A criticism of transformational leadership is that it has the ability to be abused (Northouse, 2013). Persuasive and charismatic leaders can alter their employees vision and move them to a new vision. I bring the example of the total hours in a typical work week. Although the “normal” work week in the United States has historically been 40 hours a week, many industries have created a norm that exceeds this. I consider this change, and the acceptance of the workforces involved, as an abuse of transformational leadership. In applying this concept to two separate articles, I have examined how workers and even myself, have been pushed past normal tendencies into a new norm of working excessive hours.
Working to Live or Living to Work: Should Individuals and Organizations Care? by Ronald Burke discusses the current trends of increasing work hours and the detrimental effects on the workforce. I have heard of this, however I was shocked by the statistics that were shared. Working longer hours does not always equal higher wages. In fact, some employees feel that they need to work ridiculous work weeks just to maintain job security. This pressure to work long hours in exchange for job security is likely nurtured at the management level as company policies would not be so blatant as to demand workers exceed normal working hours without overtime incentives.
A good point that was brought up was that many companies are now being held responsible in the court of law, for not properly paying employees for overtime. I have experience in this as I was part of a lawsuit against Genesco and its subsidiary company, Journey’s Shoes. As a part-time commissioned worker, I was forced to work well over 40 hours a week throughout the holiday season. At the time, I thought that I was making a lot of money as this was just my “night job”. Because I was on commission, I did not receive the time and a half bonus for overtime. I worked there the entire time I was stationed in Washington State, as my Coast Guard job at the time was not that demanding. As each year passed, I had several stints of working over 40 hours a week which included back to school, holidays, and every time my boss went on vacation. One day I received a letter in the mail notifying me of the lawsuit. I opted to be part of it. Months later I received another letter stating that I was entitled to a generous chunk of money. This was great news, as I had earned it. I was very happy to read similar statistics from other corporations in this article.
Another point in this article that I can relate to is the work-life balance. As I worked two jobs for three years in a row, I had several times where I was simply drained. Beat down mentally and physically, I had no personal time to collect myself. I stopped working out, lost touch with friends, and even had to give my dog to my parents. I was the epitome of a workaholic. At the same time, I was young, in my early twenties, and I did not have a wife or children. Even so, my home life deteriorated. My parents lived in the same city, and they told me countless times how we didn’t see each other enough. I was in a relationship, which quickly ended when I took on a second job. Even though my work suffered at times as I was flat out exhausted at times, I did not want to let down my boss.
Nowadays, I am exhausted after a 40 hour work week. I still do not have a family but I feel for those who do. I feel even more sympathy for those that work overtime while taking care of a family. The article talks about those who have extreme jobs, being satisfied by their jobs. Yet, they also feel that they “express some concern about the effects of these hours on their well-being and that of their families”. (Hewlett & Luce, 2006) I find it obvious that a work week of this scale would have detrimental effects on the family life. Organizations should place limitations on the amount of hours an employee can work, simply because at a certain point it can be unhealthy.
I feel that if I had a boss that was not charismatic or had not led from a transformational power base, then I would not have pushed myself to work such extreme hours. As this may have been good for my pocketbook, it may have been bad for my sleep patterns. Leaders with the ability to motivate and inspire others, should keep in mind the ill-effects of pushing their employees too hard. Just because someone is willing to do something for the pay does not mean it is in their best interests.
References
Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and practice (Sixth ed.). Thousand Oaks:
Burke, Ronald (2008), “Working to Live or Living to Work: Should Individuals and Organizations Care?” Journal of Business Ethics, 84:167-172. DOI 10.1007/s10551-008-9703-6.
Hewlett, S. A. and C. B. Luce: 2006, ‘Extreme Jobs: The Dangerous Allure of the 70-Hour Work Week’, Harvard Business Review December, 49–59.
Mai Dolinh says
I read your post over a couple of times, trying to determine if it was in fact an abuse of transformational leadership that led to your excessive workload. However, I don’t see much support of this being the case. I agree with you that transformational leaders (charismatic and persuasive) do have the ability to convince you to do something that may not be beneficial to you, such as you state, working overtime. On the other hand, if we were to look at pure transformational leadership, one that encompasses all the traits and actions of the theory, not just charisma and persuasion, we see that abuse of pushing an extensive workload on an employee would be rare. Transformational leaders attempt to raise the consciousness in individuals and encourage them to transcend their own self-interests for the sake of others (Northouse, 2013, pg. 199). A true transformational leader has your personal self interest over theirs. This means, a transformational leader would encourage you to take a personal day or allow you to telecommute if they felt you were being overworked, regardless of their need for you in workplace. Northouse (2013) states that a transformational leader is attentive to the needs and motives of followers. So a transformational leader would not let you burn out or sacrifice your health for their benefit. They would work together with you to figure out a way for you to achieve a strong work life balance, to promote your motivation and belief in the organization. Northouse (2013) also defines transformational leadership as being concerned with emotions, values, ethics, standards, and long term goals. If your leader were in fact transformational, they would not want to see you upset (emotions), they would concern themselves with your mental and physical well being, not allowing you to be overworked (ethics, and values), and focus on your long-term potential as an employee, not allowing you to burn out early in your career.
I too struggle with the issue of living to work or working to live. I think it’s easy to blame our leaders, but the fact of the matter is, we must take responsibility of our own live. We need to be our own leaders. No one else can tell you how much to work, how much to dedicate, what to neglect and what to prioritize, it’s our responsibility to decide these things. I believe this starts with our values. I recently read a great article in Harvard Business Review, Do your commitments match your convictions? In it, Houlder and Sull (2005) discuss the difference between our values, and our actual commitments to them. We all have values, things we believe are important; some of mine are to travel, finish my undergrad, and establish a fulfilling career. However, it’s easy to lose sight of these things when we get stuck in the daily hustle of things. This is why our time, money, and energy must be evenly distributed among these values evenly, otherwise, we can end up in situations like yours, where you became a workaholic, and lost sight or maybe had no energy left for your other conviction. These gaps between our values and commitments can’t be seen day to day and it are tough to recognize, however if we can address them, we can live a more satisfying and happier lifestyle.
Houlder and Sull (2005) created a worksheet that will help determine your values versus your commitments and expose any gaps that occur. This link will take you to my completed worksheet and analysis:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fcmXpLmznGKcWQIaa6Q3BJKlip8cB09MyconGUmCc7A/edit
As you can see, there are large gaps between my values and my commitments. I, like you in your early twenties, spent majority of my time in the work sector, driven my my desire for independence and a lucrative career. But as you can see it left little time for other things I care about, such as spending time with my family and traveling. This gap also drove the other gap between how I spent my money. Because I was working so much, I had little time to spend with family or travel, I spent it on majority of my income on material things to make myself feel better. I never realized these gaps until I filled out this worksheet. My actions and commitments did not equally match my values. This meant I was overworked, spending frivolously, and feeling guilty about my absence in my family’s life. Though this chart is personal, I’m sharing it because I think so many people, students like you and myself, struggling with balancing school, finding a career, and our social life end up making decisions that are detrimental to our health and happiness. Take a look at the gaps between your values and commitments, and try to close any gaps you find. This may mean discussing options to telecommute with your boss, or finding a career that gives you better work-life balance. It’s easy to blame leaders or external factors for our situations, but it’s tough to look at internal causes of our unhappiness. Sure, organizations do need to take responsibility too, but it’s much faster and more effective for you to make changes in your own life than to wait for an organization to change their policies or leadership. Once you start taking responsibility for your work-life situation, and making changes in lifestyle to close the gaps between your values and commitments, you can start working to live, not living to work!
Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and practice (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Sull, D.N. & Houlder, D. (2005). Do your commitments match your convictions? Harvard Business Review, 83(1), 82-91.
Tiffany-kay L Mccartney says
Transformal Leadership-Positives and Negatives
When I think of transformational leadership, I think of a leader who uses their charisma to change or transform a person (Northouse, 2013). In some cases this charisma can used in a negative manager to be destructive but it can also be used to influence others to fight for a cause that will positively influence change.
When I think of your example from Burke, 2003 and hisstand point of the work environment, my first thought was to think of a positive change. An example that I have experienced was when it was brought to my company’s upper management team that due to the increase in customer complaints and the quick responses we were asked to give to our customers, we asked that change in resource support system would be implemented or improved. Initially, our direct supervisors were given much grief about the cost this would be to the company both with an increase in software systems and employees to run these systems. For years to come, the complaints from the customers increased and the direct supervisors understood the value this would have not only for them but for the company and customers as well. As our upper management team began to understand how positive this change was and how charismatic we were at presenting it to them they later took the chance to update our system. This system ultimately increased our customer satisfaction in the nation and increased helped to improve the relationship between direct supervisors and their followers as they felt they were heard and valued.
When I compare my story to “ Working to live or living to work”, It is clear that some forms of leadership can be abused{Burke, 2003). A clear example was seen through Adolf Hitler and Saddam Husain and how they used charm and influences to gain the attention of his followers. This in the end turned out to be sad and as with your case, laws have be put into place to bring about change so that others will be penalized.
References
Burke, Ronald (2008), “Working to Live or Living to Work: Should Individuals and Organizations Care?” Journal of Business Ethics, 84:167-172. DOI 10.1007/s10551-008-9703-6.
Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
Penn State WebAccess Secure Login:. (2014, September 30). Retrieved from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/fa14/psych485/002/content/06_lesson/printlesson.html