Early in my career in a Cabinet-level agency, I noticed something curious. In talking with groups of employees and managers, I found that the further their offices were in our headquarters building from the office of the Secretary, the more they seemed to complain about and distrust him. A recent report offers some insight into this observation.
Titled "Federal Leadership on the Decline from the Partnership for Public Service," the report shows that larger organizations have a harder time providing effective leadership. Using employee survey data collected by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the report provides an "effective leadership" score (from 0-100) for a wide range of agencies. The best "large agency" (defined as having more than 15,000 permanent employees) gets a score of 68.1 (out of 100). The best mid-size agency (1,000-14,999 employees) gets a score of 69.9, and the best small agency (100-999 employees) gets a score of 75.3. If you look at the top five organizations in each agency size category, the respective average scores are: 61.3, 65.3, and 70.9. Clearly, the smaller the agency the better the view of its leaders from below.
The data should come as no surprise. Intuitively, we feel closer emotionally -- and trust more -- those people in our family unit. When we get to extended family, the ties weaken. When we get to communities, they weaken more. By the time we get larger than that, the "us" vs. "them" feelings often take over. Indeed, social science research suggests that once a group gets past about 150 members (Dunbar's Number), it is hard to maintain stable social relationships. In large groups, you need rules, norms, and structure. In small groups, people can know each other, work out how to relate, and feel more of a sense of belonging. Familiarity breeds even commitment -- it would seem.
Another finding from Federal Leadership on the Decline buttresses this overall conclusion. The rating on the effective leadership questions that pertained to "senior leaders" (e.g. "I have a high level of respect for my organization's senior leaders") received an average score of 46.7 while the rating on questions for "supervisors" (e.g. "Discussions with my supervisor/team leader about my performance are worthwhile") got an average score of 62.3. So, even inside an organization of a given size, being closer in psychological (and physical) distance to leaders increases the chances that there will be more positive views about their leadership. Of course, some supervisors are not good leaders, so proximity alone does not solve the problem.
The implications of these findings are obvious, even if not always acted upon. If you want your employees to trust you, be accessible. For senior leaders in organizations, who are often several levels above front-line workers, this is not easy. Some may even feel it is not their job to be concerned about how they are perceived by those below. In government, the need to convey messages to and carefully massage those in other agencies, the White House, the Congress and the press is important and often overwhelming in the demands on senior leadership time. That may help explain why building commitment from those below seems to be done so poorly as shown in the OPM data.
But senior leaders can share information on what's going in the organization (one of the OPM questions on which they performed poorly). They can generate motivation and commitment among their workers (another item) if they get out of their offices to talk with them. They can, especially with technology, listen in visible ways, a key measure of showing respect for those they lead - and necessary to earning it (another OPM item). They can make their decisions more transparent. They can be people of "high standards of honesty and integrity" and demonstrate that they are (a fourth OPM item).
The old saw that "people don't care what you know until they know that you care" turns out to have more than a grain of wisdom. When I found that agency employees distrusted the Secretary because they were so physically separated from him (not only was he on the top floor, his office was also behind two sets of doors in an "inner sanctum"), I tried an experiment. I encouraged him to meet with a small number of the complainers. The sole agenda was to say hello and respond to any questions they had. The meeting lasted much less that an hour. As the group left his office, they were uniformly pleased and impressed with his accessibility and his commitment to their work.
Government is big. Inevitably, most agencies will be much larger than Dunbar's Number. But senior leaders can still earn the trust and commitment of their employees. If they do not, questions about character and competence at the top will continue, and senior leaders will fail in their missions as well as their relationships with those who work for them. .