My Hogan reports indicated that I’m insensitive, that I give objective, factual feedback which comes across as overly direct, blunt, and intimidating, that I see more incompetence in the world than other people, and that I communicate in idiosyncratic and confusing ways. Through a combination of reflecting on my Hogan scores and the reflexive practice process during the project, I conclude that my leadership style is affected by an inversely correlated relationship between tolerance and pressure, i.e. when pressure is high, my tolerance is low and vice versa. This can impact on perceptions of me as a senior leader by influencing my position on a spectrum between leadership and self-destruction. My default position at work is one of management followership, when my tolerance is relatively high, and pressures are medium. When I experience higher than normal work pressures due to poor decisions made by colleagues higher up in the management hierarchy, exposure to organisational stupidity, or personal issues that cloud my judgement, I can stray into the ‘quadrant of mischief’. This might include making inappropriate comments or cracking jokes at the wrong time, and whilst this has formed a key aspect of my identity at work in the past, I now appreciate that it is derailing to my effectiveness as a leader. On rare occasions, when my tolerance is low and pressures are high, I can enter the zone of self-destruction. This happens when my subconscious nihilistic feelings come to the fore and I behave in a way that is very damaging to professional (and personal) relationships and perceptions of me as a leader (also father, partner, and friend). Through the reflexive process, I am becoming aware of when these uncomfortable thoughts and feelings start to derail my performance and have started to change my behaviour accordingly. True leadership, and where I aspire to be, entails remaining within the Leadership constant, by maintaining high levels of tolerance irrespective of the level of pressure.
I chose this topic because of coercive isomorphic pressures on the organisation to reduce its plastic footprint, yet I had personal misgivings about the environmental benefits of doing so. I was expecting to learn that reducing plastic in some cases was not environmentally beneficial and is sometimes used by firms as a method of generating organisational legitimacy. I have learnt much broader lessons outside of my subject matter area during the programme however, which I outline below.
On CSR
Convenience retail and single use plastics are symbiotic. Although organisational isomorphism is driving a convergence of strategy away from the generic strategies of cost leadership, differentiation, and focus, the technological disruption to replace incumbent unidirectional extractivist business models with alternatives characterised by longevity cannot be led by the convenience sector, as it relies on pure convenience customer missions and the ‘top up shop’ not provided by larger retailers.
Social and environmental corporate responsibility credentials affect brand legitimacy, driven by consumer sovereignty. Triple bottom line accounting is increasingly important to portray company performance beyond economics, yet a lack of sustainability leadership within the commercial function results in a disconnect between people, planet, and profit outcomes. Big Data and platform ecosystem strategy is transforming non-financial CSR reporting, yet the unit of measure can be just as important as project actions. Environmental governance is nuanced as climate change and plastic pollution goals can sometimes conflict. Whilst customers support a reduction in single use plastics, they also mistrust greentailing strategies which use sustainability messages as a marketing tool to drive profits.
On Leadership
Leadership uses disproportionate and asymmetric relationships of social influence to create subjective follower reality using networks and the distribution of power. A political arena emerges in situations where illegitimate games compete with strong systems of legitimate power. Other forms of social organising such as management, group work, autonomy, peer influencing, and power are all used simultaneously with leadership amongst different stakeholder groupings. There is a level of discretionary effort at management level within teams based on personally held convictions. Whilst subordinate leadership in the focal organisation originates from within the paradigm of moral philosophy, often hierarchically senior management is restricted to economics.
On Stakeholder Management
A stakeholder is any organisation, group or individual that is involved in, or affected by, a system, enterprise or organisation and its sphere of operation. Stakeholder Management is used to influence internal parties with managerial accountability and external parties with political and social authority. Whilst a broad view of stakeholder needs is necessary to create brand legitimacy, we should beware of the Van Helsing stakeholders who seek to destroy us. New Power online content is replacing traditional sources of power with open, participatory and peer driven alternatives, resulting in a culture of conscience where every customer has the democratic power to be a corporate stakeholder. Senior leaders are expected to manage stakeholders, yet frequently it falls to subject matter exerts to manage stakeholder relationships at function level. Whilst stakeholder categorization is said to enable a maximisation of outputs, empiric experience found that focussing on stakeholders with power and influence does not necessarily impact on the outcomes of a project, especially where legitimate power coexists with social influencing in a political arena. When thought leadership from subordinates filters upwards it can be subject to misunderstanding, and organisational hierarchy often makes correcting this impossible. Summarising stakeholder messaging and sharing informally through online content may therefore be a more effective method than traditional formal management practice. A maieutic approach to reporting to stakeholders, embracing uncertainty and using the power of nothing, can stimulate debate to deliver better outcomes
On my personal development
I learned not to trust my locus of control where other teams are better placed to deliver outputs, and to be mindful to utilise the political arena to engage with high power and influence stakeholders. I learned that my personality flaws are exacerbated by pressure and to be mindful to remain tolerant in high pressure situations, to think about my audience when communicating complex ideas, and to be more empathetic and less blunt. I still have work to do to develop these soft skills further which will allow me to pursue a senior career outside of packaging sustainability, but I feel confident that the project has given me the knowledge, skills, and reflexive tools to start packing up for good.
One of my frustrations when deciding on the scope of this project was my desire to conduct research that would be useful to more people in my industry than just myself. My original draft included a proposal to conduct life cycle assessments of alternatives to plastics to attempt to define whether reducing plastic packaging had overall environmental benefits or disadvantages through a climate change lens. I had to change the focus to make the project more about my own personal learning and development, which was a source of anxiety to me and led me to question whether I was pursuing the right academic course. However, I see that I was attempting to answer questions outside the scope of the apprenticeship, and this line of enquiry offers further opportunities for study in the future.
I wanted to complete a master’s degree as I've always felt I failed to reach my academic potential after leaving university and wanted to raise the level of my qualifications in anticipation of replacing my line manager, who was due to retire during the focal period. My first choice of subject was Environmental Management, but as I lacked the sponsorship of my organisation and private funds to support that ambition, I applied for the SLMDA programme instead. I now feel though that completing the apprenticeship has given me a wider skillset to look beyond my current line of career progression to consider other opportunities outside packaging sustainability. The lens of social constructionism has led me to realise that formal qualifications are themselves social constructs and, whilst I've accomplished my academic ambition, I no longer feel this is as important as an indicator of personal achievement as I had prior to completing the programme. This may however merely be a manifestation of my self-criticality identified in the Hogan assessments.
I have found the reflexive process to be one of the main benefits of completing the programme and have started to use it not just at work but also in my personal life, reflecting not just on what happened but also on what my personal biases were and what underlying factors and prejudices caused me to think or act a certain way. I’ve started to change my behaviours using the reflexive knowledge and skills gained during the apprenticeship, but appreciate I am still an incomplete leader. Continuing to work on my personality-related soft skills in addition to my hard technical skills will help me continue the journey towards packing up for good.
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