Benevolent Monarch or Just Leader?

It can feel much better to be a generous ruler than a good leader. Your PTO policy is stingy but in a moment of an employee’s crisis you save the day by bestowing extra unaccounted leave. Your manual requires employees to be in the office 8-5, but a hard-working employee mentions having a terrible commute so you let them scoot out at 4:30 with a wink. You are a hero!

 All of this feels good. It’s on you – you did something nice and employees might express gratitude in the moment. But orgs run on favors rarely sustain good morale and often are plagued with bias and favoritism. 

When your “flexibility” with staff means allowing flexibility to break the rules instead of flexibility built into the policies themselves, you leave your staff always hoping or asking for favors. You create a system where employee’s needs get met only if you happen to notice the need or the employee feels safe enough to voice it. 

Most leaders I work with don’t create this leadership of benevolence purposefully. They just haven’t gotten around to changing policies to make them work for everyone or sometimes have actively avoided providing guidance out of a desire to avoid bureaucracy. And the leader is consistently rewarded in their neglect of policy that works for everyone by those feel-good moments of being able to break the rules for someone and garner thanks.

 But good staff – innovators, leaders, collaborators, folks who are truly engaged in your work and mission -- don’t thrive off having to curry favor. They thrive in clarity and consistency and being able to make autonomous choices within a flexible, transparent framework of options.

You might lose some of those moments of desperate, effusive thank yous, but instead build lasting trust.