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I Want Your Resignations!
By Dr. J. Howard
Baker
Have you ever been
asked to resign from a position? Usually by the time an employee or worker is
asked to tender a resignation it means that those in authority have given up on
trying to maintain a beneficial working relationship
with that person. Management has abandoned all hope in the relationship. When
asked to resign, an individual’s typical response is either to submit an oral
or written resignation, or ask to be fired. In either situation the atmosphere
is usually unpleasant and is characterized by a feeling of inevitable loss.
The
dictionary definitions for the word resign are:
1.
To
submit (oneself) passively; accept as inevitable.
2.
To
give up (a position) by formal notification.
3.
To
relinquish (a privilege, right, or claim) To give up
one’s job or office; quit, esp. by formal notification.
Resignation is usually thought of
as the act, or an instance, of resigning from a position or office. However,
the dictionary also says that the word resignation can mean “unresisting
acceptance of something as inescapable; submission.” When we are resigned to
a situation, we believe it is inevitable—that we must live with it. It is a
feeling that often comes when we see no way to change a bad situation.
I suggest that for
every formal act of resignation, an organization may have dozens,
or even thousands of private and personal “resignations” where
employees, workers, students, customers, or members of an organization simply
abandon hope for positive change.
When this situation
occurs with customers, they usually start doing business with a competitor.
Volunteers of a nonprofit organization transfer their participation to another
organization. However, when an employee faces private resignation, the
situation is often not as flexible. With children to feed and bills to pay, an
employee might quit their job mentally but continue to “work” physically
for many years. I have heard employees say “you have to leave your brain at the
entrance when you come to work here.” If they could, such employees would hang
a sign over the front door of their organization which would quote Dante
Alighieri: “All hope abandon, ye who enter here!”
Under traditional
authoritarian supervision many employees give up hope and stay. Some give up
hope and leave. When a person comes forth voluntarily with an unsolicited
resignation, it is usually the result of that person experiencing private
resignation over an extended period of time regarding important
organizational issues. They have finally concluded that those in authority will
never acknowledge or properly deal with the issues they consider important.
They have abandoned all hope. They have no positive expectations regarding
their future relationship with the organization.
Often talented younger
employees choose to leave and try another organization. Those who give up and
stay are often the less talented, or those who, for personal reasons, feel
compelled to stay. Older employees, often with considerable experience and
ability, also often choose to remain with the organization because they have
tried changing jobs and discovered that they have just swapped one set of
hopeless problems for another. They are now cynical and privately resigned that
no organization will offer them hope!
Why would a person
consider placing a sign over the entrance of their organization that contains
the very same words found over the gates of Dante’s hell? It is because they
see both as places of no hope. Hope is destroyed when expectations fail.
When we hear leaders “talk the talk” but don’t see them “walk the walk” we
experience failed expectations. Trust is then destroyed. Hope is abandoned.
Traditional
authoritarian leadership is based on a Win/Lose paradigm of human interaction.
Stephen Covey says that leaders with the Win/Lose leadership style “are prone
to use position, power, credentials, possessions, or personality to get their
way.” When people are continually on the Lose side of Win/Lose, they often
begin to exhibit passive behavior. However, one danger of prolonged passive
behavior is that it can lead to resentment, depression, or even physical
illness. Such passive behavior may ultimately shift to behavior at the opposite
extreme—aggressive behavior. Driven by months or years of hopelessness, the
passive person may shift to aggressive behavior. Stephen Covey says that
“disproportionate rage or anger, overreaction to minor provocation, and
cynicism” can be the result of suppressed emotions. In rare cases this may even
lead to employee suicide or domestic and/or work place violence.
Rather than asking for
a person’s oral or written resignation, an effective leader should first
consider asking for a person’s private resignations—those issues that
are viewed by the employee as hopeless and not susceptible to change. Learning
what the resignations of employees are often reveals the most critical and
jugular issues facing the organization. Unfortunately, authoritarian leaders
are usually not prepared to truly listen and accept these issues as their
responsibility.
If an authoritarian
leader decides to begin asking employees for their private resignations, it is
very likely they will not share them. Usually the organization’s culture is so
lacking in open communication and trust that the employees have already
resigned themselves to the status quo. They are convinced that it will make no
difference to honestly share their true private resignations. They might offer
some comments to management that they feel are safe and within the realm of “discussables” in the current culture. However, they
probably will remain convinced that truly opening up and being honest will just make them more vulnerable. They are well aware
that there are certain topics that are “undiscussables”
in the present culture. Often the most “undiscussable”
issue within an organization is the issue of trust. Employees under authoritarian
leaders don’t really trust their leaders—and the only trust these leaders have
in their followers is that they “trust” their people will do exactly
as they are told!
Authoritarian leaders
will typically see nothing wrong with this situation, and will see no need for personal
change. They will not seek to understand the private resignations of their
followers. They will continue to seek commitment without genuine trust. The
result, in the long run, is a shift to a Lose/Lose paradigm of human
interaction.
We live in an
interdependent reality. When we are interdependent, a “Lose” for one party
ultimately translates into a “Lose” for the other. Win/Win—where both the
leader and the follower consider the outcome positive—is the only viable
alternative in the long run.
If
one truly desires to be an effective leader—doing the right things—then open
communication and trust must be built. To accomplish this there has to be a
paradigm shift from Win/Lose to Win/Win. The Win/Win paradigm of human
interaction is not possible to achieve when the culture offers no hope. When
there is resignation and passive behavior, people feel like they are a
“doormat.” They see no hope of openly stating what they really think or feel.
There is only one way
to make the shift from a Win/Lose authoritarian leadership style to a Win/Win
style. It is by personal change. As a leader, you must come to the place
where you truly desire to trade in your traditional command-and-control style
for openness and knowledge sharing. You must open yourself up to be influenced
by those who have private resignations. You must desire to listen for
understanding. People need to know that they are understood. They need to be
affirmed, valued, and appreciated. Such affirmation should not be done in an insincere
manner. Just saying the right words doesn’t make it so! As a leader, your character
and behavior speak louder than your words. You must “talk the talk” and
“walk the walk.”
Just as hope is lost
when leaders do not “walk their talk,” hope can be regained over time when
leaders abandon mere words and openly change their behavior. When you, as a
leader, begin to see the world through the lens of Win/Win instead of Win/Lose,
your attitude and behavior will begin to change. As your
attitude toward others changes, they will sense a difference.
Eventually, trust will be established with one or two individuals. As you prove
to be trustworthy with one or two, word will begin to spread through the
grapevine that there may yet be hope.
Slowly others will begin
to regain hope as it becomes apparent that a new and more positive paradigm of
human interaction has replaced the old. As your personal credibility increases,
so will your personal influence. However, that influence will be a different
kind of influence from what you had under the traditional authoritarian style
of leadership. People will no longer “leave their brain at the entrance and
just do what they are told” when they go to work.
Your trustworthiness
and credibility, validated by the observation and experience of those who come
in contact with you, will begin to unleash creative cooperation, synergy, and
learning. An atmosphere of mutual trust and respect will begin to spread. You
will find yourself growing in insight and learning as you listen and respect
those in the rank and file. As you learn about, and address, the many private
resignations within your organization, you will find yourself
experiencing increased security in your own job. You will discover that there will
be fewer occasions when you will need to terminate employees or ask for their
written resignations. All this positive organizational change can begin once
you decide to personally change and say—“I want your resignations!”
Comments
to: jhb001@juno.com BACK TO weLEAD HOME PAGE
Biography:
Dr.
J. Howard Baker is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Texas at Tyler. Dr. Baker has been a FranklinCovey
7 Habits of Highly Effective People certified facilitator since 1994, and
has served the University of Texas at Tyler as their 7 Habits facilitator. He
teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in personal and organizational
leadership, public administration, and computer information systems. He holds a B.S. in Management from Samford University, a Master of Accounting (MAcc) from the University of Southern California,
and a Ph.D. in Information Systems from the University of Texas at
Arlington. Prior to his teaching career
he worked as head of information systems auditing for two of the largest
financial institutions in the United States. He has been a member of The
Institute of Internal Auditors since 1987 and became a Certified Internal
Auditor (CIA) in 1989. Dr. Baker is a
lifetime charter member of weLEAD and the founding
editor of the weLEADInLearning web site's E-Journal
of Organizational Learning and Leadership located at www.weleadinlearning.org
.
References:
Bartlett,
John. Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919.
(Quotation by Datnte Alighieri. 1265 – 1321. From: The
Divine Comedy)
Covey, Stephen R. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Restoring
the Character Ethic. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989.
Fitz-Enz, Jac. The 8 Practices of
Exceptional Companies: How Great Organizations Make the Most of Their Human
Assets. New York: American Management Association, 1997.
Lee, Blaine. The Power Principle: Influence with Honor. New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1997.
The American Heritage College Dictionary. Third Edition. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993.
Wallace,
Harold and Masters, L. Ann. Personality Development for Work. Sixth Edition. Cincinnati: South-Western Publishing, 1989.