Overview
For some, the term “bureaucratic leadership” is an oxymoron like:
One does not need to be a leader in the classic sense to run a bureaucracy. In fact, it is the absence of effective bureaucratic leadership that bedevils some large organizations today. A couple of examples.
In a 2005 survey of over 1,100 UK employees by Mercer Human Resource Consulting , employees revealed a high level of distrust for their management. The survey found that fewer than 4 in 10 employees (36%) trust senior managers to communicate honestly. Source: Mercer Consulting, 6 September 2005.
A 2008 study looked at global leadership development of large organizations. While 75% of the executives in large organizations say that leadership development was an extremely high priority, but only 29% of these organizations bothered to properly prepare their expats for the leadership side of their overseas assignments.
This article takes a hard look at the defining characteristics of large bureaucracies such as government agencies and multinational corporations. It then defines the most common type of leadership style one is likely to see used.
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When the German sociologist Max Weber (21 April 1864 – 14 June 1920) first published his thoughts about the nature of a bureaucracy, it was a relatively new form of organization in Western Europe.[1]
Since that time, it has become the dominant organizational form for both large businesses and government agencies. |
Characteristics of Bureaucracy
"The nail that stands out from the board, will get pounded by the hammer."— Japanese Proverb
This form of organization has many strengths, but there are also weaknesses. In other words, it is the nature of bureaucracy the typically stifles many types of leadership but allows others. Characteristics include:
Functional Specialization
You can divide groups of individuals into special functions based on expertise or purpose. Some examples include as marketing, strategic planning, quality, human resources, engineering and so on. Functional specialists exert influence primarily through their use of expertise.
A Well-Defined Dominance Hierarchy
If you are a government employee, you can chart the bosses all the way up to a President or the Premier. In dominance hierarchies, Authority serves as the primary means of influence for those in the higher levels to influence those in the lower levels of the hierarchy. Authority is symbolically conveyed by title and level of position on the organization chart.
Written Procedures & Policies
Tribal knowledge is not the rule in bureaucracy. It’s easy to tell the degree of bureaucracy—just count the thousands of pages of policies and procedures.
This eases on-the-job training requirements since Joe’s boss doesn’t have to coach and mentor, he can just give the four-inch policy and procedures manual so Joe can learn the job.
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Control by Policy
On of the major reasons top management love bureaucracy is a simple one— it allows them to control the actions of thousands, thousands of miles from the head office. Authority is typically conveyed through the use of policy and through regulations.
Bureaucracies Prefer Stability and Order
Bureaucracies commonly assume the external environments don’t change; and therefore, internal organizational structure doesn't’t have to change either. For example, the Washington government bureaucratic scene remained pretty much the same from 1950 until the creation of Homeland Security in 2003.
Competence Based Promotion Systems
If you want to get promoted, just keep your nose clean and follow the rules.
Promotion systems are designed to stress competency. Contrary to popular belief, higher level managers is large organizations are generally competent—generally but not always.
There is a famous book written In the year 1969 called The Peter Principle. Basically, the Peter Principle says, “In a bureaucracy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." So you are likely to find incompetence individuals at all levels of the bureaucracy despite the best efforts of human resource professionals.
That Helpless Feeling
This occurs primarily at the lower levels of the organization, but even executives have known to experience a lack of control.
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Lower Levels of Innovation and Creativity
A camel is the bureaucracies best effort to design a horse.
There is a certain bureaucratic mind-set that tends to avoid creative solutions to problems. This is illustrated by the story below.
The officer in charge of a party of engineers constructing a road through a swampy section ordered a lieutenant to take fifteen men and get on with the job. Presently, the junior officer came back to see the colonel. "Sir," he reported, "the mud is over the mens' heads. We just can't get through." "Nonsense," yelled the commanding officer. "Make out a requisition slip for whatever you need to get the job done and I'll see that you get it." A few minutes later, the lieutenant laid this memorandum on the CO's desk: "Needed: Fifteen men 18 feet tall. Objective: Cross swamp 15 feet deep.
Responsibility Avoidance Within Policy Voids
No one gets fired in this organization for NOT making a decision. — A common perception.
Bureaucratic leadership is often characterized by individuals avoiding making a decision when a decision is required. It’s not the decisions that can be framed within an existing policy that are avoided, It’s the ones for which there are no policy guidelines that are avoided. For example, a service representative may say, “I’m afraid you’ll have to come back and talk to Miss Jenkins—she’s the only one who can handle it for you, or “That's not my job.”
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Inversion of Means and Ends
This occurs when there are too many rules, too many controls, and no way to change them. Typically, the primary measure of a person’s success becomes how well the rules are obeyed. The route to advancement becomes conformity. Risk takers who break the rules are often penalized.
“Glacial” Decision Making
Compared to smaller, entrepreneurial organizations, decision making in large organizations occurs at a glacial pace. In slow changing environments, this is not a problem. However, in environments undergoing rapid change, bureaucracies tend to adapt to slowly and miss new opportunities completely.
Approval Straight Jackets
You’ll hears words such as, “I’ll have to check with . . .” The issue here is that every good idea, three uncreative minds have to say yes, but only one needs to say no.
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How Bureaucracy Impacts Bureaucratic Leaders
When one considers all the above factors together, one creates a certain bureaucratic style of leadership. This includes the following observations:
Expertise is of secondary importance compared to the use of authority for bureaucratic leaders.
Authority is a major form of influence defining the nature of bureaucratic leadership superceding all others forms of
Good ideas are secondary compared to following the rules.
The status quo is preferred—change will be resisted.
Transactional influence tends to work better than transformational influence.
Case:
Officers Express No Confidence. This is a story about a police chief that had such poor leadership skills that he lost confidence of the union and the officers it represents.
References:
1. Wikipedia, Max Weber
2. Wikipedia, The Peter Principle
Additional Resources
Henderson, A. M. & Parsons, T. (1947). Max Weber: The Theory of Social Economic Organization, New York: The Free Press.
Peter, Dr. Laurence and Hull, Raymond (1969). The Peter Principle: why things always go wrong. New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc., 179 pages.
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