CHAPTER 13
Aligning with Leaders
Of all the considerations for work-life supports I’ve explored in my research and in this book, work team leaders are the most important and most pivotal. This chapter considers the significant impact of leadership on whether work-life supports will be successful. Peter Drucker’s principles of management are instructive regarding the influence leaders have through their decisions and their own actions. When it comes to the way leaders manage, every action they take matters. Organizations must ensure they are developing leaders and setting clear expectations for their behaviors so work-life supports are successful. Effective leadership itself is an important support for employees who are integrating work and life.
MAKE OR BREAK
Leaders will make or break work-life support processes.1 The key point is that an employee’s leader—the person to whom she reports—has the most significant bearing on the extent to which work-life supports are afforded her. There are several reasons that leaders have such significant influence. Generally, companies give leaders significant discretion in assigning or allowing work-life supports for their team members. While company policy sets the overall framework, even the most policy-driven companies require supervisor discretion in the application of various supports. Supervisor discretion is driven by the individual’s own beliefs regarding whether work-life supports should be provided to employees.
Work team leaders usually have the power to determine whether a job is a fit for flexible working, whether the individual is a fit, whether a team can accommodate flexible work, whether an employee’s education should be paid for, whether the employee may leave work early to attend classes,whether team members have access to technology, and more. Everything comes together with a work team leader’s interpretation of situations and how company policies apply. HR also has a role to play in interpreting policy, but the work team leader is on the front line and every decision the team leader makes affects individuals, teams, and organizations because the work team leader is the agent of the company. She has been provided with authority to set direction, make decisions, and take action within the systems that make up the organization.
DRUCKER LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLES
A discussion of leadership specifically related to work-life supports must begin with a more general topic of leadership, and no chapter on leadership is complete without reference to Peter Drucker. Drucker was the father of modern management, and worked extensively with leaders beginning in the 1950s. Effective management is complex, and making sense of it involves a significant number of variables. Drucker helped to clarify. He believed there were five things necessary for success. Managers must set priorities, organize the work, communicate and motivate, measure results, and develop people. Curt Pullen, president of Herman Miller North America and chairman of the board for the Drucker Institute, shares his perspective on how those five responsibilities and Drucker’s overall approach are connected to work-life supports:
Drucker’s principles have always been about the full person perspective, since Drucker believed that any company’s most valuable asset was its people. Drucker’s interest was always in making society better, and he saw companies and their approach to people as a way to accomplish that. In his view, it took good leaders making good choices and decisions to create the conditions for people to perform to their highest potential. This in turn contributed to the organization’s success and then in turn to making society a better place. It came down to the job of a manager. Part of Drucker’s genius was in crafting insights through his dialogues with leaders. His insights shape how we work today and the decisions we make.2
Indeed, the decisions and choices that leaders make about everything, including work-life supports, create the conditions for employees to bring work to life.
Drucker also advocated for transparency, advising that managers be open with their intentions and build trust among employees. In addition, Drucker taught that managers must establish vision and a sense of purpose. K.H. Moon is a former CEO of Yuhan-Kimberly and a former colleague of Peter Drucker. When I spoke with Moon about work-life supports, he had this to say concerning overall management as the context for these supports:
The first task of management is to be transparent. A manager should establish trust and two-way communication and two-way innovation. Managers need to trust and respect employees and family and community … During my time at Yuhan-Kimberly, we implemented a vision and value sharing system. Through this system we shared our vision and values across the whole supply chain and we emphasized a trust-based supply chain.3
The tasks of management also require attention to innovation, performance, and contribution to the community. Moon goes on to say:
We focused on innovation through collaboration and open connections. We also used management by exception and management by objectives and instituted profit-sharing programs. During this time we maintained our social-cause campaign called Keep Korea Green.4
Drucker’s approaches, which were implemented by Moon yielded results. Moon says, “Because of this management, we were identified as one of the Most Admired Companies and one of the Best Employers for ten years. We also achieved 10 percent income return-on-sales.” It is difficult to argue with the success of Drucker’s management philosophies.
THE LEADERSHIP PARADOX
Managers and leaders are central to employees’ experience of work and their experience within the organization. Leaders are always part of a broader organizational culture and the overall culture will outlast any individual leader’s efforts. Over time, leaders will shape the culture, but this takes years and affecting this type of change is more similar to steering a tanker—slow and deliberate.
On the other hand, it is also true that leaders create their own subcultures within a company. For example, an organization may be generally very command and control in its operation, requiring adherence to rules and hierarchy for decision making. Within that culture, a leader may behave in a way that is very participative, asking team members for input and making decisions that are more greatly influenced by employees. The subculture of the team can exist within the broader framework.
As another example of the leadership paradox, a broader organization may tout plenty of employee choice making, personal discretion, and freedom but within that culture, a leader may manage team members closely, checking work, checking quality, and checking work process. Leaders create their own cultures, and the cultures leaders create are often mirrors of their own personalities. People join a company because of the nature of the job and the work. People leave a company because of the leader. One’s direct supervisor is one of the most essential factors in personal experience of an organization, job, or of work-life supports.
LEADERSHIP DISCRETION
Leaders’ decisions are key to the successful application of work-life supports. For companies that have few policies governing work-life supports, as well as those with many formal policies or practices, work team leaders are expected to make decisions for their teams on how the company’s policies are applied. Kyle, vice president of real estate and facilities, with an oil and gas company, says that leaders are in the best position to understand an individual employee’s situation in relationship to the team and the work the employee must accomplish. At Kyle’s organization, before an employee may work from home she must ask permission, explain what she will accomplish at home, and then, when she is back, show evidence of having accomplished the work.
Leader discretion is an important component in day-to-day decisions about working from home as well as episodic or extreme conditions. “The other part of leadership is understanding and getting to know people when they are in stress—when they are at the point when you have to tell them to leave to take care of a personal situation,” says Kyle. Leader discretion allows the flexibility in which leaders can tune in to their employees and make decisions that are the most appropriate and supportive.
Allen, director of finance and administration from a banking and finance organization, mentions that his organization’s large size makes leader discretion important: “The leader is responsible for interpreting how he wants to address things and the decision-making process is distributed … We lack a consistent [policy-driven] approach.” Diane, an executive vice president in charge of administration, from a global media company, says that most arrangements for job sharing, compressed workweeks, or other types of arrangements require employees to “work out a deal” with their managers. Unfortunately, in this situation, the likelihood of an employee having the opportunity to work in an alternative way may be based on his negotiation and persuasion skills.
LEADERSHIP MIND-SETS
The decisions leaders make regarding work-life supports are driven by their mind-sets. These are easy to discern in the following comments. Consider the difference in the tones of these leaders, each of whom considers himself to be progressive and supportive of alternative working:
You have to be sure employees don’t take advantage of you. You have to hold them to clear accountabilities and be sure they’re not goofing off. Then there is the perception that when they’re home, they’re probably not doing work. Working from home is a stigma. My employees work from the office in a traditional schedule.
Contrast that view with this one:
I don’t need to be a person that is controlling and managing things. I just want to hire really good people who will just go out and bust the world open. As a result, my team members work in many different ways. I’ve always been really open about how people work, when they work, and where they work.
These comments embody significant differences in underlying beliefs. Leaders may choose to embrace work-life supports to a greater or lesser degree based on how they will be perceived as leaders. Linda, general manager of her global technology company’s software division, describes this factor.
There are a lot of misconceptions about work-life integration—that it is accommodation and that I’m allowing weakness in the organization as opposed to being perceived as getting maximum productivity from my employees and making sure I’m tapping the most diverse possible talent set in the organization.
Ross, a COO with an oil and gas organization, says that in his company many leaders believe they will be perceived as “weak” or as “softies” if they allow alternative working for their team members. He goes on to say, “It depends on the personality of the leader. If you’re a slave driver versus a really sensitive, attuned person, you will make different decisions, letting employees have access to certain work-life supports.”
Work team leader attitudes can be a barrier to the implementation or use of work-life supports, and this theme emerges consistently. Barbara, an executive leader of human resources for a global banking organization, says, “Some managers have antiquated mind-sets that we’re still, even in this day and age, trying to work around.” Some leaders continue to believe that effective working is defined by the number of hours an employee spends at his desk. Some leaders must see their team members in order to trust they are working and in order to manage effectively. Rick Wartzman, executive director of the Drucker Institute, agrees:
You can have all the slogans and corporate guidelines you want, but at the end of the day, corporate policy plays out at the individual human level. And that’s where power, control, ego, and insecurity can get injected into the equation—or not. Front-line managers are the key. You can lay out a whole bunch of wonderful policies, and even have a CEO who believes in them with all of his or her heart, but unless you have front-line managers who also believe in sharing responsibility and accountability and forging a clear sense of purpose, the best-laid plans will only amount to window dressing.5
The consistency of these statements is telling. What is also telling is the frequency of the comments. In my formal research, every single person I interviewed identified the attitudes of the leaders as the biggest factor—for better or for worse—in the provisions of work-life supports.
EVERYTHING COUNTS
Adding to the tone they set for their teams through their decisions and mind-sets, leaders also set a tone through their own behavior and approaches to work. Leaders who are themselves practicing flexible working arrangements send important messages to others in the organization concerning the acceptability of flexible work—and vice versa. Previously, I mentioned the leader who used to say, “You’re behaving so loudly, I can barely hear what you’re saying.” Whether or not leaders intend to be role models, they are. Leaders’ actions (theories in use) are windows to their deep-seated beliefs (espoused theories).
People are constantly observing leaders for cues concerning what is appropriate, what is rewarded, and what the future holds. Employees look to leaders from the moment the leader appears in the parking lot or enters the building. Every detail matters, including whether or not the leader wears a smile. The leader’s actions affect what the subordinates conclude about the leader’s attitude and even the health of the company. Everything has meaning and is interpreted—or misinterpreted. As a result, the tiniest details of a leader’s day are actually decisions that matter: what time to arrive, whether to send e-mails before working hours, whether to work through lunch, with whom to eat lunch, when to ask for help, whether to share frustrations with others, and how transparent to be regarding personal challenges. A colleague has a rule of thumb: never vent down. By this she means that leaders must never share difficulties with those who report to them because team members will lose faith and confidence. If a leader must find an outlet for difficulties, she should vent across to peers or up to her own leader.
Every leader has informal influence simply by being in a position of leadership. Having a title says to members of the organization that a leader has been rewarded for her actions, so those actions are necessarily instructive to others. Bringing work to life involves a myriad of decisions pertaining to how organizations help employees meet work and life needs and integrate demands throughout through their life course. Leaders’ behaviors are instructive to others in the organization about the extent to which work is supported and flexible work is acceptable.
NOTHING LEFT TO CHANCE
Many leaders say they are progressive and want to provide work-life supports to employees, but not all leaders actually behave in this way—making decisions that genuinely allow and support this type of work. Herein lies the importance of organizational systems to help ensure that work-life supports are available despite individual work team leader attitudes.
Organizations cannot leave work-life supports to chance—or entirely to the discretion of work team leaders. The following are recommendations to foster the attitudes and behaviors necessary to ensure success of work-life supports. Organizations should:
• Establish clear benefits, policies, and practices. The presence of formal benefits, policies, and practices sets boundaries and guidelines for work team leaders. These are a critical starting point for an organizational system that embraces work-life supports. Firm boundaries also help ensure equity among all employees. When leaders across the organization manage work-life supports too differently, a “have/have not” dynamic can emerge in the organization, where employees who work for some leaders perceive they receive less than employees who report to a different leader.
• Recruit the right leaders in the first place. Companies must select leaders based on a proven track record of managing in a way that is consistent with the culture it wants to promote.
• Hold leaders accountable for actions and behaviors that are in concert with work-life supports. This means providing feedback throughout the year, providing ratings on yearly performance reviews, and tying pay and promotion to performance that includes consideration for implementation of work-life supports. This accountability needs to start at the top. In a recent column in Harvard Business Review,6 Kevin Sharer, former CEO of Amgen says, “As a CEO, you should realize that your greatest contribution is the behavior you cause or allow to thrive in the organization’s upper ranks.” This behavior in the upper ranks sets the tone for accountability throughout the organization.
• Create coalitions and communities of practice. Bring leaders together in regular forums to learn from one another, share ideas, and discuss challenges. Do this formally through “lunch and learns” or through the creation of mentorship programs. Do this informally through networking events in which leaders foster their own connections.
• Orient, train, and develop leaders.
Work-life supports succeed or fail based on leaders’ behaviors and approaches, so these recommendations are important to consider. Leadership development is also a key ingredient for success in implementing work-life supports.
In addition to the considerations for development approaches and mentorship I discussed for employees, there are also important points regarding development of leaders. In order for work-life supports to be implemented and thrive in an organization, leaders must understand the benefits, policies, and practices pertaining to work-life supports, and possess the skills to implement them within the culture. They must also understand the expectations for their own leadership in this area. Very few companies offer this specific type of training. A handful do.
The companies that develop their leaders in this way offer training through a traditional classroom and through an online option, so leaders may choose how they prefer to learn. They also establish coaching groups, in which leaders meet with one another each month. Within these groups the leaders share ideas, lessons learned, and challenges. These groups are designed to provide ongoing value beyond the classroom/online opportunity and are designed to build a network of leaders learning together.
When companies offer training on the topic of work-life support, typical learning modules include the following:
- Why this is important for the company’s business and culture
- How work is changing, third-party data on changing work, workforce, and connection to productivity
- Overview of the company’s benefits, policies, and practices
- Leadership responsibilities
- How to work with employees to determine flexible work approaches (assessing needs, having the conversation with employees, working with the team, applying the policy)
- Checkpoints for accountability
ADJUSTING LEADERSHIP STYLE
Ultimately, leaders must meet employees where they are and adjust personal leadership styles based on the needs of employees. The most effective leaders are able to communicate empathy to their employees. Even when he may not have the answer, the leader must communicate that he understands the question and will be with the employee so they can work through it together. When employees are new or unsure, they typically need more direction for tasks and more emotional support from a leader. As the employee matures in the role and as a member of the team, he needs less of each of these.
The leader’s challenge is to provide consistency across the team at the same time she is providing leadership that is unique to each team member. Ensuring that the leader is perceived as fair and not playing favorites at the same time she is able to provide leadership unique to each person on the team can be like walking on a razor’s edge. Effective leaders are constantly shifting and adapting, and by meeting employees’ unique needs, they are providing powerful work-life support.
IN SUM
The success of work-life supports is based largely on leaders, and the importance of leaders cannot be overstated. Their mind-sets, behaviors, decisions, and ability to adjust to employees’ needs are critical. Organizations cannot leave leadership to chance. Selecting the right leaders, developing them, and holding them accountable for behaviors and decisions are required to bring work to life.