Article by Alexandru Tulai, Change Management Specialist
Following the article on imposture, the contours of a complete argument are starting to materialise. The challenges under discussion are the issues which can seriously hinder the development/transformation of the organisation, and ultimately this is about whether sustainability is generated, or not.
When speaking previously about the possibility of imposture being avoided, I mentioned that where a position is proposed for a candidate whose current level of competence is not sufficient, it could simply be refused – they could choose not to commit to carry out the given tasks in the proposed period.
But if this situation of imposture is accepted, a complex mechanism is triggered, designed to respond to:
- how the leader is perceived by superiors
- how the team perceives the leader
- how the leader obtains support horizontally (from their equals).
The first two of these involve putting on a mask, while the third is about complicity. In all cases hypocrisy is present, not necessarily as a defensive reaction (naturally, this is commonplace and even acceptable to a certain degree) but as an offensive tool, used in order to obtain more power, and therefore generate comfort.
In the absence of the necessary skills, or in the case of inconsistency of personal values with those of the organisation (the community), the most convenient path for the person to appear in a favourable light is to control and distort information in both directions vertically, resulting in two components of an image. The one seen from above shows an employee who is dedicated and who solves (all) the company’s problems (sometimes with a “significant” amount of effort). The other presents a “patriarchal” character, without whose support it would be very difficult for the team members to endure and grow in the organisation.
Let’s look at these in more detail.
For the upwardly projected image, there is greater need for the control of information coming from the team. This information is gently modified by emphasising, or even adding, a personal contribution to achieving the results, and the effect can be doubled by the silencing, partial or complete, of the contribution from the one who actually solved the problem. In this way, results can be directly appropriated. If, however, there is a risk that the information travels up to management directly from the actual contributor, they will slowly but surely be discredited. This is a systematic action, applied in small doses and assimilated by the recipient, which uses any situation that, directly or with small “adjustments”, can emphasise the “objectivity” of the impostor’s attitude towards the employee in question.
Needless to say, this whole process involves a high level of hypocrisy, a hypocrisy which is consistently and consciously used to achieve the planned result. The scenario is obviously carefully plotted, and the more intelligent and practiced in hypocrisy the character is, the more complex the game becomes. At the same time, in order to favour the absorption of the image projected, the impostor tries to develop a relationship in any area of personal (non-professional) interest with their superior, whose concerns and interests are observed very carefully, and greeted with informed responses, the facilitation of special relationships and so on. What does this achieve? It increases the boss’s confidence in the impostor’s professional ability through “services” outside the profession, strengthening general credibility. Any previous story about successes in roles in other organisations can also substantially contribute to this, even if the story is difficult to verify in detail (a story such as “He was a CEO in a financial organisation!” for example, relayed as if that position could not have been obtained by the same mechanism of imposture).
For the image projected downward, both forcefulness and compassion can be used as emotional tools. Whichever tool is selected, it is particularly useful to keep the team in a state of mild ignorance, lacking real support for progress, and to cut down initiatives, creating the most intense feeling of dependence on the team leader.
The forcefulness scenario proceeds along these lines: “If you want to have a good life in this team, first off you have to learn that everything comes through me.” Raising or lowering the team member’s image at the level of the superiors of the team, or sometimes even within it, is the way to confirm this statement from the “onboarding” stage. The change of image is done with the mechanism presented above, and at periodic career progress evaluations which offer further opportunities. It is relatively easy for this phenomenon to happen, as long as the rudiments of organisational culture (even the superficial ones), usually borrowed through contact with Western companies for the sake of creating the impression that the organisation has its own culture, allow the evaluator (team leader) to justify bad results in the assessment to be explained under the category “bad attitude” without any further argument or reference.
In the second scenario, a boss is presented as being preoccupied with the relationship with the client (hours of calls and video conferences every day…), solving such complicated problems that it is obvious to everyone that there is no option to delegate the activity, nor whom to delegate it to, as their “competence” means they alone are able to ensure the successful delivery of the result. As we well know, nothing truly grows in the shadow of the “oak”, yet in this way, chipping away day after day, a plinth is erected and the statue of the “hero” is cast. One symptom is the appreciation of the “huge” volume of effort delivered by the boss through compassion (“poor Mike!”) but, interestingly, the added value created by this effort is not questioned in any way. And a complementary symptom: the “hero” becomes known very quickly to new employees. Even before becoming acquainted, under the influence of organisational folklore, they come to know the hero without reservation as “Nice guy Mike”. But we will talk about this topic in another article.
That leaves the issue of horizontal complicity. Considering the types of characters described so far, it is quite easy to see that we are in a situation where mediocrity is widespread in the managerial realm. As a group, managers are characterised by the speed and consistency with which they build solid alliances, obviously to an apparently defensive end (the preservation of privileges), and this solidarity is very easily achieved by quickly identifying the enemy: competence. It must be prevented immediately, and by any means, from manifesting itself. And it is not simply a question of maintaining privilege, it is actually conservation – the organisation becomes frozen in its current pattern, leading to a stopping of initiative. Consequently the application of innovation ceases, strongly affecting the sustainability of the organisation (or community, even on the largest possible scale, including the state’s one), which becomes captive to the group of (sub)mediocre managers.
Having reached this state, it is quite difficult to break the “cemented” alliance that becomes a handbrake on the organisation’s development. Things can degenerate, in this case, to direct actions where a person or group deliberately undermine their own organisation.
The root of these phenomena is the absence of a set of consistent values, or if values have been well-chosen by a founding leader then it is the failure to respect them, or a rift between a leader and an organisation with diverse causes.
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