Identifying What's Behind Rogue Behavior
Looking through two lenses and knowing how to respond more successfully
“Behavior happens in a context, and even when you are dealing with a rogue individual, there are deeper questions about how that individual was allowed to progress and why no one spoke up sooner,” writes David Rodin, founder and chair of Principia, a global advisory firm on organizational ethics.
What Rodin expressed above is going to be bright illumination to many leaders.
Emotions and psychology, questions about workplace culture and the lack of protective, figurative fences creates opportunities for misbehavior, elevating risk.
“… we encourage our clients to think about three fundamental questions that are critical to shaping employee behavior,” Rodin writes. “Are your people responsible in the sense that they have a clear understanding of what is expected of them? Are they capable of delivering these expectations in their day-to-day roles? And are they motivated to do this?”
This should be examined, he advises, through two specific lenses.
“Each area,” Rodin writes, “needs to be carefully thought through from both a systems and culture perspective.”
How many organizational executives and leaders are doing that, especially from the culture perspective? It can’t be many and it’s certainly not the norm. Do anonymous workplace surveys or watch the news and learn for yourself.
Rodin offers wise counsel and even if it may be perceived as overly simplistic and impractical, it’s not.
“Leaders must balance managing legal risk with the transparency required to rebuild trust,” he writes.
The problem many organizational leaders exhibit that keeps trust low is that they are convinced that transparency is in direct, complete, adversarial competition with managing legal risk and financial exposure. That’s not exactly true and it’s a dangerous and it can be unethical leadership framing.
“Legal and comms teams will often push leaders into a highly defensive posture with minimal disclosure or acceptance of problems,” Rodin writes.
Those two actions are not respected by stakeholders (except maybe investors) and carry the risk of extreme reputation damage and excessive financial costs.
“But if rebuilding trust and maintaining the license to operate is your objective, then transparency is key,” Rodin insists.
Those should be objectives. Have to be them as well. That means that respectable trust-driving transparency has to be mandatory.
“Customers, employees, regulators and other stakeholders need to know that you recognize the seriousness of the issue, have a clear understanding of its causes and are committed to taking the necessary actions to remedy it,” Rodin details.
This is where protective thinking and actions within an organization are missing the mark. Yes, that’s a duty yet not at the expense of the ethical duty and fulfilling expectations, which includes what was just mentioned above: Sincere acknowledgement of the gravity of the issue in a conflict or crisis, learning and communicating the causes and expressed responses of the steps that will be taken and specifically when to thoroughly solve the full width and depth of problems.
The “how” might also be expected to be explained in certain situations.
As unlikely as it is to believe from smart professionals, trust gets undervalued, dismissed as less important and valuable as it is and is not a top priority among top-level decision-makers. No matter low much it’s considered optional or a lesser need, being trusted is a critical variable for leadership and organizational well-being.
“Engaging a credible external body to undertake an independent review can be a crucial part of this process and many of our clients will pre-commit to publishing findings and implementing recommendations,” Rodin writes.
“This step alone can be a huge driver for regaining trust.”
Ok, but why is that? The answer is simple. Our beliefs and biases don’t infect our thinking when an objective review is allowed, encouraged, supported and conducted.
Committing ahead of time to communicating (publishing, as Rodin writes) the findings shows stakeholders that you care about learning facts, seeing evidence and being analyzed outside the more typical, self-serving culture of doubted or disbelieved internal reviews.
Transparency is a trust builder. Communicating that you will honestly and thoroughly (if not fully) implement recommendations shows ethical responsibility.
“This doesn’t mean being reckless about legal jeopardy, but it does mean working with a legal team that puts legal strategy at the service of broader business and reputational goals,” writes Rodin.
Binary conclusions are not always the correct ones. Nuance may be involved.
The most effective decisions develop when the totality of risks and responsibilities are fully learned and understood and then, balanced, leading to ethical risk management and honorable actions taken to do what is expected and needed. That’s when conflict management and successful crisis and scandal response are achieved.
Michael Toebe is a specialist for trust, risk, relationship, communications and reputation at Reputation Intelligence - Reputation Quality. He serves individuals and organizations by helping them further build, protect, restore and reconstruct reputation.
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