Dissident Leadership

By: R.G. Bennett

Today's article is from Capt. Gordon Bennett, a member of the Canadian Forces. He offered to write this article for the website and I'm grateful he did. It addresses an issue problematic wherever I go and one certainly present with Investment Advisory teams throughout Canada. Read on and see if you have the courage to implement the idea he suggests.

One of the biggest areas lacking in today's business, government, and not-for-profit sectors is leadership. One need only look around to see a plethora of poor examples of leadership. A lack of leadership may stem from many causes, but the effects are almost always the same--poor decision making, lack of efficiency, failure to maximize resources, employee turnover, counterproductive employees, opportunity costs, lower profits, disorganization, and confusion. Customers, supporters, employees and others see these effects even if the organization’s leadership does not see them. The required leadership needed to prevent or overcome these problems comes in many forms, one of which is “dissident leadership.”

I recently attended a conference of regional managers and staff of a well-known international organization. The purpose of the conference was to discuss issues the organization was facing and how to confront these issues. After several senior people spoke, the final and principal speaker opened the floor to an interactive session in order to help engage the fifty or so attendees in addressing a specific problem. As he asked questions to members of the audience, I noticed that many of the responses were typical routine responses. The attendees were simply not offering a detailed analysis of the problem with some creative solutions.

As I continued to listen to the discussion, I noticed that the final speaker had omitted a major component of his analysis of the problem and proposed solution. Since he had opened the floor for discussion (much of it albeit directed by him), I took the opportunity to gently illustrate that a key component in the solution had been overlooked. I promptly took the opportunity to provide a bridge solution to fill that gap. My comments were very well received by members of the audience, as manifest by the nods and comments of approval and support. This action then begged the question, if others also had seen this omission, which it appeared they had, why did they not address it?

In this particular organization, as in unfortunately many organizations, people who witness problems do not take the initiative to speak up. This is particularly problematic when managers or staff is gathered to discuss problems. It is here that a true element of leadership is manifest. It takes leadership to stand up and speak, especially in organizations that are very much hierarchical. In this instance, the leader either speaks up to dissent from the group norm or provides an observation or solution that is outside the organization norms and may challenge others in the organization.

An excellent example of a failure in dissident leadership was with the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. During the planning stages for the operation, senior leadership all concurred that it was a good idea. However, when the senior leadership was questioned why the mission failed after the fact, several indicated that they had not thought it a good idea in the first place. In this instance, they had failed in leadership by not offering a dissenting voice or exercising dissident leadership.

Contrast this situation with Toyota. Toyota encourages and fosters dissident leadership. The communication challenges and low-level empowered decision-making, even in the face of higher executive decisions have proven very, very effective. Why is this so?

There are several reasons why dissident leadership works for Toyota and other successful organizations and will work for many more. First, by fostering an environment that permits members to voice concerns and empowering members to make decisions at the lowest levels (by "the boots on the ground"), the tactical situation is well known and reaction times are accelerated. Faster reaction times permit the organization to gain the initiative over competitors, bring product to market faster, and become more responsive to customer needs.

Second, when dissident leadership is encouraged, new or better ideas will surface. Such surfacing of ideas capitalizes on organizational wide communication channels, provides a feeling by members that they are heard, and decentralizes creative processes thus ultimately facilitating innovation and success.

Third, dissident leadership can be employed to break groupthink. In the case of the Bay of Pigs, not only was groupthink present, but also the few that could have dissented failed to do so. Having done so could have broken the remainder from their groupthink positions resulting in alternate mission arrangements.

In responding to dissident leadership, organizations must foster an organizational culture of open communication and respect. When stakeholders know that their concerns will be adequately addressed, not only is trust increased overall, but also dissenters’ comments and ideas will be able to be captured into improved organizational operations and offerings. A steady challenge to norms helps foster a kaizen (continuous quality improvement) mentality.

Negative response to genuine concern will suppress creative talent or permit it to escape. Although on the surface all appears fine since there are no dissenters, in the depths of the organization, retention or cultivation of maximum capacity of the members oozes away. Creating and sustaining maximum efficiency in an organization, such as in Toyota, dissent will be likely. Therefore, a symptom of calm waters in an organization may be the sign of a larger problem of complacency on the part of its members. I do not suggest that conflict and troublemaking should be a norm (which dissident leadership is not), but dissident leadership is actually a force multiplying creative tool that can help an organization maintain relevance.

It must be noted that there is a difference between treasonous behavior and dissident leadership. The principle difference between the two is the motivation and end state of the individual in terms of behavior and views. With treasonous behavior, the perpetrators seek personal vice organizational gain. Once a decision has been made by the pertinent authority and dissenting views have been heard and considered, the dissenter either now needs to get on board with the program and work towards organizational goals, or remove themselves from the position. In the instance of a military force, dissident leadership can work as a very good tool in the planning phases (as it should have in the Bay of Pigs) and can work well in operations if the tactical situation changes. However, it will generally not work well during operations when no change in the tactical situation is present. By dissenting once the decision has been made, the mission could be compromised unless extenuating factors such as ethics and legality are manifest.

Dissident leadership is clearly manifest in successful organizations. Those organizations that do not value this human element are likely to find themselves at the mercy of competitors, see a decrease in creativity, and are likely to lose good leadership and talent to more receptive organizations.