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When good leadership goes wrong
Monty Python fans recall the optimistic pluckiness of the black knight who threatens King Arthur even after being completely de-limbed. “It’s only a flesh wound!” he chirps and asks Arthur to walk over to where the knight has fallen so he can bite King Arthur’s legs. King Arthur refers to him as a “lunatic” but also kindly agrees to call the one-sided duel “a draw” in recognition of the misguided pluck of the black knight.
Many of us have been in the role of the black knight in an organization. We want to do well. We don’t want to give up. We want to see our organization and our mission positively. But sometimes, we have to take that big tin can off our heads so we can see clearly. And every once in a while, we have to take a stand. It can be a quixotic mission. Or it can be a revolution.
It is axiomatic that leadership has a potential dark side. More contemporary examples of the “dark side” of leadership can be seen in the Enron implosion and even the Wall Street collapse. A leadership blog describes the “dark side” of leadership this way:
“It is sometimes called “the shadow.” This is the part that is negative and can create toxic environments. Characteristics can include greed, jealousy, envy, excessive competition, defensiveness, manipulation, … the list goes on. It is when the ego gets control of us and starts leading our thoughts and behaviors.”
It isn’t that the “dark side” stems from only negative or bad traits–quite the opposite. It can actually stem from good traits that simply become too strong and trip over into what might be called “tragic flaws”. Getting “carried away” with the power of leadership can be a very bad thing. And that, in turn, can be a very bad thing for your organization, your firm, your members, and your employees.
So how do you avoid this leadership trap?
Maintain trusted advisers who are not in your leadership circle. Get real feedback so you don’t live in a bubble of only those who agree with you or see things from your skewed perspective.
Curb your suspiciousness lest you find yourself in the awkward position of calling your followers/members dissenters when your leadership group, in truth, are the ones dissenting while the organization is in agreement.
Honor service and honor your members/employees. Recognize the loyalty of ‘loyal opposition’ and embrace positive diversity of views. You don’t have to agree with everyone. But you can honor their service to your firm or organization. No one likes to see leaders that deride or minimize members/followers. Be respectful. Keep critical and devaluing comments about individuals to yourself.
Give credit where credit is due. Great leaders do not create themselves. Their words and their behaviors spark commitment to “do good” among others. Fan the spark by acknowledging contributions.
And yet, when you are a leader, be unafraid to do the right thing. Just make sure it really is the right thing. If you wonder, act cautiously, and risk erring on the side of graciousness.
It seems only fitting that this post is going up on the week in which we honor Martin Luther King, Jr. Here is an example of a man who was not perfect by any means, yet he inspired a huge cultural change. Being a leader isn’t easy. But it shouldn’t hurt those who choose to follow you.
Conger, J. (1990). The dark side of leadership Organizational Dynamics, 19 (2), 44-55 DOI: 10.1016/0090-2616(90)90070-6
“Stop picking fights and get some emotional intelligence!”
Now that’s a great line. The kind I wish I had the presence of mind to say when someone furious is trying to bully me into acquiescence. Of course, the kind of person who would be the best recipient of the line is also unlikely to make good use of it. Sigh. Fortunately, I have not been prey to that sort of behavior in years. So when this research came across my desk I was intrigued.
We hear so much about anger management (and I, for one, believe it’s almost always a good thing) but these researchers say that maybe we don’t need to be so focused on always maintaining our cool. There are times when getting angry is actually a smart, strategic move.
Emotional intelligence “refers to the ability to perceive, control and evaluate emotions. Some researchers suggest that emotional intelligence can be learned and strengthened, while others claim it is an inborn characteristic.” We’ve known about emotional intelligence for decades now. It is widely seen as a good thing and as a visible indicator of good mental health. In general, people who are emotionally intelligent gauge their emotional expression to the message they want to communicate.
Researchers were curious about whether emotionally intelligent people sometimes chose to feel bad in order to be more effective. That is, whether the communication of aggressive distress can be useful. They knew it was a counter-intuitive hypothesis as it would seem that in order to control your emotions you would want to maintain a neutral or positive internal state. Their hypotheses were supported by the data:
“People who indicate they want to feel angry more than others are more, rather than less, emotionally intelligent when anger is likely to serve them well. In contrast, people who want to feel happy more than others are actually lower in emotional intelligence when happiness is unlikely to be useful. Such findings raise the possibility that wanting to feel good at all times may not necessarily be an intelligent choice.”
We’ve done a number of mock trials around family disputes over the past few years and this research is applies well to the intense emotions aroused in these disputes. Here in Texas (where, if you’re rich enough and angry enough you can have a jury decide the major issues in your divorce case), we seem to have a fair number of such situations–whether divorce or business valuations when family relationships break down irrevocably. It is always stressful for the family to endure the candid comments of the jurors (both mock and real), their snap judgments and their often unflattering assessments of character and motivations.
But even more telling is how presciently the mock jurors are able to ‘see’ subtle indications of leaking rage and hostility that only former loved ones can elicit. Family members on both sides of these disputes feel enraged, betrayed, deceived and cheated. And how can it be otherwise?
Our task in these volatile situations is to help our witnesses understand that their most effective emotional state when testifying requires some emotionally intelligent processing of their emotions. Unresolved anger is often seen as unreasonable, that the distressed person won’t be satisfied even by a just verdict. The risk is that even when the anger is justified, the jury adopts a feeling of alienation from the witness, or hopelessness to make a constructive difference. Rage (even when masked) is perceived via subtle signs such as uneven breathing, posture, a trembling voice, or a flash of eyes quickly veiled. It’s amazing how much jurors can ‘see’ when they are not caught up in the emotional drama of the upset. Families observing these research projects are often amazed at how quickly the jurors are able to identify the root of the problem/conflict–when it took the family a long, long time to understand the situation (and often even longer to choose to act).
Emotions cloud our thinking and they cloud our judgment. Yet, according to this research, there are times when emotions can facilitate accuracy in communicating our message. We think family disputes and court testimony from family members is not the place to get comfortable with your anger. Jurors want the dispute resolved by the family. They want to feel there is a possibility of future reconciliation.
Testimony showing healthy sadness or even anger over the damaged relationships is met with empathy from mock jurors. In our most recent project, one of the mock jurors referred to the visible sense of loss and love in a witness’ deposition as a reflection of “family values, still”. And that’s what you want. A conflict involving family that has escalated out of control and yet, reflects hope still.
Ford BQ, & Tamir M (2012). When getting angry is smart: Emotional preferences and emotional intelligence. Emotion (Washington, D.C.) PMID: 22309721
“Glasses can’t hide neck tattoos”
It’s been more than a year since we first wrote about the “nerd defense”. Essentially, this is the practice of sticking eyeglasses on your allegedly dangerous defendant to communicate their innocence to members of the jury. But now, the Washington Post has finally picked up the practice and we thought we’d mention it again.
Here’s how the Post describes the evolving use of the “nerd defense”.
“Attorneys say inmates trade them before hearings, while friends and family sometimes deliver them during jailhouse visits. Some lawyers even supply them themselves.
They often escape notice — as was the case with another murder defendant who wore glasses with thick, black frames during a summer murder trial. Convicted of first-degree murder in August, his glasses never came up in court.
But the eyewear sported during the trial of Carter and his friends, which began its fifth week in D.C. Superior Court on Tuesday, has attracted attention. Court observers say prosecutors seized an opportunity to suggest to jurors that the defendants were dishonest in misrepresenting their appearance.”
Some would say this is simply another example of defendants cleaning up prior to court appearances–they come in dressed in suits and with haircuts–why not eyeglasses? Others say it is going too far–like the furor over the court order to pay for makeup to cover a defendant’s racist face and neck tattoos in Florida.
But there is a flaw in the strategy that is pretty odd to overlook. The entire premise of the ‘nerd defense’ is based on a distortion of the original research (cited below). The research suggests that jurors perceive the glasses-wearer as being smarter and less threatening, but it isn’t likely to have a significant affect on the verdict. When we initially blogged about the study, it was this misunderstanding that we found most interesting.
“Our line of research suggests that the presence of eyeglasses on a defendant may significantly affect verdict outcome. However, this effect is likely to be small and indirect. In both scenarios, the presence of eyeglasses increased ratings of defendants’ intelligence. For the violent crime scenario, this increase was associated with less guilty verdicts. Eyeglasses also decreased ratings of defendants’ as threatening; however, this decrease was not significantly related to verdict. Thus, how intelligent a defendant appeared was a better predictor of verdict outcome than how physically threatening he appeared. Future research should examine if other indicators of intelligence (level of education, vocabulary, etc.) produce the similar effects.” See the full article here.
In other words, the glasses had a small pro-defense effect. No get-out-of-jail-free magic. Yet, trial lore spreads and criminal defense lawyers have defendants in eyewear for court proceedings.
We don’t think jurors are that easily fooled. Instead, we concur with the commenter on the Washington Post article from whom we stole the title of this blog post: “Glasses can’t hide neck tattoos”! [They can’t hide character, either.]
Brown, M. J., Henriquez, E., & Groscup, J. (2008). The effects of eyeglasses and race on juror decisions involving a violent crime. American Journal of Forensic Psychology , 26 (2), 25-43
Should you maybe change your last name so people like you better?
So you may have read about the life-long curse of an unpopular first name. But there’s more. Before you run off to change your first name, you may want to consider your last name as well!
I’ve always liked my last name. It’s unusual and it’s phonetic. Hand. Rich. Simple. I never understood why people mangled it so much. Hendricks. Handrick. Handridge. By the time I completed my Ph.D., I knew I would rarely be Dr. Handrich. Instead, I went by Rita. When I worked in an environment where it was unseemly to be called by your first name, the residents of that facility gratefully called me “Dr. H”.
So seeing this research on how much more people like ‘simple’ and common names doesn’t seem particularly novel to me but then my last name is simple compared to the exemplar used by the researchers: Colquhoun.
We’ve talked about how women with masculine-ish sounding first names [like Jim] are more likely to become judges. But there is a whole lot more. Your first name portends both your income and educational level. Boys with girls’ names are more likely to be suspended from school. (But Johnny Cash told us that one long ago.) The popularity of your first name also predicts whether you will be a juvenile delinquent! Surely that is enough. Well, guess what. The simpler your last name, the more likely you are to advance in a law firm! Seriously? Let’s back up a bit and go through the research.
This research is based on the literature on processing fluency. In short, the same body of research that talks about why we don’t like to listen to people with accents speak English. It’s simply too much work. Researchers conducted five separate experiments to look at the effect of an easy to pronounce last name.
Experiment 1 found that people with easy to pronounce last names were seen as more likable.
Experiment 2 found that political candidates on ballots were more popular when they had easy to pronounce last names.
Experiment 3 found that when political candidates names were embedded in a newspaper story about a local election, the candidate with the easier to pronounce last name was deemed “more suitable” for the position than those with harder to pronounce last names.
Experiment 4 found that when participants rated both in group (a citizen of their own country) and out group (a citizen from another country) surnames, they found the easier to pronounce surname more “likable”.
Experiment 5 gathered a list of 500 US lawyers first and last names from law firm websites.
“To sample randomly but widely, we extracted 50 names from each of ten firms that varied in size from the largest US firm to the 178th largest US firm (using the website: http://www.ilrg.com/nlj250).”
The names were then rated by undergraduate research participants for ease of pronunciation and foreignness. The researchers determined that attorneys with foreign sounding names had likely been employed for shorter periods of time and thus only ran comparisons on those with Anglo-American sounding surnames. You know what they found. The easier to pronounce names were of those lawyers occupying superior positions in company hierarchies.
Wow. This takes that first-impression effect and ramps it up a few notches. All the witness preparation in the world can’t change the impact of your surname. Or can it? We would argue it can. You can diminish the impact of an unusual last name by simply asking the witness about pronunciation and offering a self-deprecating apology for inquiring. Share their understandable difficulty. The witness can then (charmingly) explain the pronunciation of their last name and offer a simplified version for use in court. (“If you prefer, you can simply call me Dr. C.”) If opposing counsel persists in struggling (genuinely or not) with the witness’ surname regardless of the encouragement to use the simpler version, the witness can make eye contact and smile at jurors and the damage is likely reversed. After all, making something difficult when an easy solution is offered starts to sound rude.
The most important thing is that jurors see someone being “different” as unimportant to them while they struggle with issues that really do matter. Jurors only ask that your client or witness communicates with them in a respectful, clear and comprehensible fashion. That’s a lot more important than a difficult to pronounce last name.
And by the way. It’s Hand-rich. But you can call me Rita.
Laham, S., Koval, P., & Alter, A. (2012). The name-pronunciation effect: Why people like Mr. Smith more than Mr. Colquhoun. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48 (3), 752-756 DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2011.12.002
Leading from the bottom: Dealing positively with organizational dysfunction
Are you now, or have you ever been, in a crazy organization? Perhaps at work, at church, or a professional group (let’s not even consider a crazy family this time). It’s easy to get mad. It’s easy to be negative. And it’s understandable when some people throw up their hands and just quit. When you are involved in an organization whose leadership you disagree with–whether a non-profit, a small business, or a law firm–you have to find ways to manage yourself when leaving is not an option you wish to exercise.
And it’s hard. Litigation consulting can be a lonely business. Most of us work alone and when we find kindred spirits it’s a wonderful thing. It was in that spirit that a small group of us listened recently to trial consultant Karen Lisko offer a strategy for turning frustration into productive outcomes.
“When I was an undergraduate at the University of Arizona, I happened to sign up for a theology class that would have a profound effect on my life. The priest taught it based on one simple premise — bottom up. He taught that all great faiths, countries, and organizations survive because their members fervently believe that the power is at the bottom, not at the top. From that vantage point, you stick with the organization because of the principles and the group, not because of the leadership.
Why not turn frustrations now toward a positive rebellion that rallies the group around what brought them together in the first place? In essence, we encourage them to lead their membership from the bottom.”
I also recall a moment when my mother-in-law approached the head minister of her church during a time of great controversy, and told him that while she disagreed with him, she wasn’t going to leave, as others had. She explained to him “I’m staying because this is my church– our church– and you aren’t going to take it from me.”
It’s a fresh perspective that allows lots of productive strategies to emerge. All of us need that sort of contribution from “fresh eyes” now and then. Whether you are in the throes of case preparation and can’t see the forest for the trees, or in the middle of [yet] another meeting to rehash the same old stuff with partners and associates–fresh perspective is imperative. It can move you from frustrated, stuck, and pessimistic to energized, optimistic and excited for the future.
We’ve written before about leading our unethical leaders and other organizational issues–like psychopaths in the boardroom and those selfish meanies in your office. And those tactics come from a variety of fields of study. Add theology to the list. Lead from the bottom!
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