The authors’ main contention is that change leadership requires first a revolutionary change within the leader.  When this takes place other traditional methods of bringing about change may be rendered unnecessary.  The most important thing is for the leader to make a shift out of egocentricity.  The leader must stop being concerned with him or herself, and surrender to the common good.  Also, the leader must work to purge hypocrisy out of their paradigm.  It is essential that leaders who want to inspire change reduce their own integrity gaps.  These leaders must also work outside the box right up to the edge of creating chaos while always seeking to bring out the best in those around them.  This is revolutionary stuff indeed.

When leaders can do this, great things happen.  The main impediment is our fast-paced, quantitative, results-oriented culture.  Leaders who want to practice this face a battle within organizations that are focused on quarterly numbers.  This is a more qualitative and slow process that is likely to be completely misunderstood by many pragmatists.

To narrow the scope, the problem with organizational silence in business is more than philosophical.  It’s bad for the numbers.  It can negatively impact market share.  It can put you out of a job.  Now that should trigger the instinct of self-preservation in the opposite direction.  The long view requires that managers have the self-confidence to take criticism, and that they stop assuming all criticism from below comes from a place of self-interested manipulation.

The case talks about how the majority of line foremen come up from the ranks of the hourly unionized workers.  A small percentage are college grads, and an even smaller percentage are experienced transfers from within the company.  There is no formal training program in place, so line foremen are thrown into a meat-grinder with heavy accountability to daily numbers with no support.  The plant manager is quoted as saying that he feels the line foremen are disconnected from the upper levels of management.  His solution is a periodic social hour.  This is way off base as it does nothing to address the lack of training.  The plant manager refuses to implement a formal training program, citing cost as prohibitive.  It would be interesting to see the cost of the turnover he is experiencing and compare that with the cost of a training program.

In addition to training the foremen, upper management needs a shot in the arm.  The case states that most managers above the foremen came up through the ranks.  They are running roughshod over their foremen, and then wondering why the foremen abuse the hourly workers!  The foremen are emulating the management style they were raised with.  A focus on leadership and development must be added to the narrow focus on maximizing efficiency in order for the plant to overcome its turnover problem.

The case focuses heavily on the unique life experience and philosophy of George Zimmer, which heavily influenced his unorthodox management style.  Zimmer was a child of the 60s and was involved in the counter-culture.   This instilled in him a commitment to unlocking human potential that he brought into his business.  Indeed, the company mission statement included self-actualization as a goal.  Maslow is applauding somewhere from his grave.

Zimmer relied heavily on the concept of servant leadership to guide management behavior.  Managers were expected to live in the stores, and the philosophy was that store employees were their customers.  In this way, management expected the focus on service to roll down through the ranks and reach the customer in the store.   Alongside the focus on servant leadership, was a culture built on selling.  Zimmer’s charisma, commitment to selling, and constant presence in the stores in the early days selling alongside store staff greatly contributed to a commitment to selling in the company.

Zimmer got the culture and the “touch” right, but also key is the fact that he got compensation right.  The commission structure created above-market compensation on average.  The nasty side effect of unethical “sharking” did raise its ugly head, but, according to the case, management vigilantly watched for this and terminated those who were not team players.  There was a strong emphasis on teamwork reinforced through the informal training structure and the PA system. 

Management training was not outsourced, but was owned by the executive leadership of the company, many of whom worked their way from the ground up in side the organization.  Also, many of the executives were young compared to their counterparts in other organizations.  The training sessions focused on culture, selling, and having fun.  This created an energized atmosphere that seemingly paid off in spades for the company and shareholders.

While the family atmosphere and the socialization between managers and subordinates created a fun, close-knit, committed environment, problems with nepotism and sticky ethics could not follow far behind, especially as this company grows.  Also,  while the performance appraisal form clearly reinforced company values, it was too complex and detailed to be effective.  It had too many categories for too many different behaviors that a manager could not possibly effectively observe and evaluate consistently.  Aside from the hard sales data at the top, it boiled down to a subjective thumbs up or thumbs down on how well the employee fit the culture.

Jeffrey Pfeffer prepared this case, and the emphasis on the value of servant leadership is clear.  However, there seem to be other possible contributing factors to the success of The Men’s Wearhouse that are mentioned only in passing.  For example,  the product was consistently offered at 20%-30% less than the competition.  This is huge.  All we are told about how Zimmer was able to do this is that he offered his handshake guarantee that his suppliers would not be mentioned in advertising if they sold to him at massive discounts.  This is a pretty significant supply-chain and pricing coup that contributed to his success.  In addition, the marketing strategy through the television ads was very effective, as was the company’s tailoring of their services according to the understanding that men don’t like to shop.  They made it as easy as possible for men to get an inexpensive, high-quality suit without having to deal with malls and price shopping.  So, I think the leadership style is crucial to their success, but the marketing and supply-chain cannot be ignored.

In this case the CEO, Robin, needs to adhere to first principles before all else.  He has a conflicting mandate from the tradition of his father: fiscal conservatism and taking care of the team.  But these do not have to be mutually exclusive, even in tough times.  Robin needs an executive team that sees layoffs as a last resort, not a first reaction.  All other extraneous expenses need to be cut first, including executive perks. Pay cuts across the board should be implemented before anyone is laid off.  That is Fred Smith at FedEx did.  He cut all managerial compensation including his own in 2008 before he laid anybody off.  Layoffs are easier to swallow by those who remain if it is clear that management put their best good-faith effort to avoid them.  The executive team must first start leading for the good of the whole and see their own culpability in largesse.

The article tells the story of Michael Leven, who heroically and admirably did The Right Thing despite risk to himself.  Would that there were more of him.  The point of the article, of course, is that truly great leaders are never self-serving.  They always put the good of the whole as the first priority.  They do not seek to hoard power.  They seek to socialize it to benefit the many.  They are humble, Collins’ Level 5ers.  They are too few and far between.

The case of Col. Dowdy, more recently, is similar.  Dowdy was relieved of his command during the Iraq War because he deviated from the explicit Marine strategy of speeding through enemy territory.  Instead, Dowdy wanted to assess the level of resistance in the interest of preserving his men.  His deviant behavior was prioritizing men over mission. 

Both if these men operated as servant leaders.  They made the people they were in charge of their first priority, rather than the wishes of those up the chain.  In so doing they both risked their careers, and one lost his.

Bedeian points out that deans fail miserably when they retreat into silos of insulated power, and lose touch with their reference group of origin, i.e. the faculty.  Deans often surround themselves with sycophantic yes-men who enable the dean’s growing addiction to admiration.  By isolating dissenting voices on the fringe, deans grow ever more disconnected from the reality of their colleges.  Bedeian seems to resent that deans often prioritize raising funds over scholarly pursuits, though in this it seems the dean is as much a victim of systemic necessity as anyone. 

These criticisms could easily be transferred to any situation where one individual has gained power over a group, whether it’s a fast-food shift supervisor or the President of the United States.  I think the basic fundamentals of a power dynamic gone off the rails is the same all over–the only variation would be in the magnitude of the consequences.  The key takeaway for me is that effective leaders stay as connected as possible, invite dissent, and model the values they want to instill in the organization.  Easier typed, then done.