Harvard Business Review
Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Obama-McChrystal Moments: Handling Insubordination
Many leaders have their Obama-McChrystal moments. A mission-critical subordinate makes disparaging remarks about the strategy or other team members, and the chief executive must decide how to handle it. Those remarks might not get printed in a sensationalist magazine like Rolling Stone and echoed throughout international media. The mission might not be as critical in its consequences as the war in Afghanistan. The players might not be a sitting U.S. President and a battle-hardened General. But the issues are familiar, whether you are a company founder dealing with the sales manager, a hospital CEO with the director of nursing, or a program head with an aggressive staff member. You have to determine the boundaries of acceptable conduct and a course of remedial action.
Is attitude important for accomplishment?
General McChrystal's skills were not in question, and he was getting results — albeit in a very difficult and controversial situation. The issue for President Obama, it appeared, was attitude, including the lapse in judgment involved in talking in front of a reporter. Even in a world of flattened, networked, first-name-using organizations in which the language of superiors and subordinates has long disappeared, "insubordination" is still considered a violation of standards. Solidarity is important to execution, especially when the outside world — competitors, customers, or the public — is watching. Concerns or alternative views should be offered at appropriate times and in appropriate ways. The mission, not politics or petty personal grievances, should be the most important consideration. We all know that there are cynical saboteurs ready to strike in any organization, but that doesn't mean that the leader has to tolerate them.
What is the impact on the rest of the organization?
The foot soldiers doing the work in the trenches can find dissension at the top disturbing, especially if they are risking lives or livelihoods. In the Obama-McChrystal case, this is more than metaphor. The respect of his troops is a reason some former military officers gave me at a recent debate for wishing the President could have disciplined McChrystal while keeping him in command. But business executives at that debate pointed to the many team members that the President needed to support. Letting one executive slide because his or her work is mission-critical can send a bad message to the people in other functions.
Is there a qualified replacement?
President Obama replaced General McChrystal with a highly-experienced superior, General David Petraeus. Knowing that there is a qualified replacement waiting in the wings is clearly important. But in this case, even with a vast army (so to speak), the President had to reach up for an officer to step into McChrystal's job, leaving a void in higher command. At Microsoft, Steve Ballmer has been known to step in personally to manage a troubled unit, in addition to his CEO duties. It would be far better to reach below for replacements, into a full bench of already-trained and qualified replacements for any mission-critical job. In some large companies, such as the global cement company CEMEX, training replacements is considered a part of every manager's job. In small organizations, this might be handled by a buddy system in which key managers work closely together, learn enough about a colleague's work to be able to take over in an emergency.
In an ideal world, such issues would be prevented by good organizational practices. The chief and the officer would have worked out their differences in private. In the real world of Presidents with huge staffs working on multiple fronts, Generals rising for their military skills not their diplomacy, and media outlets eager to find fights that make good stories, there will inevitably be Obama-McChrystal moments. In every part of the world, leaders should ask themselves what they would do if confronted with insubordination in their own organizations.
Access Content Source: http://blogs.hbr.org/kanter/2010/07/obama-mcchrystal-moments-handl.html
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http://dreamlearndobecome.blogspot.com This posting was made my Jim Jacobs, President & CEO of Jacobs Executive Advisors. Jim also serves as Leader of Jacobs Advisors' Insurance Practice.
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