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

Rolf van Dick: But on the other hand, I also think that we know of all these contingencies
and technically we should think about the leadership role as a fore way to interaction between
many different things. So, translating that into practice is sometimes a real challenge!
Frederick Morgeson: Yeah, this is complicated. When you talk about it, it’s in a way easy to
talk about it but it’s actually hard to do. That’s why you have to be sort of understanding that
there’s no single best way. And if something that you do is not working, probably the worst
thing that you can do is to keep doing it. There is some research that looks at behavioral
flexibility, and the idea that successful leaders just keep trying new things, until something
works. If I think of a chemically oriented person… It’s a toolbox. And so as a leader, you
should have a lot of tools in your tool box. Sometimes you need a hammer, sometimes you
need a screwdriver.
Rolf van Dick: As a leadership researcher, you are a little bit more an educated user of these
tools compared to people who don’t have that background.
Frederick Morgeson: Exactly.
Rolf van Dick: Last question is more about general society and how much values matter. I
mean, you mentioned work ethic, or integrity, honesty. It’s easy said that sure these things are
important, but if you look to the life outside the laboratory, we see that so many violations
happen and people become rich by violating these basic values. What do you think about that?
Frederick Morgeson: Well, first I’ll talk about the importance of values in a general sense,
and then about specific kinds of values. You know, one thing I suggest to leaders is that they
should have a very clear understanding of what their personal values are, because that is the
source of your leadership. You acquire these values over time, you often acquire these values
from your family. And it’s really important to have a sense of what these values in fact are.
But values are value-free in a way, I mean you can have values that are good and values that
are bad. And so, I believe that there’s a certain set of things like integrity, like being ethical,
that are critical. And they are critical for a lot of reasons. One is, that it’s a sort of societal
good to act in ways that are ethical and positive. I think if specific organizations don’t act in
that way, you lose trust of society at large. Because society gives you as an organization your
right to operate, and they can take it away, through laws or regulations. And so, you have a
sort of responsibility as a business to do that. But I think, the more important reason why
being ethical and honest is important, is that the other option is not sustainable over time. You
may have short term gains, you may succeed as an organization in the short term, as a leader
in the short term. But over the long term, you won’t succeed. And eventually, that gets found
out. If we think of what happened just a few years ago in all the financial crisis and housing
markets and the financial markets, that’s sort of a direct cause of what I would consider sort
of short term thinking. And it’s just not sustainable. I think from a society standpoint, that’s
why you need to really try to, and sort of install positive values to do the right thing in
organizations.
Rolf van Dick: Do you think we have learned our lessons from the past crisis, or some people
have?
Frederick Morgeson: I think we haven’t learned it well enough, that’s my guess. This is a
frustration. I think the economic incentives are so great, and the economic rewards are so
great, that it’s difficult to overcome that.