David J Paul Project Management Professional, Management Professor, Author and Small Business Manager
There is something profoundly uncaring about the way work was brought into the 20th century by some of the giants of industry. People like Ford, Carnegie, Post, and Mellon all sought to ‘optimize’ the worker’s productivity through scientific management. This movement created an ‘us vs them’ attitude in the working world and it needed to be corrected. It needed an antidote.
Caring as an “Antidote” to Scientific Management
Herzberg (1976) began moving toward the human side of leadership by the time his book “The Managerial Choice—To be efficient and to be human” was published, although he decried the caring aspect (Herzberg, 1976). He incorporated some elements of respect, but regard eluded him. Even as a psychologist, his focus remained on productivity and getting people to work, rather than the transformational aspect of crafting a caring environment where people genuinely want to work, want to get engaged, and want to connect with others. As a result, the work of transformational and charismatic leadership development and research was left to others to pursue. I think Herzberg really missed his chance to fundamentally transform management and leadership practices.
The research team of Heinitz and Rowold (2007) have observed, “Transformational leadership has a high charismatic component (convergent validity) while both charismatic and transformational leadership are divergent from transactional leadership. Both charismatic leadership and transformational leadership exceed transactional leadership in subjective performance and in productivity and profit.” (Heinitz and Rowold, 2007, p. 121). Stop right there. Go back and re-read that. Is there any reason why you would choose transactional leadership (scientific management) over charismatic or transformational leadership? I hope not. Caring for yourself and others promotes transformational leadership.
Leaders who care for themselves and others communicate their vision for the work group, team, social element or family!! My son in law is consistent in talking to my grandsons about their future. This vision is rooted in commonly-shared ethics and values. Socialized charismatic leaders use their abilities to achieve benefits for all followers, and not just for their own benefit. Strong emotional ties exist between the leaders and the led. Performance beyond expectations is generally found in work environments characterized by transformational and charismatic leaders. Transformational leadership begins with an inspiring vision of the future and continues to emphasize care for the values of the followers. As a result, if I am asked to consult with a company and the CEO or leader doesn’t have time to share her vision for the group with me, I generally decline the gig. It’s that important, that VISION THING.
I love how Barry Posner and Jim Kouzes (1997) at the University of Santa Clara have identified five key elements of transformational and charismatic leadership. They observe that great leaders will 1) Challenge the Process, 2) Inspire a Shared Vision, 3) Enable others to Act, 4) Model the Way, and 5) Encourage the Heart. By scoring an individual’s ability in these five areas, they are able to distinguish the charismatic or transformational leader from the transactional leader and in doing so, put forward the notion that the individual needs (for feeling cared for) contain the ‘difference making’ difference. That is, having your “being cared for” needs met means a lot to your family health, job and work related health and productivity.
Transformational leadership is inspirational, intellectually stimulating, challenging, visionary, and development oriented. It is regarded as the most active and effective form of leadership. Both charismatic and transformational leadership come closest to embodying systematic expressions of individualized ‘caring’ in the workplace. However, if you just focus on the transactions between yourself as leader and the people who work for you, you will miss entirely the notion of creating a culture of caring or high mutual regard among colleagues. Why is that? Most transactions are measured between leader and follower, whereas, our current data show that the source of caring is 26% from the leader and 56% from “others, peers, and colleagues”. As a result, you need to work to create the atmosphere where the work matters and PEOPLE CARE FOR ONE ANOTHER.
The “work that matters” piece is a recurring theme in transformational leadership literature and it’s found under the heading of the augmentation effect (augmentation meaning to improve the outcome or correlation). This effect is generally studied as a function of things like department size, hierarchical level, and type of organization, but almost never cross-correlated with elements of caring in the workplace. Indeed, the careful characterization of caring and its subtle distinctions by individual’s values is not systematically presented in any of the literature discussed to date. In working through the steps in this series of articles or in the book, Dare to Care, you will have the opportunity of leading your company and workgroup on a carefully mapped and solidly constructed journey from lagging to leading productivity through the culture of caring. Good luck. It’s time to get started.
The Cameron Group, Inc. 