Does the Chief Dictator get the best results compared to a transformational leader? This is not a simple answer.
Let’s think about the world before the Industrial Revolution, at that time we had some castes in society and one of them was artisans. Craftsmen had apprentices under their baton, sometimes only one apprentice. How was the artisan’s relationship with the apprentice? Were the artisans executioners who made the apprentice kneel in the corn?
Something that we cannot ignore is the following fact: the apprentice was there to learn, they wanted to learn, that is, they had a very clear purpose. They were, above all, persistent. Today, we know, through scientific research, that persistence wins the best talents.
If some of the artisans were Chief Dictators, it didn’t matter who was there to learn and get better every day, this obstacle was overcome at the expense of the artisan’s bad mood.
Then came the Industrial Revolution, that is, work was subdivided. We found that separating functions would increase productivity and decrease costs. It was all born with the steam engine that replaced horses. Until today we refer to this social change of customs. Machines began to do the work of horses, and we measured work by relating the strength of a horse to the strength of a machine. Today, we walk into a shop specializing in ferments and say:- Please, I need a 2 horsepower engine. And, if we are more precise, we will say: -Please, I need a 2 horsepower engine – steam, or 2CV. Obviously we are referring to something invented in the 1st Industrial Revolution (1760 – 1840) when Maria Fumaça replaced the work done by horses through the directing of water vapor, we created an equivalence there.
Then came other inventions such as the chemical, electrical, oil and steel industries. Transport and communication. However, let us not forget that the work continued to be divided into parts and the specialization increasingly detailed. In other words, we could work for 40 years in a car manufacturer and leave without knowing how to assemble our own car.
Faced with the divided work, the Dictator Bosses did well for centuries: – Do it and don’t ask why. Knife! Here we have the review of the genius Charlie Chaplin, he tightens a screw and as the film unfolds he becomes confused with the machine, Modern Times; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PaGw4ZRmWY
The Dictator Bosses were even able to mirror themselves in the academy where theories about work endorsed the increase in productivity through command and control.
Today, we are in the 21st century, what has changed? Bosses don’t get along as well as they used to? It depends! Yes, but, depends on what? It depends on the company, let’s see the industry that is divided into 04 categories;
Basic industries: mining, logging, oil, metallurgy.
Intermediate Goods Industries: those that produce pulp and paper, chemicals, rubber, plastics, electrical and electronic components.
Consumer durables industries: automobiles, furniture, appliances, electronics. AND,
Non-durable consumer goods industries: food, textile, pharmaceutical, cosmetics.
Most likely, if we do a research on the degree of Digital IQ of these companies, we will find companies that are in phase with the state of the art, others that are average and others that are left behind, but survive. Survival occurs because customers belong to different generations. For example, if we want to buy a cloth strainer, we will find who manufactures it and a public that uses it, extinction is slow and inevitable.
Therefore, if our Chief Dictator is in an industry that has lagged behind, most likely he will increase productivity on the basis of the “whip”, and it is “working”.
But then, why all this hype about transformational leadership, democracy, employee empowerment, training, etc.? It so happens that in a stable market, we could do strategic planning, set goals, subdivide the work and demand results. And, what prevents us from doing this today? The quick changes.
Changes are very fast, before it took years, decades and everything was predictable. Today, one day we are dealing with the effects of the COVID-19 disease, another with the chances of a World War III, another with the electric car, another with cryptocurrency, etc. Furthermore, both the supplier and the customer are volatile, they appear and disappear.
The world is V.U.C.A. (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity), but this has been repeated over and over. However, what are we doing to face these changing new conditions? This answer was not repeated.
The employee who is there at the interface with the customer or the potential customer must act quickly and be assertive. Time to think is getting shorter, so empowering the right people is critical. It is necessary to implement a growth mindset, employees design their own results in line with the company’s shared goals, for this, employees need autonomy to lead their own professional lives, mastery of their functions to do better every day on what they do. really matters and purpose to contribute something bigger than the functions performed.
Ahh, but the collaborator doesn’t cooperate! He doesn’t understand what’s going on! Darwin explains: – The most unprepared will end up in the stomach of the fastest. Point.
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