News Stop: 25 April 2006
April 25, 2006 by SGE
Do you dare to disagree with your boss?
Go on, disagree with the boss by Joseph Tay, Today dated 25 April 2006. Quoting some parts of the article, which I thought will be interesting for the reader to look at the full article:
“To be fair, dissension against established order is never easy, whatever the context. Be it in politics, workplace, or even religious organisations.
The fear of being punished weighs heavily on the minds of dissenters.
While we lament leadership intolerance, we forget that no one goes to work each day looking forward eagerly to be criticised.
We all want to be right about things. The leader is no exception.
No leader wants an environment where people are highly critical about everything. It undermines team cohesion, effectiveness and his leadership. Intolerance towards criticisms and divergent views, on the other hand, breeds conformity and kills creativity  a gross disadvantage in today’s global economy.
The leader has to be mindful, though, in his desire for group harmony. People already have a natural tendency to want to fit in, to be part of the team, making divergent views less probable. A leader’s distaste for criticisms can hasten conformity and unwittingly spawn an army of yes-men.
The business world is farcically notorious for hiring people from outside the organisation ostensibly for their different mindsets, only to have them hammered seamlessly into place with the status quo.
In an intolerant environment, people also learn not to pass on bad news. Data has to be “massaged” to make it more palatable for the boss’ consumption  in effect, dulling or negating the negativity of the news.
In one company I was associated with, people stopped reporting the bad news. Instead, they took band-aid actions to stem the haemorrhage that the company was facing.
The top echelon never had good information nor ideas to work with and the company free-falls from restructuring to restructuring. It is a tightrope the leader has to tread. While the yes-man is dangerous, the answer does not lie with the subordinate who makes a career out of always telling the boss that he is wrong.
What leaders fail to appreciate in the heat of the moment is that dissension takes energy. It is far easier to just simply agree.
Distinction must be made between people who dissent because they care and those who are destructive in their intent. It would help of course if dissenters learn to disagree respectfully…….
I do not think disrespect was intended. The bright young people cannot be ignorant of the accomplishments of the man before them. The apparent angst, I surmise, is bottled frustrations suddenly uncapped.
The rush creates an emotional high. We should be proud of their convictions even though we may not agree with all their views. There is no apathy.
It requires both leaders and followers to find the basis on which they could constructively engage each another without fear of the leadership being undermined or dissension being punished.”
As I have been discussing about leadership and meetings in the past few posts, I think that this article hit the right note for managers to manage dissent and yes men. In Asia, there is a strong resistance within ourselves to go against our boss. I remember when I was challenging my boss on certain decisions in the UK, I usually say the following, “With all due respect, I don’t agree with the assessment…”
Technorati Tags: Entrepreneurship, Singapore Entrepreneurs, Leadership, Dissent
About The Author
SGE - (SGE)
Covering the Singapore and Southeast Asia startup and entrepreneurship scene since 2005.
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