need more of your time. And as they develop, as they master it, then they need less of your time. The worst waste of your time is micromanaging people who don’t need it. But a lot of times, there are people who do need your specific instruction. They need your specific direction, and then you develop them. So it’s like if you’re teaching that child to ride a bike—you have the training wheels, it’s very involved—and then there’s a day where you say, go out and ride your bike. I think we need to teach leaders how to understand when it’s time for them to be involved with somebody and when they can back off. That is being efficient. So, Sanjog Aul, for the person that you were talking about, it sounds to me that he had a team of people that he had developed to a very high degree so that they were out doing what they could do. And he could spend his time developing more people or doing what Samuel  was talking about, looking at the bigger picture, being the visionary, being the transformational leader.

Sanjog Aul [00:44:34]:

Just take a quick break, listeners. We’ll be right back. And let’s also look at the dark side of the laissez-faire leadership style. I know we did not totally buy into it, but then we did see that there’s some value in being hands off and allowing them to do their own things. So the question there is, if we do allow that freedom where people are working or we’re expecting them to work with each other and maybe morph their role on their own so that they feel they’re doing the most for the organization, could that get out of hand? Could you allow room in some way where they are allowed to switch their hats as needed to get the work done, to be able to become like a swarm of ants who change their shapes in order to get to where they want to, to navigate through different terrains. So could you create that? And if you had to, what are the challenges that you think you’re going to face, and how are you going to tackle them? So please stay tuned listeners. We’ll be right back and explore.

Sanjog Aul [00:47:47]:

Welcome back. So we can learn from nature that a swarm of ants go in a given direction, all of them changing their position, their pace, so that they’re always together, but they get to their destination. So if that could be utilized as a proof of laissez-faire leadership working and if we wanted to make that work, frankly, you will get all the kudos as a leader. But in order to make that happen, how would you prevent the workers from losing their path, losing their understanding of their role and what they’re doing at a given time. So, Susan, what do you think if this natural phenomenon could be brought into an organization?

Susan Fowler [00:48:25]:

I have to tell you. This is ant season in California right now, and I am battling swarms of ants in my home. I know it sounds awful, and I almost hate to do it because I do have an admiration. I’m watching them going, how did they find that one little piece of candy? How did they do that? And so there is something about this whole concept of the collective wisdom, the wisdom of the crowd. In the West, we don’t really, I don’t think we appreciate the collective. We’re an individualistic society. We don’t really appreciate the collective. I’m struggling because what you’re talking about with ants is something that is in their nature. It’s something that they don’t even think about. They just do. And it is in our nature to belong, to want to be connected. In fact, one of those three psychological needs that I spoke of—there’s one thing we all have in common. I don’t care what your generation, your gender, your culture is. We all have these three psychological needs in common for autonomy, relatedness, and competence. Those are the three psychological needs that without them, we can’t thrive. We’re not productive. And so that whole concept of relatedness, which means that we want to belong, says that it is in our nature to have this kind of collective connection. But that collective connection also needs a direction. And I think that the job of a transformational leader is to help give people that direction and build a rationale for it and tap into a meaningful, purposeful, noble reason to be going forward together. And then once you’re transformational and you’ve got people kind of moving in this direction, you’re going to have the individual needs, and I think this is where we depart from ants. As human beings with free will, we also need to have a leader who can be more transactional, who can say, what’s the direction you need right now? What’s the support you need right now? So I see the role of the leader as being more important now than ever. And so for me, the laissez-faire concept doesn’t work. But I do feel like what you’re saying is how can we tap into this idea of getting people all moving together but by choice, because they’re choosing to do it. And that’s where transformational leadership comes in. It’s like we’re saying, here’s the noble purpose. You have a choice to follow or move in that direction or not. And then as a leader, let me give you the skills, the resources, the direction you need so that you can do that. So that’s kind of my thought.

Sanjog Aul [00:51:29]:

So Samuel , if you were to look at the things which we could do, maybe you don’t want to label it as laissez-faire because it has a negative connotation and we carry that strong opinion about this style. Could there be a hybrid where you do develop that swarm of ants, you give them the direction through the vision, and then leave them alone?

Samuel  Sudhakar [00:51:50]:

Absolutely. So, the opposite to laissez-faire is helicopter boss. Right? So you are hovering over employees and constantly checking in on the projects that you assigned to them. So there is a hybrid model, and it’s referred to as supported autonomy. I don’t know if you’ve heard of this term. Supported autonomy is intervening at the right instances and intervening in the right situations for each of your employees and giving them feedback on how the project or the initiative is going. For example, there is a technique called the 30% feedback rule. So the 30% feedback rule says when you’re about 30% done with your project or initiative, then you go and ask your leader and your team for feedback on: Am I going in the right direction? Do I need to make any course correction? It’s better to do it at the 30% time than doing it at 90% where you have to completely revamp the process or initiate it. So the hybrid model is being there for your team and expecting certain milestone feedback at certain points of time. And that could vary for different individuals and different teams. And that’s the way to effectively lead and manage.

Susan Fowler [00:53:18]:

And can I just say something real quick about what you just said, Samuel ? With using that 30% rule, did you notice that what you focused on was that the person doing the work would then go and ask for feedback? That really is what I was hoping to say about self leadership: that we can’t have that kind of hands-off leadership or even the hybrid unless we have individual contributors who know how to ask for feedback. A really fascinating 3-year research project just finished where they were studying the effectiveness of feedback. Thousands, if not millions of dollars and thousands of hours have been spent teaching leaders how to give good feedback. And the research says that feedback doesn’t work, that leaders giving people feedback has failed miserably. One, leaders don’t like to do it. Two, leaders aren’t good at doing it. And even if they’re decent at doing it, people don’t hear it because it’s not just in time or because it’s coming top-down. And the conclusion is that what we really need to be doing is teaching individual contributors how to ask for feedback and how to take initiative and be proactive at asking for that feedback on a regular basis. And so I just agree that if we’re going to have this hybrid or what I call situational leadership, we also need to teach self leaders how to take advantage of the leader who has empowered us. 

Sanjog Aul [00:54:54]:

On behalf of the show and our listeners, thanks so much Susan and Samuel  for sharing your respective views on laissez-faire. We know it’s not the chosen path for many leaders today. Maybe a hybrid is needed where you’re able to let go of your traditional styles, become more open, and be more inclusive in your styles, and get the best outcome for your business. So thank you so much again both. 

Susan Fowler [00:55:21]:

Thank you.

Samuel  Sudhakar [00:55:21]:

You’re welcome. It’s a pleasure.

Sanjog Aul [00:55:23]:

And listeners, hope you enjoyed it, learned a few tips here. Please like us on Facebook, search for CTN, be sure to follow us on Twitter and join us on our LinkedIn community. Thank you again for listening to the segment on CTN. This is Sanjog Aul, your talk show host. Until next week, take care and God bless.