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Leadership and Greed

Written by: Dianne Crampton

Article Overview: Greed. Some call it an ugly green monster. And, it seems to be a topic we are hearing a lot about in the US news today. This article defines greed and differentiates between individualistic and collaborative work cultures and practices. It also gives you criteria for discerning leadership greed in your organization.

Leadership and Greed

In this US election season, rarely a day goes by where we don’t see a reference to “spreading the wealth around.” Often the phrase comes with a suggestion that spreading the wealth through tax policies would have negative ramifications for the U.S. economy.

No doubt the notion of spreading the wealth around is considered by some to be “socialistic” and that such “redistribution” is a bad thing. Concentrating wealth in the hands of a few, some suggest, is best for job growth and economic productivity.

But given today’s struggling financial system -- along with high executive compensation coming under scrutiny --– is it now possible that what was once considered good economic policy is, in the public’s mind, looking more like destructive greed?

To begin, I would like to draw a sharp distinction between spreading the wealth around and team gain sharing or profit sharing. There seems to be some confusion. For example, I was forwarded an e-mail launched by a real estate broker in Bend, Oregon who equated profit sharing with compensating slackers.

Although the e-mail advocated a political point of view, it also illustrated the philosophical difference between an individualistic work culture and the collaborative team-based culture. The first compensates a few high achievers and is based on individual achievement. The second demands high levels of achievement and commitment from everyone.

In the collaborative work culture, when challenging goals are identified and the team achieves them, a bonus system compensates everyone. In the individualistic work culture, a manager establishes and monitors a goal that others contribute to and receives compensation based on the work others complete. This is not unlike a real estate broker who receives compensation for every sale an associate closes.

The difference lies in the level of goals established and compensation received. The collaborative work culture often demands more difficult goals with processes that involve sytem-wide problem solving. Likewise, the pay scale differences among levels of leadership tend to be less because all workers are encouraged to learn to become cross functional and pay for knowledge is a norm. The end result tends to stabalize and improve the organization because multiple systems are served and many different people know how to do multiple tasks well.

The individualistic culture, on the other hand, often experiences competing demands among department heads, resulting in competition for information, resources and opportunity. The goals achieved are often less stellar and sometimes come with inaccurate assumptions and conclusions that place organizational direction at risk. At the same time, the few highly paid executives continue to receive their compensation whether workforce stability is utilmately served or not.

It is for this reason that some of the companies receiving”bailout funding” from the United States government are also coming under scrutiny for executive compensation.

This leads me to greed.

According to Wikipedia, greed is the selfish pursuit of money, wealth, power, or possessions, especially when this denies the same goods to others. This pursuit is also beyond what an individual needs and becomes an inbalance to other needs.

An example would be a manager who works long hours to achieve wealth and power but at the same time fails to spend time with a spouse and children or build other meaningful relationships.

The awareness that the needs of others are denied is pivotal to greed. This means that using wealth to gain power over others and actually denying wealth or power to others is also greed.

Examples are:
-- Compensating an executive many times more than an entry level worker and maintaining high compensation during periods of lay off.

-- Requisitioning perks and rewards for highly paid executives when the company itself is in econonomic shambles. The current investigation of AIG executives who used bailout money to pay for trips and extravances is a current example of this.

-- A mother who purchases expensive clothing and beauty treatments for herself rather than making sure the bills are paid.

-- A father who purchases an expensive new car rather than fixing the roof.

-- A business owner who buys boats, trips, and an extravagant house rather than providing health insurance coverage for employees who achieve company goals.

-- Compensating men and women differently for equal work.

-- Exploiting workers to reap management rewards.

One of the great debates in the United States today is from those who condemn the idea of spreading the wealth and promote so-called laissez-faire capitalism. They resolutely belive greed is good and that it makes the US economy strong. They define greed as a form of self interest, which is readily seen in the Individualist work culture and not experienced in a collaborative culture where the motto is “If we win, I win.”

Given this, there is a large difference between individuals who work solely for self interest at the expense of others and those who work hard for the success of an organization and the employees serving it. Likewise, not all individualistic work cultures are greedy and not all high achievers are greedy. Many, due to their own ethical standards and awareness of need, spread their wealth around out of gratitude and continue to excel out of joy rather than greed.

Those who work for greedy self interest generally do not do well on teams because they rarely consider the welfare of others. They tend to work poorly with others.

Team organizations such as Toyota employ screening processes to ensure they are hiring team members who are able to understand the concept of teamwork as a path to productivity and economic success.
Likewise, collaborative values such as trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success (TIGERS) serve to stabilize a group dynamic rather than reward an individual achiever over the collective efforts of the whole.

The concept of greed does not thrive in the TIGERS team culture because the values exclude greed as a motivator and value.

The TIGERS culture cannot and does not support greed as a necessary component of company or team success. My experience shows that the values trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success are what makes teams work -- and successful teams make economically successful, sustainable organizations.

Related Articles
  The Fourth Deadly Workplace Sin: Greed
  Fear And Greed Hit The Newsletter Writing Headlines
  The Decline in Trust & Confidence in Leadership
  Low Morality Does Not Inspire People
  Finding Purpose behind buying a business.

Article Tags: collaborative work, greed, leadership, news today, organization leadership, team culture, work cultures



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