Marc Avanzo
These days, there seems to be a renewed interest in many countries towards strong leadership, at least in
the political realm. Following this new trend, some big western organisations have just signified their will to
go back to a more « virile » leadership style. Nevertheless, some regions have always favoured a strong
leadership style in all their organised social structures, from companies down to the family nuclei. This
cultural aspect sometimes clashes with new standards that emerged in the last two decade about
introducing softer, more empathic leadership that better fits the newest generations’ yearning for
independence, meaning and life quality. In this article I would like to analyse a few reasons why some people
tend to prefer strong leadership, and how it is relevant…or not, according to the situation and the
expected results. I would also like to analyse where this leadership style comes from and the unwanted
effects on team cohesion, agility and agency. I will finish by giving some suggestions of paths that can help
grow out of the strong leadership traps to foster collective intelligence and efficient collaboration.
We all have a specific relationship to power, And because it is such a vital and structuring relationship in a
societies, my hypothesis is that this relationship to power is often shaped by some kind of traumatic
experience wether in the family or later at school, at university or at work. Some people see power as a
way to make things move forward, control and ensure that the expected outcome be delivered on time and
with quality. We sometimes hear in the business world « This is not a democracy here ». It is not by chance
that many business terms are borrowed from war vocabulary « target », « goal », « challenge », « force »,
« impact »… etc… in this power paradigm, the main expectations fulfilled by the leaders are security,
direction and structure (getting organised to get things done).
For some other people, power has got a more « feminine » flavour to it. An amusing fact about power has
been established by late Pr. Frans de Waal (the famous etologist who wrote on leadership amongst apes) on
dominant males amongst the bonobo primates: strangely enough, dominant males amongst bonobos are not
the strongest. Along with reasonable force, they actually need to show a lot of social skills: they take care
of females and get a strong support from them, they are good at conflict management, and they show care
and empathy to group members going through crisis (accident, child’s death etc…).in other words another
important aspect of power resides in the ability to create and sustain social peace (conflict management),
cohesion and care.
So in a nutshell, there are two main ways to see power: one efficient, stretching, task focused way that gets
things done, dealing at best with external constrains, and another way focusing on internal cohesion, that
glues the group with fluid, supportive, trusting and creative interactions.
In the business world, the first way tends to be favoured in the name of efficiency. However, associating it
with efficiency is based on a hidden assumption: imposing a rigid and strong internal structure (strong
hierarchy, top down leadership) would be enough to ensure basic cohesion and move the group forward.
The reality is much more refined. Imposing force on a group structure to create « external » cohesion
doesn’t really work on the long run. A group needs to be first glued together with trust before it is
stretched towards the many challenging tasks. In other words, I need to trust you as a leader and to trust
my team mates before I accept to work hard and stretch my inner resources in the direction you want me
to work towards. If trust is not there and I am asked to work hard for a longer time without any room for
discussion, I will start to innerly question orders, and show some passive aggressive behaviour, I will make
the processes inefficient (conscious sabotage or unconscious self-sabotage, ) to implement the orders. And
this very inefficiency will trigger stronger control and orders from the hierarchy, which triggers less
efficiency in the teams, etc… This is how strong leaders get locked in the downward spiral of mistrust,
over-control, top down approach with a resulting heavy workload on their shoulders. They end up feeling
tired, lonely, lacking support and obliged to take on all responsibilities, while putting their subordinates
down and complaining that they cannot trust them.
Isn’t this sad?
Yes this top down, forceful leadership is efficient in times of crisis, but not in day to day routine. Our body
and brain are not designed to undergo heavy stress on a long run. Stress hormones (cortisol, adrenaline
etc…) end up damaging our inner organs when staying in the blood for too long. Remaining in this
permanent state of stress is actually a trauma response.
A typical traumatic response, brings stiffness (no choice), tension (over-focus) , constriction, fragmentation,
time pressure, black and white (right/wrong) thinking. In this paradigm, there is no choice, there is no time,
no trust, there is only scarcity in a dangerous world.
This lack of trust brings leaders to show « autocratic », tendencies putting pressure on everyone, being
very demanding and critical, while disempowering at the same time. In the end this leadership style exhausts
and tenses everyone. It is a trap!
I was privileged to witness several times the change of leadership styles in various clients in India as I was
working for a top tier consulting company on long term change management missions. The several leaders I
coached had similar symptoms: high stress, high pressure, constant feeling of overwhelm, no time for their
families, health issues (blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes), anger management problem and a very
directive and micromanaging leadership style.
In all these clients, we worked on their anger over six months, started learning Non-Violent
Communication to create an open feedback culture and started empowering their teams, scary as it was at
first. Often, they would start at home and get touched by the response they got from their children or
wives, who would express that they wanted a dad/husband that would always be so calm, open and
supportive. In all these cases, they drastically changed their ways of being over six months. They let their
teams deal with details and implementation without micro-managing, they finally had time to focus on more
strategic issues at work, and felt more free to take care of themselves, doing some sport, eating better. In
all these cases, their health condition just disappeared after six months.
When I visited them later, they were wearing a large and genuine smile, feeling calm and content, there was
no trace of anger, stress or frustration. They had been courageous enough to experiment with trusting and
empowering their teams, using empathy to listen with care and give constructive and respectful feedback.
Their teams – that they once despised, controlled or even put down with a constant complaint about their
incapacities – had thrived and dared to take initiative. Hence, they expressed and grew their skills; they had
grown into trustworthy subordinates with agency and joy.
From a lose/lose locked in situation where a strong leadership style, actually trauma induced, was
traumatising the team, they had grown into a win/win stage, moving out of the lose/lose trauma locked-in
pattern.
Some tools exist to move on the path of this transition. They all start with raising our awareness about our
inner world: becoming aware in the moment of what we are thinking and what we are feeling. This can be
achieved with the support of a therapist or a coach.
A complementary teaching is Non Violent Communication: it conveys a mindset that helps acting on one’s
feelings and needs in a constructive, creative and collaborative way. Furthermore, it helps develop real
empathy towards others (deep listening) and towards ourselves (self awareness). It can be used to establish
a healthy and authentic culture of respectful feedback that will enable collaboration, agility and ownership.
It is one of these disciplines that I wish we taught at school as it strengthens relationships by raising
awareness. And awareness brings choice. Choice brings empowerment. Empowerment brings agency.
Agency brings new possibilities and rich co-creation!
