Incompetence in Leadership

A couple of days ago the Harvard Business Review released a post on their blog that I thought, at first glance, I would likely approve of. The idea behind the article is this: while some people may argue that women are underrepresented in leadership because of disinterest, lack of talent, or an impenetrable glass ceiling (depending on one's political leanings), the actual reason is more to do with our culture attributing symptoms of "hubris" more commonly seen in men to good leadership, when this is often false in practice.

Obviously the topic of women at work continues to be something of a hot button issue. To me, the idea that we still need to have discussions on the skills and roles of men versus those of women is as ridiculous as suggesting that different skin tones or musical preference somehow impacts one's ability to be productive at work, but that's not the point being made here.

Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici
/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The article is very specific in targeting research that suggests that while the people who typically get promoted are consistent with people with personality disorders such as narcissism or psychopathy (in fact, there have been several articles over the years that state in no uncertain terms that high functioning psychopaths perform disproportionately well in business), those are not the best types of leaders. Of course, the author then makes the connection that women tend to exhibit these types of destructive personality traits less often than men and as a result are overlooked when promotion time comes around.

Here's my issue with the thesis of the article. If the article merely said that there are traits that get one promoted and traits that make one a good leader, that the two tended to be polar opposites, and that we as a culture need to shift away from overconfident, self promoting jerks as "leaders", I would be in complete agreement. But he doesn't. The author makes the next leap that women, naturally more sensitive and humble, therefore make better leaders.

As a feminist, the suggestion one sex is inherently better than the other immediately puts me on guard. No where in the article is it mentioned that there are certainly large amounts of sensitive, humble, well reasoned men who too are overlooked during promotion time.

We have a strange, somewhat warped view of what makes a good leader. This is absolutely true. The type of person that often reaches management levels are those that self promote and are in general more concerned with their personal success than that of the company they work at. However, and this is a substantial however, there are plenty of excellent managers out there, both men and women, and not all of them are the same because different traits will serve different people and different situations, you guessed it, differently.

Rather than making blanket statements about how one gender does outperforms the other in some way or another (and at least the author made sure to note that whether this is by nature or nurture is unknown), why don't we talk about what qualities we want in our leaders and how to best fill the seats with those people? Women and visible minorities (every culture has their own group of underrepresented people) are woefully lacking in management, yes.

The solution however, isn't to say that white men are simply worse leaders, it is to create holes in that ever present glass ceiling through mentorship programs, social programs that help fill the gaps in cultural expectations (such as child care or local experience), and moving, as a society, towards a culture where aggression or cockiness aren't considered a man's domain, just a jerk's, because they come in all shapes and sizes, and most should never be in charge of anything.

Back from the dead! and HR's role in controlling employee schedules.

Hello world!

After having taken a nearly full year sabbatical from the blog while I focused on work, I am very happy to be back. Part of my return can be accounted for by my decision to pursue my CHRP designation, starting with writing the NKE in November. I'll be posting study tips as I go along since I have found that there doesn't seem to ever quite be enough of that when you're in the midst of studying.


With that out of the way, we might as well jump right back in with some news from across the pond. A young man was found dead in his shower last week. Early reports indicate that this may have been, in some part, brought on by his working hours at Merrill Lynch.

Image courtesy of imagerymajestic/
FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This has brought on discussion about industries where working hours are less regulated and where the expectation is that the employee essentially devotes themselves to the company until they have earned their stripes, so to speak. This practice is fairly common place here in Canada too. Fields such as medicine, finance, and law have implicit (and sometimes explicit) expectations of their employees that they put in 60, 70, 80, even 100 hours in a given week.

In Ontario, there are strict regulations around how many hours an employee is required to work, as well as how many hours they can be asked to work. That number never exceeds 60 hours a week and anything above 48 requires ministry approval. The Ministry of Labour website is very clear that the onus is on the employer to submit the appropriate documentation and follow the laws, but that it is the responsibility of the employee to come forward if the rules aren't being followed.

The fields where the violations are the greatest tend to be either the ultra competitive, well paying positions such as the young man who's death is now sparking a controversy in the UK, or the type of low paying, low skilled work given to people with little agency over their choice in job.

The question is, since inherently, the types of people who end up in these roles are the least likely to come forward (the fear of losing a hard-fought job being too much for most), how do we as HR professionals play our part?

What would an HR person working in a law firm that mandates 3,000 billable hours (per year) from their associates do? How about simply rewarding the lawyers who pulled in the greatest amount of hours?

Where does an HR person step in if an hourly employee is being encouraged to work more hours than there is ministry approval for? This is especially troubling since in many situations like this there is no HR person involved.

At the end of the day, there is only so much HR can do if the employee isn't willing to come forward, but where do we draw the line?

Follow this link to learn more about Moritz Erhardt and the UK controversy on the Guardian.