It’s not surprising that there exist almost as many books on leadership as there are books offering weight-loss diets. That’s because no theory of leadership — when efforts are made to actually implement it — ever quite succeeds. Most often the “change initiatives,” that it inspires will be short-lived. Or, even worse, its implementation will create untoward consequences that the theory’s creator and those implementing it had not foreseen.
Leadership is, indeed, not merely difficult, but deeply problematic. A truly insightful book that explores why this is so is “Management of the Absurd,” by Richard Farson (Touchstone: 1997). The chapter titles sound like a series of Zen paradoxes. Each belies academic theories, conventional wisdom, management fads, and popular bromides regarding effective organizational leadership. For example, “Effective Managers are Not in Control,” “Most Problems that People Have are Not Problems,” “The Better Things Are, the Worse They Feel,” “Big Changes Are Easier to Make than Small Ones,” and “Every Great Strength is a Great Weakness.”
If Farson is correct, then the way people really are is bound to frustrate and stultify the efforts of managers. That is because managers rely on rationality coupled with common sense to create their plans, decisions and directives, whereas the world and the people who inhabit it aren’t rational. For example, one would think that praising employees would motivate them, but Farson contends that that is not the case at all. As a matter of fact, it can severely backfire. Here is another example: a rational person would think that as an organization improves, offering higher salaries, and a lot more benefits, that people become happier — wrong again! Thus any manager who wishes to improve employee morale is in for a surprise.
Farson explains that the title of his book alludes to the literature of the absurd, to playwrights like Pirandello, Becket, and Ionesco. Absurdity suggests that rational business management — which includes planning, ordering, managing and controlling — ultimately leads to failure. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t plan, order, manage, etc. It means, rather, that we shouldn’t be surprised by the limited efficacy of our efforts, in that regard. A correlate is that we should trust our gut, rather than just our reasoning powers, when we encounter the problems that we face as managers. Indeed, one of the chapters, in Farson’s book is, “Lost Causes Are the Only One’s Worth Fighting For.” It is not quite an admission of futility, but rather presents a constrained vision of the possibilities of organizational management.
Creatures of Contradiction
Farson — while offering many wonderfully enlightening examples of paradox in organizations — doesn’t delve into the ultimate roots of these paradoxes. Indeed, to suggest that life is absurd, or irrational, suggests that there isn’t any way to understand what really motivates people. But although people’s actions sometimes appears to be merely absurd, their actions can, on deeper refection, be seen as various efforts to adjudicate the contradictory requirements of selfhood. Two classics of modern literature afford us insight into these requirements and the inner conflicts that often ensue.
In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s, “Notes from Underground,” he reveals the paradoxes of human longing. At the beginning of the novel, the protagonist contends that if he could only find a meaning in his life, he could accomplish great things. But then, a few pages latter, he states that if he found an ultimate meaning, he would seek to destroy it, for he would not wish to be bound, or limited, by any meaning, or purpose, even if it was ultimate. Far from being an anomaly, Dostoevsky’s protagonist is a kind of contemporary everyman. For so many of us long to find life’s ultimate meaning, but harbor a dread that they will find it. Perhaps they unconsciously dread that if they did find it, life would call upon them to rearrange their life so as to live in accord with that meaning.
Kafka’s short story, “The Burrow,” offers another example of the contradictory requirements of selfhood. In this case, the narrator is a small animal — perhaps a groundhog — who gives a long account of how he has built an elaborate burrow, consisting of tunnels and secret passages for escape, in case he is pursued by a predator. The paradox comes at the end of the story, when the animal decides to abandon the burrow! Kafka is suggesting that, as human beings, we are such that too much security and we feel confined, if not imprisoned. It would seem that security and adventure are contradictory requirements for selfhood, and many of our efforts in the world can be understood as efforts to balance these antithetical requirements.
There are many more contradictory requirements endemic to the quest for selfhood, than those we’ve briefly discussed here. In any case, even the simplest of human beings are complex beings, they seek security — financial and otherwise — but they also resent any form of coercion, as well as manipulation. They do not wish to be managed, if by “managed” one means being controlled or manipulated, even by positive reinforcement. Of course, people need to be trained to perform the tasks required for their job. But something more than training is needed, if managers wish their staff to be innovative, responsible, dedicated, and accountable.
The paradox here is that if management wishes to cultivate these virtues in their staff, they need to create an atmosphere of relative freedom. And that usually means managing less. That is why good leaders seek to allow their staff to participate in decision-making, at least to the extent that it’s feasible. Farson argues that better leadership and a more enlightened organization won’t make employees any happier, but it will help them to achieve higher levels of unhappiness! Of course, the Buddhists argue that it is possible for us to achieve an inner peace that lies beyond both happiness and sadness, but that’s another story.
Mark Dillof
Dr. Mark Dillof is president of Sherlock & Zen, LLC, Business Consulting. In addition to extensive business experience — including having worked as a management consultant, stockbroker and executive coach — he taught philosophy and psychology for many years, wrote several books, has had a private practice as a consulting philosopher, and has entertained as a professional magician, among other things.