The Coercive Leader
by Dr. Joan Marques
Published on this site: May 17th, 2005 - See
more articles from this month...
Observations can lead to many valuable conclusions about the leadership
styles from various people. In the past few weeks I have had the
opportunity to observe an individual, who is a big wheel in the
industry in which he operates; famous for the many successes he
had through the years, yet, at the same time, infamous for a number
of scandalous practices that would raise many an eyebrow.
However, it should be stated right away that those who achieve
much will always sow as much hatred and spite as they will admiration
and glory, so I tend to disregard negative comments about an established,
and obviously hard working person before forming my own opinion.
That being stated, one might thus conclude that the note on which
I start reviewing any leader is the honorable part of his or her
reputation. The rest of the picture to be formed I prefer to leave
up to my own observations of this person.
Back to the here reviewed individual: although perceived from a
not so far distant, I was able to analyze this person’s leadership
style, and draw some important conclusions about his ways of staying
in control.
First of all, this leader has a strategy of ensuring that
those he incorporates in his “in-group” are absolutely
loyal to him: one small sign of discontent, and one word of
dissatisfaction uttered by an in-group member toward anyone
outside or inside of the group, gets penalized with measures
varying from severe self-esteem damage through mental torture,
to abandonment of the in-group member who dared to exceed
his or her boundaries. No wonder that the followers of this
leader, all individuals with high career aspirations and the
conviction that this almighty leader could make or break them
in a heartbeat, are swiftly learning the drill: either put
up or shut up; never say a word to anyone, because everything
might be used against you; and try to make yourself as small
and invisible as possible if you want to remain in grace.
Another important trait that this leader has demonstrated is, creating
the myth among his close followers that he has the ability to read
people from the start, and that everything he predicts turns out
to be true. So, if this leader forecasts that a certain new member
of the team should not be trusted, because this person - due to
his or her astrological sign, heritage, color, religion, education,
or simply his or her way of walking or talking – will turn
out to be a traitor, it will come out. No wonder, if you think about
it. For what does this leader do? He executes the concept of a self-fulfilling
prophecy, starting with scrutinizing the black sheep’s every
move, and then making sure that every word spoken by this person
gets interpreted as negative and, thus, exactly in-sync with his
predictions. Such a black sheep, then, gets mortified, and either
resigns or becomes permanently terror-stricken by the leader. While
this all takes place, this black sheep does nothing but serve as
an example to the rest of the in-group
illustrating that the “oracle” - the omnifarious, omnipotent
leader - has again demonstrated his gift of foreseeing other people’s
characters. And so, by regularly allowing and subsequently slaughtering
a handpicked black sheep in the in-group, this leader maintains
his legacy.
The in-group of this coercive leader, is also worth a few
lines of review: it consists, without an exception, of individuals
who are all brainwashed in such a disheartening and humiliating
way, that it seems as if they sold their soul in order to
obtain the dream he predicts to be able to realize for them.
They are unconditionally loyal to him and only him, and don’t
hesitate to put one another down in their daily reports to
him. It are exactly these daily reporting sessions, which
he prefers to call socializing gatherings, that form this
leader’s strategy toward preventing the in-group from
becoming powerful: he keeps them dispersed, and plays them
out to one another. There is no unity among them. They keep
an alert eye on each other, and will inform the leader immediately
if one mentions something that could even slightly be interpreted
as disloyal. They don’t necessarily do this to be vexatious
toward each other, but more because they fear that, if the
leader finds out that they had overheard this negative comment
from their buddy without reporting it, they would also fall
out of grace, and let me tell you: that’s a cold place
to be if you are stripped entirely from your heart, your mind,
your soul, your self-confidence, and your sense of individuality.
Moreover, the members of this leader’s in-group have been
taught that it’s an honor to be around the leader as often
as possible. They have therefore learned that lovers, family, and
other personal interests come in a distant second place, way behind
the wishes and demands of the leader.
One may wonder why, if all the above is true and known; people
still choose to work with such an individual? Maybe because
there are more people who prefer to do what I described in
the beginning of this write up: give a person the benefit
of the doubt, and assume that the negative of what is written
and said about this person comes forth out of jealousy and
inability to become part of the in-group. Another reason may
be that, by the time these in-group members find out what
they have gotten themselves into, it is too late to step out:
the cost of exiting is too high to pay, because the leader
will break them forever and make sure, where, when, and how
he can, that they will never get an opportunity again to make
a career in any other way. And lastly, there is always the
fact of the legacy of this leader: he can make people great,
and every in-group member perceives that as a point of higher
importance than the humiliation of being stripped from one’s
individuality. And so the ball keeps rolling...
Dr. Joan Marques
Burbank, 15 May, 2005
Joan Marques emigrated from Suriname, South America, to
California, U.S., in 1998. She holds a doctorate in Organizational
Leadership, a Master's in Business Administration, and is currently
a university instructor in Business and Management in Burbank, California.
Look for her books "Empower the Leader in You" and "The
Global Village" in bookstores online or on her website: http://www.joanmarques.com
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