stressed the role model function of leadership: “The new tasks demand that in all
of their actions and all of their decisions the managers of tomorrow be rooted
in unshakable principles, and that they lead not only through knowledge, skill
and ability, but by imagination, courage, responsibility and character” (see Drucker
1956, p. 452).
3.2.10.4 Substitute Fathers?
In contrast, Reinhard K. Sprenger feels that being a role model contradicts personal
responsibility. Executives who see in themselves role models, or who are made into
role models by their employees, lose their autonomy, motivation and commitment.
I cannot support him in this general rejection and generalization, because I think the
role model function of leadership is an important one, as just described. I under-
stand a role model to be something like a mentor. An employee should be able to
freely choose their role model and what they like about this person, what they
considers valuable about them, not to copy it, but to implement their own version of
it, as a consistent part of their personality.
However, management must not transform into “parenthood”; on that point I
agree with Sprenger. This happens when being a role model leads to incapacitation,
and the employees are educated like little children. Whoever simply copies a role
model doesn’t have to find out who they themselves really are, what they think and
what they’re capable of. This might sound very convenient, but it is actually
disastrous for all concerned. A company does not need clones of the boss, but
individuals with different abilities, characteristics, perceptions and visions. Power-
ful role models keep the staff small, make them dependent “command receivers” –
and then complain (with crocodile tears) about their employees and that they as
managers have to do everything themselves (see Sprenger 2002a, pp. 144–154).
Executives who are on a pedestal (voluntarily or involuntarily) appear idealized,
remote and inhuman. Thus, no employee should want to become like that, nor
any leader. But role model characters can also represent thinking outside the box,
authenticity, humanity, fallibility, self-criticism, humility, passion, tolerance and
personal responsibility, an aspect Sprenger seems to have ignored in his argument.
3.2.10.5 Between Disruption and Security
“Leaders are there to disrupt the staff at work. Their mission: to brand the ‘but we
always did it that way!’ thinking as the harbinger of a downfall. Leaders spread the
will to change throughout the corporate culture.” This compact and provocative
statement is from Reinhard K. Sprenger’s “Leadership in the 21stCentury.” Leaders
are there to use irritation to initiate the system (the team, the department, the
company, the society) to reorganize, to change, adapt and remain flexible. Where
there is no movement, there is stagnation – and this is the death of any company
(see Sprenger 2000, p. 24).
182 3 Systemic Leadership or: Designing a World That Others Want to Be Part Of