HIERARCHY DEMOCRACY AND THE CULT OF THE 'STRONG LEADER' Part One
Power Is Sexy!
I.
Whilst in training to
become a counsellor there was a moment that has stuck in my memory. We were
about to have a dialogue/seminar, we did not really have lectures as such,
about the power dynamic between therapist and client, the tutor entered the
room and wrote on a flip chart the simple sentence, ‘Power is Sexy.’*
Now this course was
about as 'right-on' as can be imagined, the students predominantly female, the
tutor male. I can still remember the discomfort, possibly even shock, in the
room. I also remember registering my own recognition that power could be a turn
on, could provide a kind of electric current that can induce a heady sense of
legitimacy authority, even a variety of charisma. If you were in charge of a
situation, entrusted to exercise power and control that must be a recognition
of your own eminent suitability to exercise it. The aim of the seminar was to
clearly establish the importance of acknowledging within oneself both this
aspect of the power dynamic, its attractions, its allure, and that failure to
do so was fraught with danger.
I am not sure how well
the seminar succeeded, my memory of the conversation afterwards was a
predominance of the belief that only men were subject to such feelings!
I wrote recently about
the Stanford prison experiment,[1]
an experiment exploring the attractions of power and our innate capacity to
abuse it. However you do not need a controversial psychological experiment to
establish the corrosive effect of unchecked power, recent history provides a
mountain of evidence. “All power corrupts,” Lord Acton famously observed, “and
absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Everyone remembers Acton’s statement, but
few have taken on board its implications.
The Cult of Leadership
II.
Many years ago I worked
for a non-hierarchical organisation, a collective providing housing for single
homeless people. It was one of the richest experiences of my life.[2]
By the early 1990’s
considerable pressure, some of it external but sadly much more from within, was being placed on the organisation to conform and turn itself
into a conventional hierarchy. The issues were both complex and simple and
there are aspects of that period that still rankle with me today and I do not
intend to relate the full saga here, though maybe one day I will write about
it. One thing that I do remember is that all the problems that the organisation
was experiencing were put down to the fact that we were a non-hierarchy. I
remember at the time fiercely arguing about this, indeed having to counter a
number of fictions being peddled by those who wanted to destroy the collective
ethos and who, of course, saw themselves as the new management team. The
argument was lost and the organisation did become a bog standard hierarchy.[3]
Nobody seems to connect
the greed of the utility companies, the catastrophic failures of banking and
financial services industries, the rancid nature of the Murdoch and Rothermere
newspapers, the problems in the NHS, Social Services and the Metropolitan
Police Service with their rigid hierarchical structures. They should.
It is inconceivable,
for example, that RBS could have been destroyed if Fred Goodwin had not had
such autocratic power, or the phone hacking scandals occurred had the Murdoch
Empire not been an autocracy. Everywhere we see examples of greed, venality,
duplicity and corruption born of the largely unchecked exercise of hierarchical power. The Western capitalist
obsession with ‘leadership’ is as corrosive to the health of society as it is
misguided. It is also extremely dangerous, as the crash of 2008 demonstrates.
As Nick Cohen points
out in his powerful polemic ‘You Can’t Read This Book,’ most people spend the
majority of their lives in a dictatorship called work. Unless they are genuinely self-employed
people inhabit a regimented world in which they have little or no power over
their lives during their time at work; for the majority of the working
population what the boss says goes, it’s either their way or the highway.
Of course it is true that hierarchical structures
operate on a spectrum from the dictatorial to the benign and consultative; what
links them all is the noticeable absence of real democracy. We do not accept this in our politics, why
should we accept it at work?
Many will react with
incredulity at the very idea of democracy in the workplace, living as we do in
a society captured by the cult of leadership and sold daily on the vital
requirement of hierarchy, of the necessity that one person be in charge.[4]
III.Hierarchy and the Culture of Greed
The price we pay for our
worship of this model is horrendous, both at the individual and macroeconomic
level. This concentration of power also leads, unsurprisingly, to a concentration in
wealth. Inequality in this country is already at pre-First World War levels,
the top 10% now have between 60% and 70% of all wealth, and we are heading back
to the levels of the late 19th century. Despite the crash of 2008 bankers and
autocratic CEO’s still award themselves immense pay packets and bonuses; the
heads of the utility companies follow suit, arguing that they must be paid ‘the
going rate,’ omitting to mention that it is they who set that rate. As Will
Hutton points out, referring to the work of the economist Thomas Piketty:
-
‘High executive pay has nothing
to do with real merit, writes Piketty – it is much lower, for example, in mainland
Europe and Japan. Rather, it has become an Anglo-Saxon social norm permitted by
the ideology of "meritocratic extremism", in essence, self-serving
greed to keep up with the other rich.’[5]
This cult of greed has
now reached ludicrous levels with the Chief Executives of charities arguing
that they too need immense pay packages to ignite their innate talent and
creativity.[6]
As it turned out all
this wealth creating flair, bragged so much about by the likes of Fred Goodwin
and hailed by Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson led directly to the crash of
2008. It turns out they had all the acumen and financial nous of a drunken
gambler. Now, having demanded that we pick up the tab for their losses, they
return to the roulette table unabashed. Why would they not? They operate
without either democratic control or accountability. Power turns out not only
to be ‘sexy’ but also extremely profitable.
I may seem to have
strayed a little from my original focus on the attractions and dangers of power
at an individual level, but I think there is a thread that connects whatever
insights I had in the seminar room to Fred Goodwin and casino capitalism. Power
corrupts not always in the most obvious ways, creating instant bullies and
megalomaniacs, though it can do that, but it can also do so in more subtle and
complex ways. The key moment is the happy discovery that people will so often
willingly surrender up their power, happy to have someone take the weight of
responsibility from them. This not only provides a first injection of the
electric kudos of power but also serves to legitimize ones taking it.
Democracy is sometimes
messy, often uncomfortable and always hard work, this is the core of the
attraction of the ‘strong leader’ and the hierarchical structure. It also
explains the reason for the ubiquitous and relentless pro-hierarchical
propaganda which we are constantly fed, since leaders and led both require
legitimisation of their respective positions, the led to justify their cowardice,
leaders to justify their exercise of power.
Though I can make no
claim to it being unique my experience is unusual in that I have worked in both
hierarchical and collective structures, the former in senior management
positions and have also managed both small and large teams. One thing is clear
to me, there is more bullshit written and said about leadership than any
culture can safely absorb. Hierarchies are no more an inevitable way of
organising human affairs than is slavery. In every environment I have worked a
collective model would have been as equally viable as a hierarchy.
There are advantages and problems of
course in both structural models, what non-hierarchical structures offer is a
check on the personal abuse of power and the empowerment of those who live and
work within them. The virtues of hierarchy are the ‘virtues’ of dictatorship
and autocracy, they can get things done quickly, the trains run on time; the
problems they create are all around us.
Western society has
outgrown feudalism, absolute monarchy and a property based franchise, it could
also outgrow rigid hierarchy.# The alternative is the continued development of
undemocratic and unaccountable economic and social structures, structures
incompatible with any form of democracy, even in its limited capitalist incarnation.
*Henry Kissinger who loved power and the ruthless exercise of it believed this to be literally true, believed it provided him with a powerful seductive tool. Bill Clinton believed the same and indeed sought to test the hypothesis to destruction.
#There are a range of models between pure hierarchy and fully democratic collectives. Progress could be made by creating greater democracy within existing organisational structures. Unfortunately at present the direction of travel appears to be in the opposite direction.
#There are a range of models between pure hierarchy and fully democratic collectives. Progress could be made by creating greater democracy within existing organisational structures. Unfortunately at present the direction of travel appears to be in the opposite direction.
[1]
http://alextalbot.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/the-great-psychology-experiment-with.html
[2] It is perhaps worth saying that I worked there for seven years, this
was no short lived hippy experiment but a stable and extremely succsesful
housing charity.
[3] It is still in existence,
and for the purpose of writing this piece I checked out the charities website.
The period when the organisation was a collective has been written out of the
organisations history, whilst the Chief Executive, one of those who fought so
strongly to turn the organisation into a hierarchy, now enjoys an inflated
salary, many times greater than
frontline staff, whose corresponding salaries have been considerably reduced in
real terms.
[4] It is noticeable that
people always sell the idea of ‘strong leadership,’ it is worth reframing this
as ‘dictatorship’ which is what in reality they are calling for. Though of course framed in this
way it is considerably less appealing.
[5] http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/12/capitalism-isnt-working-thomas-piketty
[6] The greed and venality
within the charitable sector deserves a post all to itself. Much dates back to
the early Blair years when there was a concerted effort to re-launch charities
as ‘the third sector.’
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