Bad bosses - brilliant new insight

[pjohnson777]

A friend of mine forwarded this link to me, and the document there looks at the issue of bad bosses in a completely new way, using "Systems Thinking". Brilliant stuff, terrific insights, seems to be doing the rounds of the web.

http://changethis.com/19.bossdictator

[Pete]

this starts well, but then gets confused and applies overly simplistic logic (and ignorance of certain other relevant facts) to arrive at a mistaken conclusion.

In claiming that all dictatorships are failures the author ignores "benevolent dictatorships" (such as Singapore, Hong Kong under British Governership, Brunei, Monaco etc) that have thrived under economic measures of prosperity and success.

They quote Gallup research that shows people leave bad bosses in droves, but then ignores the body of gallup's work that shows exactly what aspects of leadership encourage employees to stay, (i.e. what makes a good boss who engages with their employees and as a result gains in longevity and productivity of their employees) regardless of if the boss is elected or appoionted as a "dictator".

To then claim that dictatorships are inneficient because countries ruled by dictators are inneficient, whereas countries that are "Free" are efficient ignores the fact that the vast majority of business in those "free" countries are run by dictators (as defined in the article as any unelected boss!) and it is the very success of those dictatorial businesses that drives the success measures of those countries!

Having said that, there are some interesting ideas and concepts in here, and as an article to promote debate it does have merit.

It seems to me that the real message is that unsupported leaders, appointed without clear guidance, support and sdevelopment, will turn into dictators. That then is the role of HR, to promote "leadership" rather than dictatorial management.

Cheers

[pjohnson777]

Pete,

Generally, benevolent dictatorships still don't do as well as totally free countries. Besides, the problem with benevolent dictatorships is that you cannot predict for how long they will continue to be benevolent. Moreover, countries such as Brunei or Kuwait and the rest do not rely on human capital - they rely on things such as oil for their wealth and success, whereas most companies today rely on human capital.

Also, it's not that dictatorships cannot be "successful" - USSR was successful for a while, as are China or say, Jordan. However, they are not as successful as free countries. It's definitely true that the companies that succeed in democracies are dictatorships; but since all of them are dictatorships, it's difficult to compare them to a company that is free.

And anyway, would you not like to have the right to vote for your boss? And, would you rather live in free Australia, the US, Britain, Holland, or in a benevolent dictatorship?

FYI I found a series of other articles that the author wrote, though I would recommend this article because it answers a lot of questions: http://www.hrzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=175236

Full series here: http://www.hrzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/sear...K=+++Search+++

He's definitely sparked off a debate, and it will be interesting to see where all of this goes.