TRANSCRIPT FROM A LACT WORKSHOP
Among the different systemic relationship profiles of leadership that we have identified, we have here a so-called “permissive democratic” profile.
He is someone who, to establish his authority, is more in friendship, in advice.
He will rather seek to avoid conflicts, to avoid showing his authority because, otherwise, it would mean that he is no longer such a friend. As a result, to exercise this authority, this manager will tend to explain, reason, justify his managerial role.
“Who seeks to justify himself appears guilty”
But be careful, someone who explains in this way and who at some point does not succeed or no longer succeeds, he runs the risk of being perceived by his team as extremely harmful because "whoever seeks to justify himself seems guilty" .
Authority is not justified, authority shows itself.
We see that in families where you have to know how to say “stop” because that's how it is, because you have to. So obviously if this manager finds that he is not succeeding - the more he justifies himself and the more he feeds his team's mistrust and insecurity - he will start complaining to his hierarchy and will end up denouncing incompetence in his team and negative behavior, especially in a team like that of our example, very irrational, with labels on people, quickly characterized as hysterical for women and paranoid for men.
“Renunciation is daily suicide”
After a while, by dint of exhausting himself in this dynamic, he will end up renouncing to exercise his authority by delegating it to the human resources department, asking him to do certain things in his place (reference to sanctions notably). Here, delegation is a renunciation of authority. And renunciation "is daily suicide" Balzac tells us. And that largely contributes to the overall problem of this manager and to the dysfunction of this team, hence our proposal for leadership coaching for this manager.