This article is part two of a multiple-part paper that explores how best to deal with the antecedents of petty leadership and the effects of increased psychological distress of pettiness on employees/subordinates.
Behavioural science experts argue that leaders and managers widely hold certain beliefs regarding human nature. These beliefs include that the average employee or subordinate does not like work, lacks ambition, avoids responsibility, prefers direction, and is resistant to change. It is also assumed that managers holding such beliefs often resort to a close, coercive leadership style.
They found that leaders endorsing such beliefs and attitudes were perceived by their subordinates to provide more structure and minor consideration. It is predicted that such beliefs about subordinates are positively associated with pettiness.
There are also arguments that leaders or managers with low self-confidence are less likely to expect “persuasion and other gentle means of influence” to be effective. Consequently, they are more willing to enforce their will through coercive means.
These beliefs include that the average employee or subordinate does not like work, lacks ambition, avoids responsibility, prefers direction, and is resistant to change
This is consistent with the psycho-dynamic concept of reaction formation, which suggests that individuals may compensate for personal insecurity by overcontrolling others.
Thus, psychologists found a positive association between managerial self-confidence and expectations of successful influence and a negative association between self-confidence and the endorsement of coercion.
Similarly, they contrasted the personalities of totalitarian and democratic political leaders and concluded that totalitarian leaders tend to have lower self-esteem and are more insecure in their private life.
However, it should be noted that high self-esteem may occasionally contribute to petty behaviour. The psycho-dynamic tendencies of perfectionism, arrogant-vindictiveness, and narcissism are each predicated on unrealistically high self-esteem and frequently lead to such supervisory tendencies as reliance on fear and intimidation, autocratic and self-centred behaviour, and a lack of empathy and consideration.
However, it is anticipated that these tendencies are sufficiently rare that they do not materially affect the general negative association between self-esteem and pettiness.
Another behavioural description of a petty leader is directiveness, which is the tendency to impose one’s will on others.
Hence, it has been argued that individuals high on the need for power experience the acquisition and exercise of power in organisations as more rewarding than do individuals low on the need for power. The construct of directiveness is preferred here because it emerged directly from the classic notion of authoritarianism.
Here, authoritarianism includes a tendency to be dominant toward one’s inferiors and submissive toward one’s superiors. However, it is predicted that directiveness is positively associated with pettiness.
Again, individuals who are intolerant of equivocality (equivocality is found in situations characterised by novelty, complexity, or insolubility) are motivated to impose and preserve a clear and stable order. Thus, intolerance has been associated with rigidity and dogmatism. Then, it seems reasonable that intolerance of ambiguity should predict the tendency to overcontrol subordinates.
There are organisational situations that support and facilitate the relationship between petty leadership and increased psychological distress at work among employees. The association between leadership and workplace climate is essential because supportive workplace climates have been linked with desirable outcomes at work, such as job satisfaction, organisational commitment, and psychological well-being. In reverse, negative work climate experiences have been correlated to the psychological distress of employees at the workplace.
The situational facilitators considered here include institutionalised values and norms (macro-level factors) and power and stress (micro-level factors).
At the macro-level, to some extent, petty behaviour may be legitimised by organisational values and norms under the guise of the “‘good cop-bad cop’ manipulation”, the punishment for minor rule infractions, and the “constant barrage of mind games and gaslighting.”
Here subordinates or employees are frequently deindividuated and depersonalised by belittling labels, and other symbols of subordinate status, subjected to debasement and obedience tests and to close, authoritarian leadership. Their activities tend to be tightly regimented.
They stress efficient work rates and emphasise compliance with centralised decisions and standardised and formalised operational tasks. This “institutionalised pettiness” serves to divest subordinates of their identities and to drive home the overriding importance of compliance.
Read also: How to manage petty leaders in your organisation
Accordingly, such petty leaders are typically strengthened for exhibiting close, rule-minded supervision. Research experts reviewed studies where individuals in managerial roles were more concerned with measuring performance than with the estimated content and were less concerned with efficiency and effectiveness than with orderliness and following procedures and schedules.
Further, a notable aspect of such a situational factor is the heavy reliance on hierarchical stratification, coupled with pervasive symbols of status and authority, thus reducing inhibitions against pettiness.
Relatedly, many “entrepreneurial organisations” may evidence petty leadership. Many entrepreneurs are susceptible to: a strong need for independence and control; distrust of others, and a desire for applause.
To a certain point, these characteristics help fuel the entrepreneurial spirit. Past that point, however, these characteristics may induce an entrepreneur to meddle with minute operating details, question the actions and motives of subordinates, hoard information, set others up as scapegoats, etc.
Moreover, given that organisations frequently institutionalise the values and norms of the founder, these tendencies may eventually give way to institutionalised pettiness that survives the entrepreneur.
It has been discovered that petty leaders were over-represented in “bureaucratic and entrepreneurial” organisations and under-represented in “professional and innovative” organisations.
The critical difference between the two sets of organisational types is the degree of centralisation. While bureaucratic and entrepreneurial organisations tend to be centralised, professional and innovative organisations, tend to be decentralised as work is controlled by the experts who comprise the operating cores.
Decentralisation provides less latitude and tolerance for overbearing leadership.
Thus, petty behaviour is disproportionately found in departments and organisations that value compliance with centralised decisions and standardised tasks.
Please lookout for a continuation of this article.
