by Mark Cole and John Higgins
The inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal should be constantly reminding us of how positions taken, and decisions made, by management in corporate settings have implications beyond the fictional assumption that “If I direct people to take Action A, then positive Outcome B will inevitably occur”.
Our experiences should be reminding us that the assumption of sequential predictability , the idea that A leads unproblematically to B without any unintended consequences, fails to take into account what it is actually like to be part of human society – and trying to do that in the best way possible alongside all those we rub shoulders with, all of us making sense of the world in our own way.
The single-minded assuredness demonstrated by senior leaders at the Post Office has turned out to be hubris, pursued with great combativeness, based on an uncritical belief that an extraordinary number of people were implicated in theft and fraud.
In light of this corporate position sustained over the course of 16 years, there were 900 sub-postmasters prosecuted, of whom 236 went to prison. In January this year, the Daily Mirror reported that four of those accused in this way had taken their own lives as a result of the Post Office response to what turned out to be a significant failing on the part of a new IT system introduced in 1999, rather than criminal wrongdoing.
Beyond villainy…
Leaders did, of course, make personal judgements and definitive decisions in terms of giving corporate direction to the company in respect to its response to the circumstances. There is no denying human agency in such matters.
But, as Bourdieu’s theory of habitus reminds us, our lives are a little like playing a game of football: there are rules, structures, expectations, and traditions that shape our presence on the field…but, within that context, we have leeway to live our lives, to make our own meaning and play our own game as we see fit – and in a way that reflects our experience, our understanding of the world, our vision of a better world, and our connection with others on the pitch.
The habitus is localised in many ways, as opposed to a grand narrative that overarches and oppresses us by disappearing our personal experience – and is a useful notion in terms of trying to bridge the familiar sociological gap between structure and agency. We are steeped in the habitus that reflects our circumstances and history… but we have some discretion to contest it.
Looking at the press coverage of the entire Post Office affair – apparently kickstarted by a piece in Computer Weekly back in 2009 and diligently pursued by the publication Private Eye, who eventually capitalised on this oversight of the case by producing a highly critical report on the affair – it was not until ITV commissioned and showed a drama based on what went on that was sympathetic to the plight of the sub-postmasters that the story really came to the fore.
The Question of Voice
The scandal gathered momentum because some voices were privileged, and others were ignored. The sub-postmasters spoke, but what they said was instantly refuted by a managerial counter-narrative. No matter what they said and how they said it, an institutional position had arisen which meant that their commentary would be immediately negated by a dominant discourse, founded on the assumption of their criminality.
Whether leaders in the organisation foregrounded this perspective because they believed it or because it was either explicitly or tacitly seen as a way to protect the reputation of the companies involved, namely the Post Office and Fujitsu, the supplier of the IT system, is a moot point. The disastrous effect was the same.
To return to the balance between structure and agency, some people may have actively chosen to ignore and challenge the voices of the sub-postmasters. In that instance, we would have to assume that they opted to use their discretion to take a particular view and follow a course of action in light of that perspective.
With the benefit of hindsight, we can say that those people at key points in the course of the affair behaved unethically and in a way that harmed others. Those managers are left to make their own peace with their conscience and the wider world. What we cannot reasonably assert is that these are intrinsically bad people.
However, this observation is countermanded by what we see in terms of the latter coverage of this story, once the ITV drama had brought it to the national consciousness. There is considerable hostility towards those who were seeking to lead the Post Office at this time, particularly Paula Vennells, Chief Executive between 2012 and 2019. There is something vengeful about the way her story is being reported right now, where the inquiry has the feel of an inquisition.
Parallel Monologues
It seems unlikely in such an adversarial context that Vennells will feel able to give an honest account of her experience. Instead, the inquiry consists of two monologues, effectively being shouted into one another’s faces, rather than a space where reflection and sense-making can allow for a candid assessment of how these things arose, through the actions of individuals or through something more collective.
A similar observation can be made in respect to getting to the bottom of how Lucy Letby, a neonatal nurse working at the Countess of Chester Hospital, was allowed to continue to work when there were clear signs that she was murdering babies in her care, about which many who worked alongside her openly spoke with management.
An inquiry into the circumstances of the Letby case was convened on 4 September 2023 under The Rt Hon Lady Justice Thirlwall. Preliminary hearings are starting around now and public hearings are due to begin in Autumn 2024. But, given the dichotomous nature of the positions of those who sought to raise concerns and the managers that were unconvinced at the time, the inquiry is set to be an arena for the trading of claim and counterclaim, rather than a space in which a candid assessment might be made of the circumstances.
In considering the parallels between the Post Office scandal and the Letby case, Brian Littlechild, a professor of social work writing in the Professional Social Work Magazine in January 2024, makes the following observation: ‘There was one particular factor, or the fear of it, at the heart of two recent cases that have shocked the nation. In both instances, senior managers failed to deal appropriately or effectively with known serious problems in their agencies due to concerns about “reputational damage”, avoiding dealing with issues raised by staff that affected the least powerful or influential people in the situation.’
Earlier in this section, we suggested that some managers in the Post Office situation may have actively chosen to take a line that denigrated and criminalised the sub-postmasters, which casts aspersions on their personal ethics. On the other hand, however, it may simply have been an organisational conspiracy of silence. In such instances, the dominant discourse and preferred course of action arises not out of honest exchange but from the withholding of voice by all involved.
As the two of us discuss in our book The Great Unheard at Work: Understanding Voice and Silence in Organisations, two related concepts play a part in this sort of socially determined tacit conspiracy of silence. First, there is the spiral of silence, where each of us calculates the extent to which openly expressing an opinion we hold might lead to us being isolated (pp63-66). Second, there is pluralistic ignorance, where we assume that everyone around us believes the same thing – even if we don’t and may even hold a contrary position. At worst, this can lead to the self-silencing of a group of people, each of whom erroneously believes that everyone else is in agreement (pp66-67).
Scaling the Dizzying Heights
There may be people who behave unethically. There will certainly be those who, for whatever apparently innocent reason, are absorbed into a regime of silence in a corporate context, especially where institutional defensiveness is an entrenched habit. However, there is a crucial underlying problem in respect to managerial behaviour in both the cases cited here relating to the ideology of leadership in contemporary business – and the burden placed on those who end up in formal leadership positions.
It is worth taking time to dismantle that ideology, the better to understand how its various elements come together to shape thinking and practice in our companies. Let’s begin with the idea of leadership distance, which has been explored elsewhere on this blog. This concept suggests that, in today’s large-scale corporate entities, the chasm between frontline and boardroom experience – combined with an apparent lack of appetite on the part of those who occupy the latter to find ways to meaningfully bridge that gap – means it is impossible to get an honest and comprehensive view of the business and all that goes on in it. Hence, the title “Director” becomes a misnomer, because how can anybody seriously direct something they cannot fully comprehend.
Second, there is a climate in most managed organisations wherein the information sent up the line will be massaged to say what people in the organisation think the bosses want to hear. So, not only do executives have to contend with leadership distance from what is going on, but they also have to accept that people below them are telling them what they think they want to hear.
This takes us to the observation that can be found in the work that John does with Megan Reitz that anyone in a senior leadership should assume that everything they are told, and which is presented to them as data, is at best a partial representation of what is going on.
Leadership ideology, then, is posited on an image of a quick-thinking, decisive, action-oriented individual. However, this is problematic in light of both the distance from the business of the business for many people holding the title of leader – and also that their understanding of this context arises from the partial observations of those around them, with the term partial being applied with both of its meanings, namely that it is both incomplete and biased.
This disconnect is disconcerting, in that it means that leaders are trying to reconcile what they personally sense is happening with a limited view of the organisation as they teeter at its peak. This vertigo is further aggravated by the partial picture of the world that leaders are provided by those around them.
The espoused ideology of senior leadership is that it is a controlling mind, being both omnipresent and omniscient, whereas we suggest that the lived experience for senior leadership in corporate contexts is that they cannot be everywhere in an organisation – and often get marooned in the familiar environment of the executive suite, occasionally punctuated by what look very much like royal visits to the frontline.
Moreover, those leaders cannot possibly know everything because they often struggle to connect at a personal level with the business because of its scale and their exposure to a fragmented patchwork of highly personalised and distorted versions of reality. In truth, omnipresence and omniscience are the sole preserve of Gods not people…and corporate leaders are very much the latter, however much they are idolised and demonised.
In the Christian tradition, the assumption of God being all-seeing and all-knowing – outlined in Psalm 139 – leads to a third theological assumption, namely that God is omnipotent. Something similar happens in the corporate world: the business leader is assumed to see and know all that happens around them, despite their isolated position at the top of the pyramid, and is therefore thought to be all-powerful. In such a circumstance, they are expected to act decisively and correctly, which is a superhuman expectation.
Leaders can improve this situation a little, of course, even if they cannot truly resolve it. John tells the story of a Chief Executive who, at the same time every week, puts in a shift actually working as a receptionist in his organisation. This is a long way from omnipresence…but it indicates a commitment to bridging the gap that exists in a company context between performers i.e. those doing the work; managers of performers; and managers of managers.
On another occasion, Mark was in conversation with a colleague working in a company that had a number of bases in both the US and the Middle East. They described how the CEO saw their role not as sitting at the top of a pyramid giving instructions to an invisible mass below them, but instead as someone who moved between the company’s various sites, listening to the people who worked there. They were a bee moving around a meadow and pollenating flowers, moving around the company across the globe, sharing with those they met the stories they had heard and the interesting things that they had seen.
People in leadership positions might feel obliged to seek to sustain the conjoined myths of omnipresence and omniscience due to the artificial linkage between the idea of being all-knowing and decisive with the status accorded to that seniority and the rewards associated with it. But, as suggested above, there already exists a different way to be as a senior leader, one that turns its back on the notional heroics of Henry V and properly embraces leadership as a way of being, rather than a way of knowing and then doing.
Lastly, there exists a paradox between two notions of leadership: the first of these is that the leader sees all, understands everything, and then makes technocratic decisions. They are power personified and are legitimately allowed to make demands of the people who work below them to drive the company forward.
Meanwhile, the second image of leadership is that the leader is seen to be working positively if they trust their people and delegate responsibility to them. This requires them to get out of the way – and to give those around them licence to do what needs to be done in the moment to secure the success of the organisation.
Far too often, the former trumps the latter, partly out of sense of tradition and partly because so few of our organisations are genuinely founded on trust. In the case of the Post Office, Paula Vennells is a prime instance of how difficult it is to try and balance yourself between these two competing views of leading. Companies demand that Chief Executives are directors, when they should be inviting them to find ways to be connectors.
Getting Grounded
Trying to perch on the pinnacle of the pyramid so as to give direction to an organisation is not merely a difficult task but a nigh on impossible one. The leadership vertigo that accompanies trying to think and to operate at that altitude muddles the minds of those in these positions – and creates the sense that their failure is largely inevitable.
Shuttling up and down that pyramid, not in the manner of a tourist but as someone who has a vested interest in the history, longevity and success of that edifice, represents a start in terms of rethinking what it is to lead – and easing some of the impossible pressure that attends the current leadership ideology.
Getting serious about trust is another key step forward, which requires senior leaders to dial down the managerial voice and actively edit out the familiar messages that attend leadership practice. Instead, what is needed is an approach to voice and silence in the company that is serious about creating a climate where conversation is genuine rather than performative.
This looks like a Sisyphean task given where we are with our current expectations for and habits of leadership. But the alternative, keeping on with the way it has always been in practice, is unacceptable if we don’t wish to be revisiting the next Letby and Post Office inquiries in the coming years. It’s time to demonstrate our support for tradition – by actively creating new traditions.
This change shouldn’t be badged as a transformation. Heaven forfend. That is precisely the sort of leadership messaging that we need to leave behind. Instead, it is an evolution, fuelled by a personal commitment to self-care and development, alongside a similar commitment to allowing space to emerge where local adjustments might reasonably occur.
Radical OD 