Leadership ≠ Control: How to Avoid the Authoritarian Spiral

Their wordsI’ve said it before, but it’s worth saying again: Emotional dysregulation, bullying and bloviating are not leadership attributes. People who cannot manage themselves should not manage others. But as we all know, there are many people in positions of power who abuse it, despite there being a growing consensus that coercion, even by otherwise visionary leaders, neither gets the best results out of people nor generates the innovation necessary to thrive in the modern economy.

Their wordsFor these situations, companies have a compliance function that should have a strong leader. The compliance function should report directly to the audit committee and can go around the CEO if needed. The internal audit function works the same way for the same reasons.

Their wordsThe issue here is that the people who have the most power — the people on the board of directors — are generally best positioned to dodge accountability. This puts HR in a terrible position unless the organizational structure is deliberately designed to limit the power of the CEO. The board of directors must hold the CEO accountable and have HR’s back.