Pass a Policy: Ineffective Leadership

Last updated on: July 31, 2016 at 5:23 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

Pass a Policy: Ineffective Leadership 2016-07-31T17:23:52-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

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Hamann: We need a policy on wives, sir.

A dying business multiplies binders and policies endlessly. There is no problem that cannot be attacked head on by passing a policy to end the problem. If the workers are crabby, one can pass a policy mandating cheer. Even more effective, the dying corporation can place the policy in the Human Resource Department Handbook.

A problem that is banned is no longer a problem. Instead, regrettably, one might (maybe!) get a new problem: people are not complying with the Handbook mandate on forced cheerfulness. Now the problem is no longer the lack of cheer, but the much more serious violation of company standards as mandated in the Human Resource Department Handbook.

The companies furthest along in decay will follow a pattern of sending first a jolly email to everyone pointing out the problem: “Hey gang! We want to put the company’s best face on every day. Let’s all try complying with the Mandate for Forced Cheer. It is in all our best interest!” When this fails to end grumpiness, the next email will be much more stern: “This is a reminder that cheerfulness is not an option, it’s policy. See handbook page 665.” If this (unexpectedly) fails, then the dying company will set up a committee, hire an outside consultant, and attend conferences on “enforcing handbook policies related to cheer.”

The Bible was onto this failure of leadership long ago. The ruler of a decaying empire finds he cannot control the behavior of one of his wives. She will not perform for him and so (amongst other things), he issues a law:

So when the decree made by the king is proclaimed throughout all his kingdom, for it is vast, all women will give honor to their husbands, high and low alike.” 21 This advice pleased the king and the princes, and the king did as Memucan proposed. 22 He sent letters to all the royal provinces, to every province in its own script and to every people in its own language, that every man be master in his own household and speak according to the language of his people.

We can be sure that settled that.

This an awful law, but it also is a laughably ineffective law. How in the name of Persia will governors in distant provinces enforce this edict? Will the local magistrate hire a spy for each household?

Safe to say, this will do nearly nothing to establish male domestic dominance (assuming this was the desirable goal). What it did for certain was make the king feel better at being refused, scornfully jilted, by his Queen. When in doubt ineffective, impotent leaders make a policy.

They forget that workers will do for love what they would never do under threat.

The making of policy is not necessarily a bad thing to do: it makes the goals and policies of the company clear to all people. Of course rewards and punishments (and clearly stated policies) do some good, but not as solutions.

You can identify a problem with a policy, but you cannot solve it. People will do for love, for a shared mission, or a common set of ideas what force could never make them do. When a leader uses a policy to substitute for personal relationships, then the end is coming for that leader or the company or both.

Mordecai loved Esther and gave her advice. He had no power over her life and made no rules about what she had to do, but Esther loved and trusted him. He was good to her and she was good to him. As a result of this relationship based on love, God’s people were saved.

Thank God, Esther and Mordecai did not try to develop a rule. Instead, they empowered God’s people to fight back against injustice. Thank God for leaders who lead, who cheer us up, and do pass policies until obedience and morale improve.

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