{"id":21250,"date":"2019-02-07T13:52:46","date_gmt":"2019-02-07T21:52:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=21250"},"modified":"2019-02-07T14:45:59","modified_gmt":"2019-02-07T22:45:59","slug":"on-flattery-and-being-nice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/on-flattery-and-being-nice\/","title":{"rendered":"On flattery and being \u2018nice\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It was surprisingly refreshing to read Dennis Tourish\u2019s book, The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership, <\/em>because it tackled a common theme with a different take which exposed a new perspective. Mainstream leadership materials \u2013 from Collins\u2019 Good to Great<\/em> to Greenleaf\u2019s Servant Leadership<\/em> \u2013 highlight and endorse the central, transformational role of one person \u2013 the leader \u2013 in renewing, advancing, and achieving organizational success. Tourish, however, chooses to promote an opposing viewpoint: that overdependence on one individual creates a dysfunctional and even toxic organizational culture, and any success an organization achieves is dependent on the entire system working together in an ever-evolving process of action and communication.<\/p>\n

Tourish advances a convincing argument which is unfortunately diminished by using extreme examples: cults, including Jonestown and Heaven\u2019s Gate, the banking crisis, Stalinism, and the Zimbardo prison experiment are given extensive treatment. Rather than focus on egregious examples of darkness in leadership, I\u2019d like to focus on a subtle but pernicious way in which organizational health is corrupted: through flattery and niceness.<\/p>\n

Within the echo chamber of an organizational system, Tourish notes that \u201c…a leader’s followers quickly realise that the best way to acquire influence and secure their position is to exaggerate how much they agree with the opinions of those in charge. Over time, more and more upward communication becomes flattering rather than critical in nature.\u201d[1]<\/a> The lack of authentic upward feedback reduces the capacity of the leader to know what is really happening on the ground within her organization. He continues, \u201cFlattery constitutes a perfumed trap for decision makers. It improves the odds of organizational failure, separates leaders even further from non-leaders, institutionalises dysfunctional power differences and ensures that leaders develop ever more elaborate plans and strategies with which their followers profoundly but silently disagree.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

The cousin of flattery is niceness, a pattern of behaviour that permeates our Christian churches and families. Researchers Troup and Marinchak, in their analysis of niceness, recall how Dale Carnegie popularized the strategic value of niceness in How to Win Friends and Influence People<\/em> by citing the Golden Rule.[3]<\/a> They continue: \u201cNice people are supposed to affirm, to sound approving and supportive; we flatter to give an impression thereof. We say something that we do not really believe and would never really stand behind, and in so doing we pretend a form of goodness we cannot deliver. Therefore, niceness, even if a central value, is no virtue\u2026. [N]iceness creates a society accustomed to low-intensity, soft-core deceit. Micro-lies permeate our collective lives and truthfulness ebbs.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n

Why is it important to develop authentic, truthful organizational environments? Researcher Rouxelle De Villiers\u2019 review of Tourish\u2019s work highlights how \u201c[o]ver-powered leaders who quell feedback become fatally out of touch with reality and have an exaggerated sense of support and [are] unlikely to consider a sufficiently wide range of alternatives to make pivotal decisions.\u201d[5]<\/a> This squelching of authentic feedback, through flattery, niceness, or minimizing, results in a leader who anticipates support from staff and is often blindsided when it fails to appear. Additionally, the decisions that are made are informed by a narrow, buffered perspective that is uninformed by more realistic opinions and alternative viewpoints.<\/p>\n

Philanthropic families are not immune to the web of soft-core deceit woven by flattery and niceness. Tourish reveals that CEOs are especially liable to be flattered within their business contexts; the same is true of the philanthropic founders. Unfortunately, very few individuals on the receiving end of the philanthropy will risk future donation revenue by telling the truth. The result is an echo chamber of feel-good praises and accolades. Within the family, second and third generations perceive risks in being cut off from inheritances or ongoing work with the family foundation if their true feelings were communicated. Instead, they are papered over with niceness, failing to address the truth. As a result, the philanthropy leader often lacks a loop for authentic feedback and clarity for ongoing effectiveness is often reduced.<\/p>\n

One way to address this awkward environment is using third-party consultants. In my early years in philanthropy, I hired a couple to anonymously interview approximately 50 charity leaders to provide me with an unvarnished perspective on how our philanthropy impacted their work. Obviously financial gifts benefited organizations, but how we operated needed improvement. We learned great lessons on how to give better, how to communicate more effectively, and how to create better conditions for mutuality by hearing voices on the other side of the grant application.<\/p>\n

______________________________<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Dennis Tourish, The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership<\/em> (Hoboken NJ: Taylor and Francis, 2013), 77.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Ibid.,<\/em> 77.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Calvin L. Troup and Christina L. McDowell Marinchak, \u201cNiceness, Flattery, and Deceit,\u201d Western Journal of Communication<\/em> 82, no. 1 (January 1, 2018): 59\u201374, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/10570314.2017.1306097<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Ibid.<\/em><\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Rouxelle De Villiers, “Book Essay on “The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership: A Critical Perspective”.” Journal of Business Research<\/em> 67, no. 12 (2014): 2513.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was surprisingly refreshing to read Dennis Tourish\u2019s book, The Dark Side of Transformational Leadership, because it tackled a common theme with a different take which exposed a new perspective. Mainstream leadership materials \u2013 from Collins\u2019 Good to Great to Greenleaf\u2019s Servant Leadership \u2013 highlight and endorse the central, transformational role of one person \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1017,1439],"class_list":["post-21250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-lgp8","tag-tourish","cohort-lgp8"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21250"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21257,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21250\/revisions\/21257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}