How do leaders trigger INSTITUTIONAL DISASTERS?

“The King is dead. Long live the King” is a familiar saying. It has indeed a deep meaning. Several interpretations are given to this statement depending on the context and relevance. But the most common underlying message remains: “Humans come and go. Organizations, institutions, philosophies and systems linger on.”  This message is the first lesson to be learnt by the institutional heads, especially when they change over or take a new position or assignment, more so on when such positions carry a leadership value. In many cases, poor understanding of the message arising out of this statement, and planned or focused “post-mortem” of the dead kings, has led to chaos and disorder in the institutional behavior. Oftentimes it results in avoidable disasters either in its growth or productivity or profit, or in all domains of its operationality

Organizations and institutions are built over a period through planned efforts understanding the sensitivities of its eco-system, its strengths and limitations, and the psyche of all its stakeholders. Most organizations grow in a phased manner while exceptions do remain where the growth patterns have been highly unpredictable. But once organizations are established on a decent operational platform with a brand, it is very important to secure its environment and to ensure its decision-making systems are constantly kept on vigil. While organizations need to be change sensitive and change prone, it is equally important that ushering changes into the system does not create tremors that shake the existing trust in the markets and stakeholders, and impact the growth profile and its profitability. “The value profile” and the “profitability” may have different formats, structures and designs in different organizations but basically these tremors affect the psychological constructs of the human systems in the organizations.

While there are several triggers that lead to institutional disasters either as a stroke or with cumulative toxicity, some of them are more impactful than others.

1.Leadership change does not necessarily warrant a change in the organizational philosophy.

The curiosity and urge of the new leaders to do a post-mortem of the past actions of the organization to prove that all has gone wrong in the past, is indeed the most negative starter for a new leader. The message and actions of the new leader immediately sends a signal to all its employees that the organizational philosophy is changing and hence “anything could happen.” It erodes the confidence profile of all its employees including those who have toiled for years to build the organization. It drops an iron curtain between the employees and the management and the ‘belief systems’ of the organization come to debate or a ridicule.

On its further course, the message goes to the second line customers/consumers and someone from afar starts shouting to the markets “hey, hold on, watch, something is happening there.” Alarm bells start ringing forcing people to press a panic button without an intent. Leadership needs to be cautious to such tremors whose intensity may vary on the R-scale depending on the geography of its operation.

Leaders need to acknowledge that they are agents of change and facilitators of smooth make-overs. While no one would stop their ushering  a new pattern of thought and activity to enable employees to breathe some fresh air, they should not let a tornado to develop in the belief stations.

2. The ‘communication profile’ of the leadership must be friendly, comfortable 

and inclusive.

In several cases, the “leadership profile” always becomes suspicious to its followers when changes occur. They keenly watch every single movement of the leader to assess whether they will get a reasonable level playing ground to communicate with the ‘leader’ effectively. While one should appreciate the fact that the leader will certainly take some time to reveal ‘the contents of his basket’, it is important to articulate the ‘distance management’ strategies with the employees ito give the right message. The body language of the leader is equally, if not, more important than his spoken words. The absence of ‘right communications’ and ‘the inability to reach out’ to the people will usher initially an organizational displeasure embedded with a sense of suspicion, it will slowly assimilate and radiate negative energy  before formulating itself into an active volcano on a future date.

3. The thin line of difference between ‘the need’ and ‘the greed’ must be understood and maintained.

Most leaders, when they walk into new profiles of an organization, come with an insatiable greed. Their desire ‘to turn the world upside down’ is indeed a reflection of their latent energy but the drive must be safe and regulated. An overdrive to achieve goals and targets in the shortest span of time might create a ‘war-like’ situation, but when the need metamorphoses into greed, the systemic pressure forces people to compromise with certain basic disciplines and ethics. It is quite possible that the value profile of the organizations is assaulted either consciously or inadvertently in this process.

Once the stakeholders start noticing a decline in the value profile, they start keenly watching every mistake. The ‘confidence profile’ of the organization declines in geometric progression while the misdeeds arising out of the greed of the organizational leadership increases in arithmetic progression.

4. The ‘gap’ between the ‘wisdom’ of the leader and ‘the ground realities’

In several cases of leadership changes, the new leaders come from different fields of activity or functional ‘work-o-sphere‘ and bring ‘wisdom’ gained in an entirely different eco-system and try to implant those ‘learned experiences’ into an entirely different cosmos. Such transplants may or may not be successful. It could be in total conflict with ‘the ground realities’ of the new organization. The aggression of the leader to prove his wisdom may not be accepted in totality or sometimes even partially by the stakeholders as their past experiences and resultant operative strategies may not be congruent to the innovative ideas. Such attempts are quite likely to demolish even strong constructs of the organizations. Seeds for disaster are sown every time the conflict arising out of this gap surfaces.

Organizational disasters don’t occur overnight. They are mostly outcomes of cumulative actions. The visibility and speed of these disasters may be insignificant to start with but when they gain speed they play like a Tsunami. But when such tsunamis arrive, the organizations and its leadership are taken by surprise and all their skills of crisis management does not help to restore the lost value.

It may be a great idea for the organizations to have ‘watch dogs’ who smell and foresee the possible directions of change in organizational behavior and take steps for disaster prevention and management.