biceps,” Sprenger says cynically. In his opinion efforts to stimulate identity resem-
ble a pubescent fan culture.
The strategy of vision ultimately also depends on the attitude of the employee
and his or her identification with the company: “Continuously threatened by inner
resignation and external distractions, the people swallow higher corporate values
against their will and are willing to reject not only critics, but even those who do not
want to share them.” (Sprenger 1999, p. 59). Sprenger goes even further, claiming
that the quest for a common vision shows a “paramilitary basic pattern” and a
“totalitarian tendency.”
With all due respect to Sprenger’s flowery language and its polarizing approach,
the question remains: what’s wrong with identification? Why are all those who
identify with their job and their company automatically immature teenagers? After
all, there is such a thing as voluntary commitment. And where does this suspicion of
values and visions come from? Despite all individuality there have to be common
values creating a sense of community within the company; otherwise the result
is nothing more than a loose bunch of egoists without any clear direction or
orientation.
At this point, Sprenger does exactly what he demonizes companies and
managers for. He lumps them all together and assumes all have the same predict-
able, unreasonable reactions: if you offer an employee more money, he or she will
always want more and therefore work less. Employees are weak adolescents who
can easily be brainwashed. And the manager is the old enemy, driven by cold and
inhuman capitalism and with only one goal in mind, namely to manipulate and
exploit their employees and in a cowardly, lazy manner to delegate leadership
responsibilities to incentive systems. Regardless of how leaders behave, whether
they act in an authoritarian or democratic style, and what they do – for Sprenger
they are all under general suspicion; his faith in the goodness of human beings does
not seem to include executives.
2.3.2.10 Challenging Instead of Seducing
A new kind of leadership that is not based on seduction and demotivating pushing
or pulling begins with a change in attitude and a shift away from the negative view
of human beings. Research has shown again and again that people are motivated.
Basically everyone has creative energy that yearns to be developed and high
potential for action. People are curious by nature, like to discover new things and
like to have fun doing what they do. In Sprenger’s eyes, the presumed motivation
gap that needs to be artificially bridged does not exist.
Sprenger reminds us about something very important that has almost become
lost in the entire debate about motivation, and which I want to stress here as well
because it is an essential component of leadership: every manager has the right
to make clear demands on the staff, to make arrangements and monitor their
compliance. He or she has the right to demand performance on the basis of defined
objectives, and the duty to openly confront and criticize employees when they fail
2.3 The Relationship Between Leader and Led 87