PATRIARCHAL LEADERS Part 3 of 4 Dysfunction al Le adersh ip Style s Series :

A POINT OF VIEW PAPER BY THE EXPERTS IN BEHAVIOURAL CHANGE AND ACHIEVING ORGANIZATIONAL POTENTIAL

5 ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES THEY CREATE

Practical Insight THE NEWSLETTER OF CALIBER LEADERSHIP SYSTEMS FEBRUARY 2016

4 Dysfunctions of Leaders This article is the second in a series of articles on dysfunctional leaders. Each of the articles provides insight into the 4 Dysfunctional Styles: Narcissistic Avoidant Patriarchal (Autocratic) Matriarchal (Nurturing)

Each of the dysfunctional leadership styles: has natural talents and

abilities that when directed can be used in the service of the organization;

has specific Behaviours that they use to achieve their own agenda that get in the way of the organizations goals;

have to be managed and coached in order to shift from functional to dysfunctional behaviours;

can be developed over time to add value to the organization.

We customize our leadership development and coaching services to meet the needs of your leaders and organizations.

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The Patriarchal Leadership Style Part 3 of our 4 Dysfunctional Leadership Styles Series

The third Dysfunctional Leadership Style is called the Patriarchal Leader. It refers to

a fatherly leadership style with dominant males using their position of power and

authority to control and take care of employees who in turn are expected to show

obedience and loyalty. This type of leader considers themselves to be responsible for

their people and promotes the idea of the company being “family” with their role -

being father - responsible for his employees.

Patriarchal Leaders are leaders who use their left brain functions excessively to drive

their individual agenda and to control their experience and those of others. As a

result, they are bound to the Patriarchal

behaviors associated with that side of the

brain. They tend to support the notion that

traditional (left brain) behaviors of men are

right and preferred while other behaviors

and ways of expressing oneself are

wrong. Functional qualities and needs

rooted in the left brain include power,

control, objectivity, critical thinking, and

competitiveness and are the hallmark of the

Patriarchal Leader. They negate the value of

collaboration, cooperation, emotional expressiveness, empathy, caring and concern

for the experience of employees, which are traditional right brain functional

qualities.

The behaviors of the Patriarchal Leader are characterized by a pervasive need to be

in control, to ward off feelings of anxiety and uncertainty. Their position at the top

allows them to focus on getting things the way they want with minimal personal

interactions.

Patriarchal Leaders: Controlled, Decisive, & Demanding

This leadership style is most effective in situations where there is a need for

establishing status quo by defining, organizing, establishing deadlines, etc. It works

in organizations where employees need to focus on performing specific tasks

without worrying about making complex decisions. It lets them become highly

skilled at performing certain duties, adding value to the business as a whole.

However, the downside of the Patriarchal Leadership Style is that employees are

© 2016 Caliber Leadership Systems

stifled and their development is impeded

by the need to conform. They achieve

their goals at the expense of flexibility,

openness, authenticity and collaboration.

While there are many

Patriarchal Leadership

behaviors, the following are

examples of the more frequent

ones and the type of

organizational issues they

create.

“US VS THEM” APPROACH

Patriarchal Leaders create strong feelings

in people. “You are either with us or

against us” is the type of mentality they

use. They decide who is valuable to them

and who isn’t based on their usefulness.

To the Patriarchal Leader, you can be in

favor one day and out of favor the next if

you cease to be useful.

Because men have greater value to

Patriarchal Leaders, men tend to hold the

most important and visible roles (e.g.

executives, politicians, public leaders,

etc.). Women who do hold these

positions are expected to behave

according to their roles and adapt to the

cultural norms.

RESULT: CULTURE OF FEAR,

DISCRIMINATION

Patriarchal Leaders make decisions based

on a subjective criterion and employees

tend to be afraid of falling out of favor or

doing something wrong. Their leadership

style is parental and as a result,

employees will tend to behave like

children. They become more concerned

with their survival than doing their best

work and achieving their potential.

In addition to excessive adaptation,

Patriarchal Leaders bring out the worst in

people. Employees resort to trying to gain

favor with the Patriarchal Leader by

agreeing with everything they say. As a

result, other employees accuse them of

being “Yes men and women.” Others

employees adopt the discriminatory

practices of the Patriarchal Leader

whether they believe in them or not.

Fear, adaptation and self-preservation

become the norm. Competition and a

lack of communication, cooperation, and

organizational community are norms for

the culture. Employees are concerned

with their survival and not with the

overall goals of the organization.

OVERPOWER OTHERS

Direct and authoritative, Patriarchal

Leaders have to be the one in control.

They expect everyone to adapt and

conform to their “rules of the game.” The

message is that their way is the “right”

way of doing things and employees

should follow without question. They act

like dictators, becoming increasingly

dominant or aggressive should the way

they want things done be challenged.

They lose their temper when

contradicted or disrespected believing

that no one is really entitled to challenge

them, even if they have asked for other’s

opinions. Their peers and direct reports

are intimidated by the Patriarchal Leader,

causing them to acquiesce and give in,

even when they know it’s not the right

thing to do.

RESULT: MEDIOCRE WORKFORCE

When power and control resides at the

top of the organization and little

distributed to employees down the ranks,

the achievement of employee potential is

stalled. While care may be given to hire

the best people into the organization,

consideration is not given to the

distribution of authority. As long as

employees do what they are hired to do,

little more is expected of them, regardless

of how much they have to offer and their

potential value to the business. Talented

employees soon leave, resulting in a

mediocre workforce and high turnover.

BOTTLENECK AT THE TOP

Patriarchal Leaders don’t believe in

empowering their employees. They get

work done by issuing threats,

CALIBER LEADERSHIP SYSTEMS — Dysfunctions of Leaders—Patriarchal Behaviour FEBRUARY 2016 Page 2

© 2016 Caliber Leadership Systems

punishments and evoking fear. By not

delegating authority and decision making

throughout the ranks, decision making is

slowed by the Patriarchal Leaders as they

become a bottleneck as everything has to

flow through them. They expect even the

most senior people to come to them for

decisions. Should someone make a

decision without first consulting them,

they are reprimanded and punished by

the Patriarchal Leader. They

unknowingly make their direct reports

dependent on them by assuming to know

what is best for them. They act as though

they are the only ones capable of having

good ideas or making decisions. Much of

their behavior is to make sure that they

retain and increase whatever control they

have for as long as possible so that they

won’t feel anxious about losing control.

RESULT: DEMOTIVATION & LOW

MORALE

Lack of involvement from the employee

in the decision making process leads to

employees not assuming ownership of

their work, contributing to poor morale,

lack of engagement, little commitment to

organizational goals and high turnover.

Subordinates becoming heavily

dependent on the leader and can become

useless in running operations if their

leader isn’t there. The Patriarchal Leader

has an increasing amount of work

themselves and their stress levels and

frustration with their workforce

increases.

LOSE SIGHT OF THE BIG PICTURE

In order to stay in control, Patriarchal

Leaders tend to have a very narrow focus

and can lose site of the bigger picture.

They can do great damage to an

organization by forcing the execution of

their strategies based upon a subjective

idea of what success looks like. There is

no shared vision or building together. In

addition, they can fail to be attuned to

the pulse of the organization and rarely

look at the bigger picture.

RESULT: INCREASED STRESS,

DECREASED PRODUCTIVITY

Because they are feared by their

employees, the work environment is

highly stressful and tense. Employees

become demotivated and on guard,

fearing they will do something wrong.

Patriarchal Leaders do not see they are

the cause for the lack of motivation. They

assume that employee motivation comes

from creating a structured set of rewards

and punishments and hand them out

freely. This leads to further employee

stress. The workplace becomes rigid and

excessively demanding, creating high

absenteeism, hostility and lowered

productivity.

ONE-WAY COMMUNICATION

Patriarchal Leaders have a very direct

communication style. Communication is

usually one-way and they control who

gets what information. They tell

employees what they want done, without

CALIBER LEADERSHIP SYSTEMS — Dysfunctions of Leaders—Patriarchal Behaviour FEBRUARY 2016 Page 3

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being open to input from others. They

don’t just tell them what to do, but also

how to do it. They tend to communicate

on a need to know basis and don’t see the

need to disseminate information

throughout the organization. They

control discussions and interactions with

their direct reports and dominate

meetings. They will freely provide

negative feedback to employees and

rarely mention anything positive to them.

RESULT: EMPLOYEE DISENGAGEMENT

Commitment, creativity and innovation

are typically eliminated by the

communication style of the Patriarchal

Leader. In fact, people stop themselves

from offering suggestions or bringing

issues to meetings. They become

disengaged, only doing what they are told

and losing interest in the organization.

They end up waiting for the inevitable

failure this leadership produces or the

removal of the leader. You often hear

employees say that “no news is good

news” and they stop expecting any type

of positive feedback or inclusion in the

bigger picture.

Barriers to Development In order for Patriarchal Leaders to

develop, they have to be willing to learn

to trust and let go of control. Developing

assertiveness, building tolerance to their

emotions and those of others are critical

to their long-term success as leaders.

There are three key barriers

that need to be addressed in

order to develop Patriarchal

Leaders:

INTOLERANCE OF CHANGE

Patriarchal Leaders will drive change, but

they resist and react to change that is

introduced to or imposed on them. It

doesn’t matter whether the ideas are good

or not. It simply threatens their imposed

order and they quickly squash it down.

They can drive their companies into

receivership by not attending to the need

for change and by not listening to others.

INFLEXIBILITY

Because they lack self-awareness,

Patriarchal Leaders don’t realize they are

being inflexible. They think the way they

do things is the right way and will refuse

to take advice from others. While they

may hear what the other person is saying,

they argue and rationalize their position,

putting energy into discounting the

advice rather than considering its value.

INABILITY TO SEE THEY ARE THE

OBSTACLE TO GROWTH

Despite knowing that change is

necessary, Patriarchal Leaders will blame

others and become more Patriarchal

instead of seeing their own behavior as

the problem. They don’t see that if they

want to transform the performance of

their business that they must do most of

the changing.

Patriarchal Behavior is a form of

self-protection. Long-standing

self-protective patterns of

behavior can be changed and

new, productive responses and

patterns can be put in their place.

CALIBER LEADERSHIP SYSTEMS — Dysfunctions of Leaders—Patriarchal Behaviour FEBRUARY 2016 Page 4

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Changing Patriarchal Behavior We have had a great deal of experience

working with Patriarchal Leaders. We

help them develop their leadership skills

and emotional intelligence by doing the

following:

FOLLOW THEIR SYSTEMS Patriarchal Leaders must learn to stay

involved with direct reports and co-

workers while managing the anxiety this

produces. We help them develop a

communication strategy and provide

coaching on how to have performance

discussions to engage their people.

PARTICIPATE IN A LEADERSHIP

DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM WHICH

INCLUDES EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

COACHING Patriarchal Leaders must build awareness

of how they are contributing to their

team and employees’ dysfunction.

Participating in a team training program

lets them be recognized for their progress

while, getting feedback from their peers.

DEVELOP EMPATHY Patriarchal Leaders need to develop the

capacity to use their right brain, the brain

typically associated with creativity,

cooperation, empathy and holistic

approaches. Using the right brain, they

learn to empathize with others and

recognize the impact of their behavior on

others. During coaching, we provide

exercises and role play to help develop

empathy and emotional intelligence.

LEARN TO DELEGATE Patriarchal Leaders need to trust that they

can delegate both tasks and authority to

others and take responsibility for the

performance of their direct reports.

Patriarchal Leaders need to trust they can

delegate to their direct reports by taking a

realistic look at their skills and what they

need to do to develop. During our

coaching sessions, we challenge the

notion that they have to maintain control

and help them get to the root of their

trust issues.

CHALLENGE THE STATUS QUO Innovation is quickly squashed by

Patriarchal Leaders. They are comfortable

with the status quo and growth they can

control. Allowing their direct reports to

have some decision making authority

helps the Patriarchal Leader build

tolerance to how they feel when they

don’t have control over everything.

Learn more about the Patriarchal Leadership Style at our webinar

on:

Thursday, February 25th

1:30 pm to 2:15 pm For information on how we can help you deal with adaptive or other dysfunctional leadership behaviour in your organization, contact us for a complimentary consultation.

hhilliard@caliberleadership.com

adranitsaris@caliberleadership.com 416.406.3939

www.caliberleadership.com

CALIBER LEADERSHIP SYSTEMS — Dysfunctions of Leaders—Patriarchal Behaviour FEBRUARY 2016 Page 5

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