Leadership-Interview-Transkript - Sozialpsychologie - Goethe ...

the 21 st century challenge, but we can no longer utilize 20 th century approaches to the 21 st
century challenge – so we need that combination.
Rolf van Dick: I perfectly agree, but why don’t we see it so often – or the opposite: Why do
we experience bad leadership so often? Why do people – leaders – still commit to
McGregor’s Theory X and think that people have to be controlled and monitored all the time
and are inherently lazy, with the effects that people are demotivated, that we have a lot of
absenteeism and burnout and these problems in the workplace… Why is that?
Patrick Cowden: Yeah, that is a big, big question, and I think there is a lot of schools of
thought around the world that have asked that question since 1960, you know, why hasn’t that
been implemented in a manner, in real life business? Because the logic is associated with how
we look on it, and every experiment you do will verify and validate that. So it is an important
question and I do not think there is a single answer yet on it. But I believe a big part of the
systematic process, since the terroristic times of how the industrial revolution came about, a
big part of how big companies work today is based on centralized commanded control
systems. And those are anchored in the days of terrorism, and because of that a lot of
mechanisms around the manager force him to revert to a type, as Douglas McGregor would
say, which is the ‘X-type’ of leadership. Because the systems around you force you into that
corner sometimes. A lot of managers break out of that, into the ‘Y-type’, open leadership, and
trust and empower the employees to really go their own path with a lot of trust, because they
are self-motivated, right. That happens because people believe in their own values stronger
than the systematic system around them. The reason the ‘Mittelstand’ is so successful in
Germany, is because the systematic environment is much smaller and much flatter so that it
allows the type of leadership, the ‘Y-leadership’, to be more prevalent. Especially those
environments where still the family and the people that have a love for what they do, they
love their employees, so they are very close together. That allows more the ‘Y-type’
leadership to happen. I think we have got a system issue, a global system issue now, that has
actually become more extreme in the last 4 or 5 years because of the mechanisms of the 20 th
century commanded control encounting the realities of the 21 st century multi-polar global
business. And you see that in some of the political environments, in Africa, in other places,
where that centralized tyranny of control has failed miserably because of the new systems of
communication and openness on the social media side that have changed the ways the
political systems have to work, or guess what, we have that in business for a long time. We
have to encounter that reality and we have to change the system. It is not the people that is the
issue, it is the systems they are working at.
Rolf van Dick: Ok, but some people might argue that at least for some organizations like the
military, for example, you need that clear structure, you need clear hierarchies etc. Would you
agree that the type of leadership that you have in mind working best is probably not suited for
every organization the same?
Patrick Cowden: Well, I would argue against that point, and actually some of the biggest
proponents of McGregor’s theories on the ‘Y’-side were generals and admirals in the military,
in the United States Military at the time. You know, being people driven and people oriented,
does not mean you are not structured, it does not mean you are not clear, it does not mean you
are not quick in regards to decisions and making things happen. That is what the military is
known for. You have to decide quickly, you have to move quickly, you need clear structures,
a great info structure, great logistics, and you have to move fast and be very agile. That is not
counter to one another. You can have the methodical side of clarity and transparency and
clear lines of communication and… I call it ‘direction’, but you can have a very strong