By: Susan Hicks
Recently I had the opportunity to disrupt my ‘status-quo’ at work. I got an amazing opportunity to ‘test drive’ a new position at work for 6 months to see if I liked the job and if I wanted to interview for the position. This opportunity was advantageous for me to see if I could handle the job with the enormous responsibilities of work and home. This ‘test drive’ was additionally beneficial for my employer to see if I could handle the job requirements that they would be expecting of me. Therefore, for 6 months I got to move to a different department and run my own team of individuals as their appointed manager. This experience is not about my leadership relationships with my followers, rather a shattering of the ‘status-quo’ in the relationship as me the follower to my leader – my new supervisor – in a foreign environment entirely unfamiliar to me which was the “High School Drama” that plays out behind the scenes amongst the management of my work.
Initially, I felt that I was being brought into the “in-crowd”, being accepted and taken under the wings of my new fellow co-workers. Everyone was vying for my attention, asking me about myself, my hobbies, my likes and dislikes and consequently being offered advice and guidance on job functions. The more I talked to co-workers, the more I found who I liked and those whom I really shouldn’t be talking to – the so-called ‘shunned ones’ who were not part of the “in-crowd”. At one point, I was actually given a dirty look from another co-worker for having lunch with someone they disproved of. This was playing out of a “high school drama” whereas there were cliques that if you wanted to advance and promote, you would incorporate into your network, and those who you talked to, yet remain cautious of long personal encounters for fear of retribution from your “group”. This biggest promoter of this popularity contest was our supervisor who acknowledged to me that if I had any questions or needed any help, to ask only from a small elite number of individuals – the approved ones. Really, am I in high-school again?
As a member of the “in-group”, I found the task of fitting into their preconceived ideologies (how they treated each other and how they treated the followers in our teams) harder than just being myself and expressing my own opinions and viewing my own followers as my team instead of treating my followers the way they believed followers should be treated – like mules (now this really sounds like High-school now doesn’t it). I wanted to understand why those in the “out-group” weren’t making the promotions, weren’t leading the teams, weren’t getting the easy jobs within our group, and why they got lead around also like ‘a rented mules’.
To look at this situation from the leadership perspective of the Leader-Member Exchange Theory (LMX), we can gain insight in this “drama” and others like it, as to why this occurs and the strengths and weaknesses of this exchange in the efficiency of workplace task completion.
LMX theory in early research posited that there were “vertical linkages” between leaders and followers that resulted in either “in-group” (negotiated roles) or “out-group” (formal employment) relationships (PSU, 2014). These linkages occurred as relationships that resulted in those in the in-group that were found to receive more advice, concern, guidance, and in turn became more dependable, involved, and communicated with the leader (Northouse, 2013).
This is similar to my initial experiences in my “test drive” position as others (including the supervisor) brought me into their clique and took me under their wing. However, as perceptions of ideologies, work habits, and dissatisfaction for the treatment of others became misaligned with the others, the linkage became weak as I was compelled into the “out-group” that found less compatibility with the leader (and associates) and therefore turned my focus more on work related tasks (Northouse, 2013).
Later studies on this theory identify 3 phases that this relational exchange undergoes.
As I found myself progressing through Phase 1 (strangers getting to know one another), through Phase 2 (acquaintances providing “career-orientated social exchanges”), I found that the mature partnership of Phase 3 did not develop primarily due to differing ideologies and my temporary status in the position (Northouse, 2013). We did not have enough time to neither air our differences nor to fully understand each other’s moral and ethical backgrounds that brought us to the beliefs and values each of us hold to produce a relationship with the intensity that fosters in-group respect and admiration. Additionally, I never had the time to acquire the respect from my leader or co-workers to validate and understand that my ethical work perceptions were not going to be influenced from others to change how I treated people just because my title or in-group affiliation should accept this new perspective as my new status-quo. I fully understand that this tit-for-tat relational interplay allowed them to assess to which degree that I would perform task functions that would not see me as the freelancer, the loose cannon, or the troublemaker that could essentially bring turmoil to the department’s efficiency. They wanted to mold me to the structure of the group and trust that I would not in my temporary status bring shame to the department. These relationships of understanding that occur between the leader and the follower take time to develop in secure trusting mutual bonds of respect and trusting reciprocity that neither of us fully had time to cultivate. Instead of viewing this position as a “high school drama”, I have now come to appreciate and understand that respect is earned over time and cannot just merely be obtained in a six-month positional “test drive”.
I have since left this position to return back to my old job. There were no available interviews at the time of my return so I am left to the arduous task of using what I learned to decide in the future if I wish to re-enter this environment and to re-establish the leader-member exchange relationships in order to advance further in my career. I do not regret my journey. We must accept that in-groups and out-groups exist and in order to identify the in-group, there must be someone in the out-group to compare against. Furthermore, there are individuals who contribute more professionally and socially to the workplace experience (in-group ideology) and those who just come to work (out-group). This theory is descriptive in its ability to identify the presence of these groups and focuses primarily on leadership in this relationship. Interactions that are nurtured, cultivated, molded, and valued stem from a communicative process over time and research has provided us with a great deal of substantiating evidence to the effectiveness of followers in work related performance and satisfaction when this relational exchange is high. Conversely, on the surface we see that these relationships appear to be unfair in the promotion of those who we seemingly like or dislike according to the matching of work related ideologies on human treatment of superiors or followers alike. Therefore, this research doesn’t appear to explain why some are promoted more easily in the in-group. We can only surmise that this may involve access to knowledge, performance recognition, or the idea that leaders promote others inequitably based on the concept of advancing those most like themselves.
No one can answer if it is in one’s best interest to play in the “high-school drama” popularity contest and to go with the in-group. Only the individual can assess if they are willing to pay the price of relinquishing their moral and ethical work obligations to play in a shallow tit-for-tat relational exchange that on the surface appears to be childish in nature. However, the building of relationships over time that creates and builds with intensity, intrapersonal reciprocity of respect and trust that does not surrender basic tenants of ones principals, allows the cultivation of accepted understanding and leader-member exchange appreciation that can effectively allow everyone to advance within careers yet still remained focused on quality relationships and work related efficiency.
References:
Northouse, P.G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Pennsylvania State University. (2014). PSYCH 485 Lesson 8: Leader-Member exchange Theory (LMX). Retrieved March 4, 2014 from
Hi Susan,
I enjoyed your discussion of your experiences with in-groups and out-groups in the context of Leader-Member Exchange Theory. An alternate theory that shares the similar concepts of in-group favoritism and out-group derogation is Social Dominance Orientation (PSUWC, 2014). Where as you describe LMX theory as creating in-groups and out-groups on the basis of competency and the ability to do one’s job, SDO creates in-groups based on one’s own identity by age, race, gender, etc; and out-groups based on any deviation from that. It seems likely that LMX and SDO could potentially interact because of that – for instance, creating an out-group based on individual difference variables might result in out-group derogation – which could create the symptom of believing that those people are less proficient than people in one’s in-group at doing their jobs.
References:
Penn State World Campus (PSUWC). (2014). Lesson 14: Ethics and Leadership. PSYCH485: Leadership in Work Settings. Retrieved April 24, 2014, from https://courses.worldcampus.psu.edu/sp14/psych485/001/content/13_lesson/printlesson.html
I enjoyed reading your post. I think you related your experience well to LMX theory, including the details of your organization’s in- and out-groups. What an exciting endeavor it must have been to test drive the position and experience the organization from a managerial perspective. Since you held the temporary position for only six months and didn’t quite reach the level of high-quality exchanges described in Phase 3 of the theory (Northouse, 2013), you could use the knowledge and training you received as a manager in conjunction with your experience at your current position to create team building exercises in departments within your organization. Like LMX theory itself, if focus is shifted from in- and out-groups to the leader-member exchanges, positive outcomes for individual employees, groups, and the entire organization are likely to occur. The exercises could lead to the type of high-quality exchanges between leaders and subordinates that result in better camaraderie within work groups and goal attainment for the organization.
References:
Northouse, P. G. (2013). Leadership: Theory and Practice (6th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA, SAGE Publications, Inc.