Although the people who are directly affected by the crisis may not fully understand it or how to solve it – after all, it can be hard to see the forest for the trees in the middle of a disaster – our expectations of those charged with addressing the problem are clear: provide the answer, fix the problem.
Because a crisis is not the time to plan strategy (as in management) or build collaboration around values and vision (as in leadership), critical problems are judged as warranting an authoritative, commanding approach to problem solving.
Command, however, is not leadership.
Tame problems and management
Tame problems are often familiar or recurring and can be resolved using rational, linear decision-making processes. In other words, tame problems are associated with management.
F.W. Taylor, the originator of scientific management, advocated this approach to problem solving: simply apply science properly and the best solution will emerge. The (scientific) manager’s role is to provide the appropriate processes to solve the problem.Unilateral acts by experts (e.g. doctors, accountants) often solve tame problems.
The ability of experts to unilaterally solve tame problems means that tame problem solving requires minimal involvement of the actors involved in a problem. For example, all that an accountant needs to successfully perform an audit is a complete record of a company’s financial statements.
For the most part, she does not need to take into account the perspectives, beliefs and interests of the people who belong to the company she is auditing. Management is, of course, crucial. Management is not, however, leadership.
Wicked problems and leadership
Wicked problems are the antithesis of tame problems. Wicked problems are more than complicated – they are complex, difficult to define and ever changing. Whereas experts are often ascribed responsibility for managing tame problems and authorities responsibility for commanding during crises, responsibility for addressing wicked problems falls to the actors involved.
This means that coordination among those actors cannot be patterned by compliance with experts (as in management) or obedience to authorities (as in command). What is required here is leadership. This, according to John Kotter, is about vision, about people buying in, about empowerment and, most of all, producing useful change.
What is distinctive about leadership, as opposed to command and management – which, we hasten to add, are perfectly legitimate sources of authority – is what it asks of us. This is what makes leadership, especially in the context of wicked problem solving, so interesting. Its enactment calls on all those who are part of the problem to engage with it and to partly think, partly feel their way towards an understanding of it.
Wicked problems are more than complicated – they are complex, difficult to define and ever changing
Combined with shared imaginings about possible futures – visions – this understanding helps all involved to see the forest and the trees. Wicked problems need to be approached iteratively, in a spirit of experimentation, knowing that today’s solution could very well be tomorrow’s new problem. Adaptive, ethically sophisticated leadership is thus called for – and this requires wide stakeholder engagement and participation.
To be successful, such collaborative adaptive leadership requires humility, honesty and trust, empathy, suspended judgements, commitment and authentic listening. The “inner game” of leadership can be tough to master. Although leadership will look different in the context of different wicked problems – and may not be immediately recognisable as leadership – we can at least all agree that we need more superb leadership.
Discussing poor leadership
Poor leadership is a major problem which continues to afflict the business world, according to Andy Fieldhouse, author of Getting Teamwork Right: The Key to Happy, Successful and Resilient Teams. and Sara Boueri, senior director of HR, Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority.
Fieldhouse notes that during the course of delivering webinars and talks, pre- and post-Covid, the most frequent question he receives is how to deal with a poor leader. Poor leadership costs billions, and is recognised as a key contributor to workplace stress. “It’s the first instinctive thing and unfortunately it is happening out there, globally, that there is still a leadership problem I think,” he says.
It can cost up to $250,000 to replace a member of staff, which is calculated through a number of measurable indicators, including lack of performance before the person resigns, added pressure on the team, time taken to fill the position.
Fieldhouse said: “People say, people don’t leave companies they leave leaders, and unfortunately sometimes that is necessary. Turnover is extremely costly but if it’s a revolving door and people are leaving because the leadership is not working, it’s fairly obvious and you can manage and study your turnover rate and see how much it’s costing you to do something about leadership.”
Sara Boueri, senior director of HR, Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority
Boueri says that the process of promotion in companies must also be looked at and, wherever possible, leadership training offered and provided. “The first thing is self-awareness, if you’re not aware that you’re not doing your job as leader, it’s going to be very difficult for me or for anyone, even your teammates, to prove you wrong or to prove otherwise.
“I think what we tend to see is most people get promoted into leadership positions because they’re technically really good at their jobs. So it’s natural progression, they take a job in sales, they keep exceeding their target they become managers, they keep doing that and they become directors, but they’ve never actually learned the leadership qualities that you would need in order to develop a team.”
RAKTDA was recently named the ‘Government Entity with the Happiest Work Environment’ in the emirate by the Sheikh Saqr Program for Government Excellence (SSPGE), rising up from 12th place the previous year.
Boueri says part of that success has come by leaders who are willing to be vulnerable and have the humility to admit that they don’t have all the answers. “As leaders I think we need to let go of this mindset that we need to know more than our teams, we aren’t vulnerable or we can’t be vulnerable, we can’t show a moment of weakness.”
“This image of perfection that a person is really solid, they know how to get the job done, it’s limiting us because it assumes we know everything, but the truth is we know very little. I’m not expecting you to know how to do your job perfectly. I’m expecting you to make mistakes, because unless you’re making mistakes you’re not learning.”
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