BRIEFINGS PODCAST: Top-Down Leadership Back in Vogue?

Top-Down Leadership Back in Vogue?

NOTE: While this transcript has been reviewed, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript.

[Leonardo DiCaprio – Wolf of Wallstreet movie]:

You listen to me, and you listen well.

Jill Wiltfong:

Many leaders have been returning to a so-called top-down approach.

William Cohan:

It's always been command and control. Leaders are incredibly charming when they want to be and very tough when they have to be and very tough when they have to be.

[Office Space movie]:

I'm going to need you to go ahead and come in tomorrow.

Jill Wiltfong:

How do firms go about addressing this?

Marco Mingolla:

It's not difficult to understand why you need a sense of control, but I'm yet to meet a person who is asking for more micromanagement.

[Brad Pitt – Moneyball movie]:

Adapt or die.

Jill Wiltfong:

It's my way or the highway.

[Boss]:

I know you're under a lot of pressure to deliver right now, but rest assured that my door is always open for feedback. Like I always say, "Communication is a two-way street."

[Employee 1]:

Wow, what a great guy.

[Employee 2]:

He is so nice.

[Boss]:

Okay, team, revenue came in a bit low last quarter, so I'm going to need everyone to come in not three, but five days a week. We all need to pull our weight more.

[Employee 2]:

Mm, I'm not so sure about this.

[Boss]:

Hey, I'm not seeing the results we need, so from here on out, we need everyone in here at 6:00 AM sharp, and I'll be setting weekly production quotas for each of you.

[All employees]:

Aw, come on.

[Employee 2]:

This is crazy.

[Employee 1]:

Can he do that?

[Employee 3]:

Er, can we at least talk about this?

[Boss]:

No, we cannot. Going forward, communication is a one-way street.

Jill Wiltfong:

Hi, I am Jill Wiltfong, Chief Marketing Officer for Korn Ferry. And this is "Briefings," our deep dive into topics that corporate leaders need to care about. Collaboration, empathy, consensus-building. These seem to have been the hallmarks of effective leadership for most of this century, but in a remarkably short time, many leaders have been returning to a so-called directive or top-down approach. In other words, top bosses are now saying, "It's my way or the highway." It's been seen in companies increasing strictness about return to office mandates, as well as the blunt public comments of CEOs criticizing under performers or wondering why they can't reach workers on a Friday. Some say it's a justified response to the massive pressures leaders face from vanishing growth to rapid technological change. Others say it's just plain regressive. So today we'll take a look at both sides of the equation as we ask, is top-down leadership back in vogue?

Before we start, if you're watching us on YouTube, please be sure to like, subscribe, and leave a comment to let us know your thoughts on this topic.

I'm joined today by William Cohan, a bestselling author and columnist who's written extensively on the business world over the past few decades. He was even a Wall Street M&A banker in a previous life, so he's got lots of perspectives to share on this issue. Bill, thanks for joining me.

William Cohan:

Great to be here, Jill. Thank you.

Jill Wiltfong:

So, I'd ask you why you think this blunt talking command and control style of leadership is back in fashion, but you've said contrary to popular belief that it never really went out of style, so tell me what you mean by that.

William Cohan:

I think it's always been command and control. I'm not quite sure where this idea of more inclusive, more cooperation-based running of an organization came from. I think it was probably more lip service than reality. And I think now that it's been decided that it's okay to no longer even give lip service to some sort of inclusionary aspects of the workplace, you know, we're back to people thinking it's command and control again.

Jill Wiltfong:

You wrote a book called "Power Failure: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon" in which you explore the heyday of GE under the leadership of Jack Welch. Welch of course embodied this kind of top-down leadership, and you've said that he ruled through a combination of fear and charm. Do you think his approach would still hold up in today's work environment?

William Cohan:

If you look at some of the biggest Wall Street firms, for instance, which I know well, their leaders are incredibly charming when they want to be and can be very tough when they have to be. Otherwise, you don't get to the top of these organizations. They're incredibly competitive, incredibly Darwinian. You don't have that combination of diplomatic skills and ruthlessness; you don't get to the top.

[Leonardo DiCaprio – Wolf of Wallstreet movie]:

So, you listen to me, and you listen well. Are you behind on your credit card bills? Good. Pick up the phone and start dialing. Is your landlord ready to evict you? Good. Pick up the phone and stock dialing.

Jill Wiltfong:

That's Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Wolf of Wall Street," commanding his employees to work hard to achieve their goals. Of course, one wonders if that kind of bold speech would fly in today's era of social media, and we've talked on this show actually about how the number of influencers on LinkedIn has grown, roughly 700% over the past decade, and that that has given rise to a new kind of socially empowered employee. So, Bill, do you think leaders today need to take a more cautious approach given that workers can air the slightest grievance to millions of followers online?

William Cohan:

Yeah, I think we all need to take a more considered approach, a more careful approach. Back in the day when I was growing up, if you did something stupid, you know, very few people would end up knowing about it. And it probably wouldn't cost you your job unless, you know, your boss or his colleagues became aware of it. Today you do something stupid, and it ends up online.

Jill Wiltfong:

Work from home has been at the root of many leaders' tough stances. One study out of Stanford found that hybrid employees were just as productive as fully office-based ones, but you've talked about the need for apprenticeships as an argument for a return to office, and that's also something other leaders have mentioned. Talk to me a little bit more about that.

William Cohan:

I think there are some professions, like Wall Street, like the legal profession, which is so apprenticeship driven, the learning is so great that it takes place just kind of through osmosis half the time, and you can't get learning by osmosis through a Zoom box. You have to be in the office, literally in someone's office, while they're giving directives, while they're negotiating a deal, while they're talking about where investors are thinking about pricing a stock or a bond. Whatever it is, you have to learn that by watching, and seeing, and absorbing. You just cannot do that through a Zoom box.

Jill Wiltfong:

Let's end with a perspective from your Wall Street days. You once worked at a company where you've said things weren't running very smoothly, but then a leader came in with a much more directive style and really helped get things back on track. For employees who may be grappling with hard-driving bosses right now, what's a helpful mindset that they can adopt to manage that going forward?

William Cohan:

Honestly, do what you're told to do. Do what you're asked to do. Do it well. Don't be a nail that's sticking up above the others, except if your work product is exceptional. Corporations are not republics, they're not democracies, they're not one vote, one person. They are top-down organizations.

Jill Wiltfong:

Bill, thank you so much for coming on today and sharing your perspective. Appreciate it.

William Cohan:

My pleasure. Thank you.

Jill Wiltfong:

So, we've explored the argument in favor of so-called directive leadership. After the break, we'll talk with a performance management expert on why collaborative empathetic leadership may still be here to stay. Stay with us.

Rupak Bhattacharya:

Hi, and welcome to "This Week in Leadership." I'm Rupak Bhattacharya, and here's a quick look at what else is happening in business.

[Narrator]:

Work from home versus work from the office.

Rupak Bhattacharya:

According to a new survey, remote jobs are much more likely to go to workers earning above $250,000 per year. Experts warn that this kind of preferential treatment threatens to cause permanent damage if leaders allow a culture of haves and have-nots to take root at companies. There's a growing problem infecting the online shopping world, that of fake reviews. Analysts estimate as many as 30% of online product reviews may be fake, creating levels of consumer distrust that hurt business. As retail professionals look for solutions to this issue, they say one simple safeguard is to disallow reviews that only give stars without editorial commentary.

[Narrator]:

Denver has officially been awarded the 16th franchise in the National Women's Soccer League.

Rupak Bhattacharya:

A group of investors agreed to pay a record breaking $110 million to establish a new women's soccer franchise in Denver. Experts however caution that with more money comes more pressure to generate returns, and owners will be working hard to create the value that justifies the prices they're paying.

For more insights on business and leadership, head to kornferry.com/insights. Now back to Jill and our episode.

[Office Space movie]:

Hello, Peter. What's happening? Erm, I'm going to need you to go ahead and come in tomorrow. So, if you could be here around nine, that would be great, okay? Oh, oh, and I almost forgot. Erm, I'm also going to need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday too, okay?

Jill Wiltfong:

We're back talking about CEOs returning to a traditional top-down style of leadership. And with us now is Marco Mingolla, Korn Ferry's EMEA practice lead for people's strategy and performance solutions. Marco, it's wonderful to have you with us.

Marco Mingolla:

Thanks for having me, Jill.

Jill Wiltfong:

So that last clip was from the movie "Office Space" where a demanding boss tells his employee to work the entire weekend. Life may be imitating art as we now see an increasing number of leaders taking this kind of tough stance on being in the office and improving performance. I'm curious, Marco, what you think is behind this shift back to a more traditional style of communicating.

Marco Mingolla:

With all the things that are going on in the world, it's not difficult to understand why you need a sense of control. I think very much this is driving it. Feeling out of control is not a nice place to be, and I think the natural reaction for a lot of people is then to impose more control also on others and also to feel in control. But those are not the same things. But in the end, I think mostly in my experience, this is really a personal preference.

Jill Wiltfong:

You do say there's still very much this need for the empathetic, collaborative leadership that it seems like took the corporate world by storm not that long ago. We've certainly been promoting it a lot most of this century. Tell me why you say that. Why is there still a place for that?

Marco Mingolla:

I think that the challenge is this may feel good for the CEO, but I'm yet to meet a person who is asking for more micromanagement. And I bet you if you ask the CEO if they were in the receiving end, their younger self, then they received this kind of micromanagement, many of them would not like it. There's no way you can succeed unless you get everybody in the organization to do their best and perform better tomorrow.

Jill Wiltfong:

Now there are intangibles that only baseball people understand. You're discounting what scouts have done for 150 years, even yourself.

[Brad Pitt – Moneyball movie]:

Adapt or die.

Jill Wiltfong:

That's a scene from the movie "Moneyball," where Brad Pitt tells his direct report to adapt to the new way of doing business or die, metaphorically of course. In this case, Pitt's character was correct in pushing past the naysayers to usher in a whole new world of player evaluation. So, Marco, obviously there are times when taking a more authoritative approach can be useful. You've even said that. Often, it's when the skill set in the level kind of directly below the leader isn't quite there. So, talk to me a little bit more about that. When is it right to be more directive and when is it better to step back?

Marco Mingolla:

Well, obviously if a person doesn't know what to do, then it's perfectly fine, actually recommended to, you know, come in and tell the person what to do because you can't empower the person, you can't delegate, because you would put the person in that situation where they can't deliver. But mostly, again, your role is not to keep doing that. Your role is to keep developing people so they can, you know, do what they're supposed to be doing, and you can then sit back and do what you are supposed to be doing.

Jill Wiltfong:

So regardless of what style CEOs choose for the moment, we know that how they conduct themselves does matter greatly. A study recently of 460 CEOs from more than 300 different companies found really strong correlations between CEO personality traits and company culture. So, let's end on some advice around this. Let's say a leader is in fact veering into kind of this intense micromanaging territory that isn't helpful to the company. How do firms go about addressing this? What's the answer when the issue seemingly kind of stems from the very top?

Marco Mingolla:

So that's a challenge obviously, and I think it's never easy to give your boss feedback, but I think there's an element of the board and this connection really helping the CEO to understand, you know, what is it that we value? And again, that is not about you, it's about the entire organization. So, helping the CEO or say, reimagine, how they add value and that is not about them. And from that, you then deduct what is then the successful role of the CEO instead of starting our conversation with, "What is it that the CEO likes to do?" and then the rest of us will have to follow because that's not a recipe for success.

Jill Wiltfong:

I love it, so may not be about you, but it sounds like it does start with you, and there's a lot that you can do. That's great. Marco, thank you. Really great to get your insight.

Marco Mingolla:

Thank you.

Jill Wiltfong:

And appreciate you being here today.

Marco Mingolla:

My pleasure. Thank you.

Jill Wiltfong:

The Executive Producer of "Briefings" is Jonathan Dahl. Today's episode was produced by Rupak Bhattacharya, Nadira Putri, and Teresa Allan. And it was edited by Jaron Henrie-McCrea. It contains reporting by Russell Pearlman, Arianne Cohen, and Peter Lauria.

Our video segment contains original artwork by Frazer Milton, Hayley Kennell, Jonathan Pink, and Sasha Kostyuk.

Don't forget to read our magazine, available at newsstands and at kornferry.com/briefings. That's it for Korn Ferry “Briefings”. I'm Jill Wiltfong. See you next time.

And now it's time for wine. Woo-hoo.