One of the tasks that I had to do for my master’s degree in coaching at Insead, was to go to two companies and to observe a few things. I had to go to a company in Romania and one in a different country, where I could not speak the language. I had to observe to what extent what was written on the walls, on the website, was in sync with the behavior the people displayed, with the atmosphere in the company, with parts of its culture (in fact, the order is reversed) and write about the sensations that all this evoked. It was part of the process of learning how to use ourselves as an instrument in consultancy and coaching.
Since then, I often observed the atmosphere in some companies when the manager is there and when they are not. I saw places where people where more relaxed but they were doing what they had to do, being able to feel the creative energy in the air.
I have also seen places where I had the sensation that I was living the proverb ‘while the cat’s away, the mice will play’. There are situations where the head of the company puts a lot of pressure on his/her employees; it may be due to his/her leadership style or maybe due to the economic context, due to weaker results over a period.
However, I think that for the kind of atmosphere that you get ‘while the cat’s away’, the other employees are responsible as well, not just the head of the company. The field of leadership includes the leader, the context and the followers. Th leader comes with certain character traits, with values, with beliefs, with an attitude and experiences.
The context is given by the macroeconomic situation, by the stage where the company finds itself, by the national and the company culture, by the industry, by the competition.
The followers come with their own character traits, values, beliefs, experiences, with their own mental models, and with a certain dynamic of the group.
For a company to work properly, it is a good idea to keep in mind the three parts.
If, when the head of the company is not around, people relax and fault their own activity and the company’s too, then I would question not only the leader, but those around as well.
I know, the tendency now is to point our fingers only at the manager, leader or whatever we call them.
Reality shows us that it always ‘takes two to tango’. And the level of engagement is necessary from both parts. And it is not only about extrinsic motivation.
Have you seen environments where, when the cat is not at home, there is a party in the company?