Scott Shank, PhD Candidate at Michigan State University, joins us this week and walks us through some interesting applied leadership communication research. Scott is also a former student, a research collaborator, and a friend!
Scott chats with us about some really interesting, really vivid, and really important applied leadership research.
If your manager is a lion, a coach, or the anti-Midas, what does that make you?
Until next time, communicate with intention and lead with purpose.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Leah OH (00:00):
Today on the communicative leader, we welcome
(00:02):
Scott Shank who is a PhDcandidate at Michigan State
University. Scott uses bothqualitative and quantitative
approaches to understand andexplain the efficacy of leader
communication, social supportand social influence to enhance
or undermine newcomeradjustment, leader member
relationships and work groupperformance. In this episode, we
(00:24):
look at some of our recentresearch on manager metaphors.
Are you a lion, a coach or theanti Midas? And of course Scott
leaves us with concrete appliedleadership communication
takeaways. Hello, and welcome tothe communicative leader hosted
by me, Dr. Leah Omilion-Hodges.
My friends call me Dr. OH. I'm aProfessor of Communication and a
(00:45):
leadership communication expert,and the communicative leader.
We're working to make your worklife what you want it to be.
So, Scott, thank you for joiningus today on the communicative
leader. I am thrilled to haveyou and that's that even that is
(01:05):
an understatement. But before wedive into this fun conversation,
can you give us a littlebackground on yourself? Your
connection to leadershipcommunication?
Scott Shank (01:16):
Yeah, absolutely.
So, I have been studyingleadership communication for a
long time, I've been in variouspositions that have relied on
Leadership for quite a bit. Infact, I've even taken leadership
classes at Western MichiganUniversity with the one and only
Dr. Leah OH (01:37):
you don't say, yeah,
Scott Shank (01:40):
so it's, um, you know, you, I guess for the
audience's I had the thequestion of I love people, I
love interacting with people.
And I found that almost anygetting anything done requires
social influence. So I tend tobe very relational type of
person not liking to kind ofappeal to authority or to
(02:02):
position. So that has involvedfiguring out how do I
communicate to inspire people?
How do I communicate to motivatepeople, in most of my leadership
context, has been working withpeople in a more developmental
capacity. So I worked withcollege students, as a pastor
(02:23):
for many years. I teach collegecourses, I may work with
organizations, but most of it iswithin how do you help people
grow and develop into differentareas or competencies? So very
pragmatic, which is why I thinkI was drawn to some of the
courses you taught on persuasionand social influence, as well as
(02:45):
leadership from a communicationperspective.
Dr. Leah OH (02:49):
Yeah, right. And I love how in you've always done
the Scott, you've done this sowell in figuring out, okay, what
is the literature say? So youhave these kind of data driven
suggestions and a springboard,but you don't, you don't just
leave it there. Like it's I useit as a springboard to say, how
do I make these connections,more authentic and more genuine,
(03:11):
and what I really want them tobe and that's something I've
always admired your ability todo, and to do it so well.
Scott Shank (03:17):
Oh, thanks. I think just curiosity in the enjoyment
of solving problems. And
Dr. Leah OH (03:26):
yes, so speaking of tinkering, we've done a lot of
research together. And we foundsome pretty interesting, very
impactful findings. And onetoday, I'd like us to kind of
talk about in greater detail isthis recent publication on
evocative metaphors managers andemployees use to describe
(03:47):
managerial attempts at enactingleadership? Wow, that's a
mouthful. Yeah. So essentially,folks, we were looking at
metaphors and saying, Well, whatis your manager? And then what
does that make you? And viceversa? We asked managers, what
is your metaphor for managing?
What does that make your team?
So before we dive into this,what I think will be a really
(04:08):
colorful chat, I'd like to askyou a few questions with the
goal of leaving listeners withsome practical takeaways and to
kind of help them understand howwe're doing this theoretical
leadership communication work,but how it really can help them
in the workplace. So to start,can you kind of talk to us about
(04:30):
the importance of metaphors andmaybe how these can be more
helpful than just askingsomeone? A direct question?
Scott Shank (04:38):
I think one of the important things that metaphors
have to offer is it reallyfocuses your attention on a
specific area. So I'm talking tostudents about how a lot of
times theories are likemetaphors. We're saying this is
like that, or we're comparingthings. So if we say something
like this leader is like a Lion,you know what it does, it draws
(05:02):
our attention to all of the waysthat the person is like a lion.
But the thing about metaphors,it's, they're very insightful.
But they also can result insome, like, I don't know, you
could call it distortion,because it's, it's focusing our
attention on all of the ways themetaphor works. But we kind of
were backgrounding all of theways. I mean, I'm sure whatever
(05:25):
individual isn't entirely, likethe metaphor suggests. So I
really enjoy kind of the nuancethe insight that this type of
examination has to offer,because you get a lot of
creative responses. So somethingof research, you know, that I've
done is very, like, you know,measuring variable specifically
(05:48):
looking for patterns. But whenyou ask someone, hey, what's a
metaphor for your your managersapproach to leadership, and then
you just like quiet your mouth,and listen, it is fantastic, the
things that come out theexperiences that come to mind
that may not even be consciouslyarticulated before, but you
(06:08):
really get this kind of vividand nuanced understanding of how
they've experienced leadership.
Dr. Leah OH (06:14):
Yeah, you're right, because it's, it's so visual.
And a lot of these metaphorsare, like, hit you in a very
visceral way, right? When youthink about a manager who is a
lion, right, they're like, myfirst thought is, you know,
thinking about being in aenclosure with a lion and being
very, very fearful. But we couldalso flip that, and we'll think
(06:36):
about that later on, about how alion can be really protective.
So we have that employeeexperience, and we can really
feel what that employee isfeeling or trying to convey.
Yeah, excellent. So anotherthing that we know, and you've
kind of touched on this withyour responses, a lot of
(06:56):
research is very, based onvariables, we're looking at
outcomes, satisfaction,commitment, turnover. All
important. We know we're notknocking those, but it does
gloss over the complexity ofcommunication, the importance of
those, those interactions thatare part of being in a in an
(07:16):
organization. So when we thinkabout this, can you kind of
articulate to us why it'simportant that we look at this
process, the communicationinteractions, the relationships,
in addition to the behavioraloutcomes? Oh,
Scott Shank (07:30):
sure. Yeah, like, it's so important, I think the
behavioral outcomes and a lot oflike, quantitative research that
identifies key predictors, likeI like simplicity. So it's very
valuable knowing like, hey,focus on these key behaviors
that result in, you know,increased commitment or
satisfaction, or whatever it is,we'd like to predict. But that
(07:53):
doesn't give us kind of the thequality of experience. So I
think with, sometimes if youlook at I mean, you can look at
a process approach, using somemath and quantitative data, but
it involves having access to howthings change over time, which,
you know, research would love tohave, sometimes the easier way
(08:14):
to get at kind of, like,descriptions of the process of
how people communicate is simplyby asking them, you know, tell
us about your manager, tell usabout your relationship with
your manager, you know, describeto us, and granted, there's
like, you know, pros and cons toall forms of research. But I
think as we both appreciate theway that different approaches to
(08:37):
observing, understanding,explaining an area of study,
they're very complimentary. So Ithink this particular article
was unique in just how it shedlights and it kind of liven up a
lot of, you know, previousresearch that we've done, while
(08:57):
emphasizing, you know, the kindof more communicative
interactive, you get in some ofthese metaphors, how interaction
with a manager makes them feel alot of, you know, sentiment, I
would say, you know, like I kindof used by one that refer to
their manager as their distantcousin. Like, just think of all
(09:21):
meant, like, I never have wouldhave thought of this, but it
just leaves you with kind ofthis weight of pondering what
does that even mean and so richin so like, kind of, I don't
know, just it gives a little bitmore vividness to these like
relational things that don'talways get captured when we're
asking them to scale from one tofive. Yeah, I
Dr. Leah OH (09:45):
was. It's funny you say that I was just thinking of
the one to five scale and I waslike, okay, a distant cousin. Is
that going to be a two? Is thatgonna be a three? And certainly
quant I was I was said I wasraised as a quantitative scholar
because that's how it feelsright? I did. In most of my
training, all quantitative, andthen the very end started to
realize I needed to talk topeople to better understand what
(10:08):
these statistics were sayingwhat these patterns were saying.
And so you're right, we can'thave, we're not promoting one
over another. But recognizingthat there are, you know, huge
benefits to both. But in thisstudy, in particular, what we
would have gotten, if we justused a Likert, one through five,
(10:30):
one through seven scale to askabout your interactions with
your manager, or yourinteractions with your employees
was going to be really leavingus with a lot of questions. And
understanding what those trendswere. Right. So we're
understanding why we have thosetrends. Right. So yeah, so we
(10:51):
have like you said, sentimenthere.
Scott Shank (10:54):
Yeah. And to be honest, like, as I was going
back through our studies, itwould almost be fun to do this
again. Because you learn so muchby asking by the surprise of
what people describe their,their managers as and what that
means for them, because we alsoask them if your manager is from
(11:14):
blank, yeah, does that make youin the car? So getting kind of
that understanding of, you know,relationship to ally in her in a
relationship to the pilot? Youknow, I might be part of the
crew. I could be I think aperson pointed out the cargo
like, so. Yeah, really. You'reletting the person kind of speak
(11:36):
in kind of lead, where we'regoing so that it manages feeds
into the curiosity that we bothhave, which really made the
study fun. Yes.
Dr. Leah OH (11:47):
And Scott, can you remind everyone the metaphor
that we used as part of thetitle that came from the data?
Oh, remember?
Scott Shank (11:57):
Yeah. Someone out there referred to their manager
as the anti Midas, you know,King Midas, who everything that
he touched turned to gold within this case, their manager was
the anti Midas in as theydescribe everything they touch
turns to crap. So like, I mean,I was shocked, humoured, amused,
(12:18):
but you know, saddened becauseyou're like, Oh, my goodness.
Yeah. This is someone's, likegenuine experience. You know,
granted, maybe they were beingplayful. But I mean, there's
something to how they weredescribing, interact with in
their 100%.
Dr. Leah OH (12:35):
And do you remember they said, so my my managers,
the anti Midas right, everythingthey touch turns to crap. That
makes us right, the workgroup,this this participant in their
peers, I still remember thethrone upon which they sit?
Yeah. So I don't think we couldget more vivid than that in
(12:56):
terms of being able to helpsomeone to understand what it
feels like in that particularworkgroup from this person's
perspective.
Scott Shank (13:06):
Exactly. Wow.
Dr. Leah OH (13:08):
So this is this is a really nice segue, Scott. So
as a follow up, I'm wondering ifyou can help to explain and I
don't know, you probably getthis question a lot from folks
outside of communication. Iknow, it's one I field a lot.
But what is the communicativeview of leadership? Well, let's
start there. And then I then Ihave a follow up for that. So
(13:29):
first, how do we see leadershipslightly different than maybe
someone in management orpsychology or industrial and
organizational Psych? Yeah.
Scott Shank (13:39):
And I, I mean, I think we're not so much trying
to identify like, what specific,you know, traits does the leader
have that makes them stand out,or even like the extent to which
they have a formal title, youknow, select through
organizational history, you'vegot the formal structure of the
organization, but communicationscholars, when we started
(14:01):
looking at, like the, thecommunication networks, and lo
and behold, we find, wow,there's a formal structure, but
that's not how things get done.
So I love the contrast betweenlike a, a structure of
authority, and a structure ofinfluence, and being so
interested in social influence.
I tend to associatecommunicative leadership with
(14:26):
the ability to communicate tointeract strategically to use
social influence. And this couldI mean, there's a broad topic,
we just, you know, wrote achapter on framing together.
We'll get into but, you know,there are so many ways that a
communication can be leveragedin a variety of different
(14:48):
contacts. And a lot of it isreally context dependent. It
depends on the relationshipdepends on you know, the
organization or the units,culture climate. So I think to
me communicate to view is a bitmore complex. It's a bit more
reliant upon messages andmeaning in order to influence
(15:09):
people towards the goal. Ratherthan maybe position or authority
based leadership, maybeleadership that tries to
identify like the keycharacteristics of the leader.
We're very much interested inlike what a leader says and
does. And the, you know, theconsequences, both good and bad.
Dr. Leah OH (15:30):
Yeah, exactly. And a follow up, and you've kind of
touched on this too. So from acommunicative view, or
perspective, how do we expectsomeone's communication to
change when they move into thattitled leadership position?
Scott Shank (15:46):
Wow, this is a great question. Because I don't
know, like, I'm thinking back tomy own journey, when I went from
like, a very competentindividual performer, to now
having responsibility to likelead and influence people. And
you, you've just assume everyoneelse are just these competent
(16:07):
individual performer just like,committed the organization ready
to hit the ground running inthen you realize, oh, my
goodness, I don't think I havewhat it takes to motivate people
to do things that I thought werejust normal and good and
positive. I would say that theexpectations for how to
(16:28):
communicate drastically change.
Often I don't think there's alot of training in, let's talk
about how the relationship toyour peers is now fundamentally
altered now that you've receivedthis kind of promotion and
position, and how like, how youinteract with them is going to
change, they're going to look atyou differently, they're gonna
expect differently from you. Andnow, you know, advice, I think
(16:50):
sometimes is better taken from apeer. But now, there are many
ways I found that the positionof authority somehow got in the
way became like a speed bump, orstumbling block to the types of
influence that I previously had,when I was kind of working side
by side, not in every case. Sothat it's a new skill set. It's
(17:12):
like motivating, inspiringdirecting, learning how to not
only like create, orstrategically like structure
experience for the people youlead, but then to, to kind of
implement and to communicatewith them how to go about I
mean, it seems like it's nevernever ending. Yes. Or, I had the
(17:33):
satisfaction of just like, lookat what I did look at what I
contributed. But now, like, whatyou your contribution to an
organization isn't so easily.
Like, it's not as tangible. Youknow, and I think that's kind of
the challenge. A lot of it islike, how you communicate, so
(17:55):
that others, you know, arecontributing or looking what
they did? And I don't know, Icould ramble on, but it's a very
interesting kind of area in andI'm looking at some stuff on
like socializing, not newmembers, to organizations, but
new managers into our role. AndI think, you know, if this is
(18:16):
something your audience isinterested in, maybe give, give
her a shout out on, you know,what practically, we should be
looking at?
Dr. Leah OH (18:24):
Yeah, thank you.
Such a thoughtful response,Scott. Honestly, knowing you, I
would not expect anything elsethat I cannot, when I was
listening to you, the word Ikept thinking about was
responsibility. Right? So yourresponsibility with of course,
with the position but withcommunication changes, in in
really large ways. You almostflip it on your head. And I
(18:48):
think to especially someonewho's already in an
organization, there are so manyassumptions made. They know the
culture they've been here, theyhave these pre established
relationships. And we make themistake of assuming it's going
to be an easier transition. Andactually, I think folks coming
(19:08):
from the outside in, there are alot of a lot more latitude.
They're allotted a lot more. Oh,that's okay. You missed up to
your new you don't know. Wedon't recognize how hard
communicating in that new rolecan be and for all of the
variety of reasons that you'veyou've addressed. At home. Yeah,
thank you. And I love that ideaof doing a episode just that.
(19:33):
Okay. I'm a manager now. Now,what do I do? Yeah. So Scott,
we've talked about the impact ofmetaphors. we've chatted about
importance of looking atcommunication in the workplace.
So now let's look at the funstuff, the data. Can you walk us
through the variety of metaphorswe found and kind of how we how
(19:55):
we tried to make sense of them.
Scott Shank (20:00):
Yeah, I think well, first off, if I remember, the
first round of data collectionwere happened with them,
managers, practicing managers,titles, managers being
interviewed, you know, and Ithink there are 2527 or so
interviews, that was kind of thefirst we thought, this is really
interesting, right? So you havelike, some that, you know,
(20:23):
viewed themselves kind of likein control of things like a,
like a racecar driver, a pilot,others were like, felt helpless,
like, Time Bomb, like really?
What, what? Well, then, we hadsuch rich metaphors of those, we
thought, wouldn't it beinteresting to kind of compare
and contrast this? With whatmembers think, you know, so
(20:44):
unfortunately, we couldn't getlike their direct reports, that
would have been amazing. But wedid get a, a completely
different sample of people thatto describe the metaphors that
they would use to describe theirown managers, and what that how
that position them in life. So Iwas I found it very interesting
(21:07):
one, the variety, like I don't,I mean, there are some
commonalities. But we have likethe distant cousin that I
mentioned, my manager is a bumpon a log. And my manager is
like, a monkey trying to lead apack of wolves. Right, so some
of these are pretty, prettynegative. On the energetic dog,
(21:30):
there's one person thatdescribed their managers a kick,
Puppy yearning for life in apreemie. So this is very, very
different those to my ownconception, when I think of
managers, right, and not all ofthem. 100% Yeah, no, negative
from the members perspective. Iremember one person said, Oh, my
(21:54):
manager is the apple of my Idescribe them, or my, my manager
as a tree planted by a river.
And I mean, some of these reallyinspirational and motivated so
it really the contrast was funtrying to identify some some
patterns and some type of schemeto interpret these metaphors.
(22:18):
Were as well.
Dr. Leah OH (22:21):
Yeah, and I was I was just thinking of the one the
tree by the river, I rememberthen, you know, if that is the
manager, then this participantsaid they were they were able to
like they were the wet thebranches beneath branches. Yeah.
So like part and parcelsomething life giving me
(22:42):
something strong and sturdy isso different than that clumsy,
big, clumsy dog, or worse yet,the puppy who's yearning for for
affection and attention? Yeah,like you said, we saw the scope
of, of experiences. I think welooked at powerful managers,
(23:04):
empowered managers and powerlessmanagers. As a way to kind of,
to make sense of that. Yeah, sogo ahead. Oh,
Scott Shank (23:15):
yeah, one thing that kind of stood out is like,
we were asking, what's ametaphor for their approach to
leadership? Right. But it seemslike so many of them, we didn't
get approaches to leadership, wegot like, people, like we got
nouns we got descriptions of, ofthe person kind of exemplifying
who they they believe theirmanager to be, or who the
(23:37):
manager kind of saw themselves,right, like, so I think the the
metaphors did elicit somethingimportant, something that, that
maybe like, we didn't ponderenough on, you know, I think we
could go back and look at someof these things and really tease
out like, what does this mean,you know, and, and I think it'd
be interesting to get a group ofmanagers together in like a
(23:58):
focus group or not even a focusgroup, but in a conference, and
I think they would benefit andbe surprised as if they just
casually discussed you know,metaphors of leadership and the
implications for those things.
Dr. Leah OH (24:14):
Yeah, you are so right, Scott. And as always so
insightful. So as you said, weasked them what is your managers
approach? And as you justpointed out, they gave us noun
say, Give us who they are. And Ithink yeah, between my managers,
a coach or my managers, a memberof the KGB, that was what really
(24:34):
really stuck in my memory. Soyes, and I you know, what, a fun
dataset to revisit and continueto explore. So another juicy
question and I when I waswriting these questions, I was
laughing so like, of course, youknow, we really love leadership
communication work when I seethis as like juicy fun. But how
(24:56):
did the metaphors managers offerfor their own approach to
leading How did that differ thanthe employee data set? Hmm.
Scott Shank (25:06):
Well, if I, if I remember correctly, I don't know
that the managers were like, youknow, really, really positive,
and the members were really,really negative, I think there
was a kind of a blend infrequency of all three. And all
of a both of them kind of trackssimilarly with them, we did a
coding scheme of some of themreally kind of conveyed this
(25:28):
kind of powerful manager, somekind of this powerless or
helpless manager, and then somethat were more empowering, they
were kind of other focus. Ithink the the frequencies if we,
when we looked at, from themanager metaphors versus the
number metaphors, they werequite similar with, the majority
of them were kind of empowering,positive, like Coach, the
(25:52):
driver, like, like a very kindof motivating metaphors for
management. But there were, youknow, a good hefty number that
were more negative that werepowerful and power lists. So I
don't think that we could havejust looked at these in terms of
positive or negative, butteasing out like, there are some
differences between say, even,like powerful, so like, the
(26:15):
lion. And maybe this kind ofgets into another question. But
like, the lion is a completelydifferent metaphor, depending if
like the co workers and themembers are the Cubs that the
lion is protecting, or the preythat the lion is facing. Right?
So you got a little bit of thatnuanced from getting these two
(26:36):
perspectives in granted, itwould be great to like, do an a
replicate the study by askingthe managers direct reports. So
we could, like they're talkingabout the same person in it. But
I wouldn't be surprised if theseperceptions were different,
right? So the way the managersees certainly is not
(26:57):
necessarily the same as the waythat one member sees them, or
multiple member sees them. Orthere may even be some like,
variety within their work groupon how like one member season
really positively, but theanother person doesn't based
upon those communicationexchanges, interactions, etc.
Dr. Leah OH (27:18):
Yeah, right.
Because we think about, exactly,so someone who likes tough love,
someone who's like, give me thatconstructive criticism, please
be very direct to this is what Ineed. This is how I can make
sense of it and respond is sodifferent than another person
who has a really hard time withdirect either direct
communication, with feedbackpresented in certain ways. So I
(27:40):
think one employee might say,This is my coach, this is a
person who's there on thesideline cheering for me letting
me know when I need to pivot.
And another person who's like,this is my, this is my critic,
or this is a dictator. Right?
Even like you're saying, samemanager. So yeah, you hit on so
many important things here,because I think you're right,
(28:03):
this data set, when we lookedat, we looked at the manager
first, and then we had theemployee data. We're like, Whoa,
this is tracking in a verysimilar ways. And I don't, I
don't know that I expected that.
And as you hinted on, we havethis section in the man in the
publication, same but different,and you kind of talked about
(28:26):
that lion. And I remember whenwe are going through and coding
and making sense of the lion. Sotypically, when we're doing this
qualitative work, and we'recoding, right, if we see lion,
it's going to be coded the same.
But in this in this data set, itwas really wildly different for
many of these. So can you talkto us about how some have used
that same metaphor, but todescribe really different
(28:49):
employee experiences?
Scott Shank (28:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
So the lion is probably the moststark because the contrast
between the lions cubs in likethe maternal instinct of a
manager protecting the Cubsproviding for the cubs in the
safety is the complete oppositeof the relation to a lion as
being the prey that has toalways be on guard. I mean, I
think it like those like, youknow, willed abuse, that's like,
(29:16):
just reacting whenever thepresence of the manager comes
around, they're perked up andthey're getting ready to run.
But that wasn't the onlydifference. There was like the
pilot, where some responses dothe co workers and the team is
the CO pilots or the flightattendants. Whereas others
describe the the members ascargo, or in one case,
(29:41):
casualties implying a planecrash. So you really did see
that it wasn't like one metaphorwas entirely good, or entirely
bad, but the, the meaningassociated with the new
associations were based onexperience. instance, with the
individual. So some people lovethe structure of like a sergeant
(30:04):
or Colonel, you know,supportive, they were
protective, they were organized,where then others described a
more as like power hungrydictators. So yeah, a parent
even, you know, like the parentas like a leader, some people
viewed the parent in thesepositive, nurturing caring ways.
Whereas others likecondescending and controlling,
(30:25):
like, just like a parent,they're inhibiting my autonomy
or contrast, just like a goodparent, you know, they're,
they're like, guiding me andlike setting me up for learning
or whatever. So I was a littlewhile interested to find that,
even though the same word ormetaphor is being used, it
really is grounded in theexperience with that person to
(30:48):
determine what that associationis. And again, it kind of points
out like, you know, metaphors,they draw our attention to some
things, but then kind ofbackground other things. So
there's certain parts of, youknow, these different metaphors
that are kind of become a littlebit more salient or more
emphasized, than others, youknow, made it take a little bit
(31:10):
more time kind of going throughthis data, like, what do we have
here? But really, as we started,like, going through and going
through it again, and in pickingup things like whoa, like this,
this is really interesting.
Yeah, yeah. And
Dr. Leah OH (31:26):
I love that you brought up the pilot example,
because, again, that, okay, mymanager is like a pilot, but I'm
part of the crew, or I'm aflight attendant, and we see we
work together, we're on the sameteam. And then we switch my
manager as a pilot, but I'mcargo, okay, I'm along for the
ride. I've lost my agencyautonomy, but not necessarily
(31:46):
dangerous, then when I'm acasualty, right? Managers
literally lead me to, you know,to mayhem. So, yeah, as you
point out how powerful metaphorscan be, and helping us to
understand someone else'sexperience. So, you know, for
(32:07):
me, this is, I love behavioralresearch, I love variables. I
love doing the statistics andlooking at those patterns. But
there is something that we domess when we don't look at these
interactions at this particularlevel, and through a qualitative
lens.
Scott Shank (32:25):
Yeah, and I think part of the fun with this was,
it helped us to think like we'retrying to, like, how do you make
sense of this? Yeah.
Dr. Leah OH (32:34):
Yeah.
Scott Shank (32:35):
You know, cuz being familiar with like different
leadership theories anddifferent approaches. I mean, I
find both of us, we're stilltrying to identify some type of
patterns or models, which leadto a little bit later. But you
know, the the nice thing about,you know, things can get messy
when we're looking for thingsemerge from the ground up. But
(32:56):
in some cases, if, if, if ithappens to match the data,
things that emerge might helpyou realize, ooh, I think we
found a model that we can nowtest, if this is translate to
different contexts. If we did itagain, would we find similar
results? So again, I am ramblingnow. But I, I think this is was
(33:19):
great for inspiring somedifferent types of thinking
regarding like Leadership Theoryand Practice and like, wow,
like, how do I apply priorknowledge in light of pictures
I'm getting from this data.
Exactly.
Dr. Leah OH (33:36):
And that is a perfect lead on to this next
question is one thing that I'mreally proud of in this work
that we did in this publicationwhen we're thinking about the
discussion. So non academicfolks or discussion, I always
think about this is how we tieit together with a nice bow, we
returned to our introduction,when we say, Hey, this is why
(33:56):
it's important. Here's theproblem that we're addressing,
or here's the gap we're tryingto fill, we return to the
scholarly literature to say thisis what's been done, that this
is how what we've done hasincreased what we know are
complicated what we know orchanged what we know. So these
discussions, we typically willlook at them theoretically,
(34:17):
again to speak to the scholarlyliterature. But then also
pragmatically, what does thismean for folks in organizations,
for our managers out there forour employees out there? And
Scott, when we got to this, youhad this ingenious idea of how
to map the metaphors and wecreated a table and we looked at
(34:37):
how the metaphor was used todescribe power over people and
power over environment, right?
We could be high or low on onboth of those. So in for us,
this became a way to understandthose fundamental differences in
these metaphors and what thismight mean for this type of
enactment of leadership andcommunication. So can you to
(34:58):
talk to us about this that, youknow, the power over people and
power over environment, what isthis mean for employees? Sure.
Scott Shank (35:07):
And this was kind of my attempt of just trying to,
like I said, I like problemsolving. I like figuring out
puzzles. So this was an attemptto, like, how can we make sense
of these things, because on theone hand, leaders and members
both desired a powerful leader.
But on the other hand, it waskind of like, there were
contingencies on like how thatpower was used, whether or not
(35:29):
you admired the leader, orwhether or not you were afraid
of the leader. So this was kindof like, an easy to buy to. So
we've all encountered a leaderor manager that uses their power
to, you know, control,potentially command people,
right? The Dictator, thedictator, leadership, I mean, we
(35:52):
don't know that anyone likes it,I don't know anyone likes
performing it, but sometimes,like things need to get done. So
it does, as you know, kind oflike a go to some people will
rely on position. Or some peoplemight rely on Karen's charisma,
but the focus of the leadershipis getting people to do what
they want. But then there aresome people that that weren't as
(36:15):
interested in that. And I kindof from my own past, I've kind
of teetered between these high,low, high low in my own
leadership styles andapproaches, where sometimes you
can structure the environment,or sometimes you can stage
experiences, or you can use yourexpertise, in order to initiate
(36:38):
structure, how some, you know,leadership behaviors might refer
to it, where you're more kind ofusing your power over the
environment, to set things up sothat people can do their work.
You know, you're you're plowingthe way getting rid of obstacles
and things, but you're not somuch, you know, using social
(36:59):
influence or communicating withpeople. And I think both of
these have potent effects,right, we can think of a leader
that relies on high power overpeople and social influence for
high, you know, almost likethat. Strategic Systems
Engineer, that is content to bein the background, you might not
even know they're there. Butthey're coordinating and
(37:22):
orchestrating the whole thing.
So in the low low, like a kindof a laissez faire, a monkey
leading a pack of wolves.
Example we put under that, like,yeah, they're there, I mean,
maybe less interesting. Or maybemore interesting, but we kind of
just dismiss, probably notdesirable. So let's move on to
(37:43):
what's
Dr. Leah OH (37:45):
going to be so successful. Yeah,
Scott Shank (37:48):
to be as successful as a monkey leading a pack of
wolves, maybe you need to exitfor a time and in regroup. But
then that the high power overpeople with high power over
environment, there seem to besome like a, like the the
athletic coach, or an orchestraconductor, that seemed to have
expertise, and seemed to have anability to coordinate systems to
(38:11):
coordinate that knew theenvironment. So a coach knows
the rules of the game, hasdeveloped strategies, has
watched film of the other teamknows the situation. And I think
a coach is admired because oftheir acumen in taking command
over the situation, but alsoknowing where to put people
(38:31):
knowing how to use. So that waskind of some of the thinking
behind this, of course, you andI, we have to put the most that
high high box, we have to callit communicative leadership,
because,
Dr. Leah OH (38:43):
of course, he's got, you know, we're
Scott Shank (38:47):
just some fans of little things. But I think, to
get at the heart of what we'retrying to do here, explaining
some of the differences betweena parent that says like, the
parent that has no power over,you know, say, the situation,
(39:08):
the peer group in his only justtrying to direct the individual
might come off as like, youknow, constraining or like
controlling, but you know,there's a parent that might
think, you know, what does mychild need to be successful? And
they might set the child up. Imean, you don't want too much
you don't want to like just I'veheard the phrase lawnmower
(39:29):
parent where you just, you know,mow down a path to go. Yeah, but
but I think by having someexpertise, having some influence
both over environment and overpeople in a more balanced and
constructive way. Seems to belike, I don't think a lot of
employees or members have aproblem with leaders and
(39:52):
managers using power. I thinkit's expected, but it seems to
be in a more balanced way in amore constructive way. And I
just the things that stood outto me were, how some of the
leaders were admired. And I knowjust I'm interpreting this
through my own experiences. Idon't necessarily like when
people have power over me. Butwhen they take command over the
(40:15):
situation, right, don't we justlook up to people that maybe in
adversity, they appear on faith?
I have uncertainty. I don't knowwhat's going on. But you look at
the manager, and it just appearslike, they they're not
concerned, because they're like,no, no, I got this, this
situation and here before. Andso I think like, kind of the
interplay between those two, Idon't know that we did. You
(40:39):
know, I don't know that we did athorough, you know, unpacking of
this. There's there's to thinkabout, but that kind of goes
into the thinking of what what Ihad in mind when we're
discussing it and trying to mapit out. Yeah, yeah, certainly
Dr. Leah OH (40:56):
another follow up.
And I think when you weretalking, I was thinking about
the communication competencerequired for someone in that
high high quadrant, right thansomeone who can power over
people. Again, you we can thinkabout it in so many different
ways. But with the positive andI love your the coach analogy
that you test out there, it'srecognizing, because of my
(41:18):
experience, because I've I knowthis game, because I've I've
studied the other team and thesedifferent strategies. And
because I know my people, soWell, I know I can move this
person to this position, andgive them a little time, and
they're probably going to grow.
And if it doesn't fit, they'regoing to be okay, if I move them
back and recognizing anotherplayer, no, gotta leave them
(41:41):
right there, this is what'sgoing to be best for them. And
so that's, that's a reallyhelpful and healthy way of
looking at power over peoplethrough communication. I think
you're right, your communicationtoo, if we want to exercise
power over an environment, wehave to be an incredibly complex
(42:01):
communicator. So probably meansconnecting across departments,
it means being able to thinkstrategically about the
resources we need and how wewant to use them and
communicating that vision in apersuasive way, in a compelling
way. So again, I think it justreally highlights those in
(42:22):
managerial, you know, titleleadership positions, that
communication competence, isthat ongoing skill, we have to
continue to grow and to hone andto, to work on because it's just
going to help us be moresuccessful. Yeah. So Scott, with
this, considering this work, youknow, what are some practical
(42:45):
suggestions for Title leaders?
And is there a particularmetaphor that they should strive
for? That is better thananother?
Scott Shank (42:54):
No, that's a good question. And I think I could go
a variety of differentdirections. In, I think, first
thing that comes to mind was nowthat we get into practical
suggestions. So now we're intothe world of the manager, where
they are asked slash required towear a lot of hats, they
(43:15):
probably don't have near theamount of time that they would
wish to kind of sit back likewe're doing just let's reflect
on, you know, approach.
Metaphors would probably begreat, too. But most managers
that I know and interact withtime is their friend, they have
a series of meetings, they havelots too much information, not
enough time to process it.
(43:37):
They're making decisions,they're doing a lot of things.
So first off, hats off to all ofyou managers that are depressed,
or busy doing it. So with thatin mind, I'm going to try to
make practical suggestions thatare less like, you know, oh, my
goodness, look at theseacademics talking. So I'll try
that. Exactly. Yeah, they justdon't know. So I think one thing
(44:02):
that I think a manager shouldwalk away, or maybe they already
know this, there is not oneideal metaphor for leadership.
So I know lots of books thatI've read from popular press,
they're like, tried to promote acertain style or, or here's some
helpful, and I spent a couple ofyears trying in search of my
ideal leadership type or myideal forms of leadership. And
(44:26):
I'm just not so sure one exists.
I think you could be aneffective bear. You can be an
effective doctor, you could bean effective pilot. You could be
I mean, huh, maybe like, maybeeven an effective monkey once
you learn how to pack of wolves.
Exactly. Yeah. So I not gettingcaught up on what's the ideal,
(44:48):
but looking at thingspractically in terms of how am I
communicating with people andhow, what is their experience
with these interactions. So onething that stood out To me is,
you know, if you're focusing on,what's my ideal form of
leadership? And maybe if youwere to answer the question,
(45:09):
what metaphor is your bestrepresents your approach to
leadership? I mean, this is agood exercise, but you might
find these are very aspirationaland ideals. To note that, to ask
yourself the question, I wonderhow my, you know, my direct
reports, would describe myapproach to leadership, it might
(45:31):
be the case that they have noidea. They're not describing
your approach to leadership,they're just creating some broad
picture of who you are basedupon the positive or negative
experiences they've had withyou. So for me, like I think, if
you draw attention to the simplequestions of like, is how is my
(45:55):
desired approach to leadership?
Would my direct reports view meas doing that or doing something
different? I mean, that could beinteresting, you know,
conversation? Yeah, for sure.
And then the other thing is,like, again, I don't think
there's an ideal form ofleadership, but narrowing things
down to how am I communicating.
And it doesn't mean that youhave to communicate more, in
(46:20):
this kind of this is like adifferent topic. But some other
areas of research I'm interestedin is the calibration of
communication. Because when welooked at like, just more or
less, we don't under we don'tget at whether or not there's
like a sweet spot. You know,communication is good to a
(46:40):
point, but then too much of agood thing might not be
worthwhile. So I think there'slots of things in leadership,
that maybe it'd be worthwhilefor managers to think, how much
is the right amount? In additionto maybe like, the looking at
these metaphors in terms of howtheir self understanding might
(47:01):
be similar or different, or evendifferent among the people they
lead, you know, they're vieweddifferently and asking, like,
why might that be? You know, Ithink those get I tried to be
concrete, but they're not goingto like reflecting on that. Of
course.
Dr. Leah OH (47:19):
No, you're right. I mean, because there's just so
many, so many tangible, helpfulsuggestions we could pull from
here. And I love the idea thatyou, you know, I think raising
up that idea of what would myWhat would my team say? What
would their man, what wouldtheir metaphor be? And is that
(47:39):
something that I'm striving for?
Is it something that I feel goodabout? And as you noted, I don't
think I think the number onequestion I'm asked is a
leadership communication scholarfrom, you know, people at
soccer, the grocery store familymembers is like, what is the
best leader, what what type ofstyle should I be and like, not
and you should be a scoutleader, you should be a leader,
like you need to lean into thebest parts of your your natural
(48:04):
abilities, and figuring out, youknow, what are my strengths?
What are areas for improvement,because then we have
authenticity, right? We aregenuine, because when we are
trying to act like a Democraticleader, if that's not ours, or
it's our interpretation of it,there is an ick factor, right?
(48:24):
Because our people know thatthis just doesn't feel quite
right. Right. So yeah, thank youfor touching on all of that. And
you're right, that Goldilockslevel of communication is a hard
one to find. But the more timewe spend with people we
recognize, okay, this personneeds a little bit more. This is
this equips them to be the bestemployee they can in this role.
(48:47):
And there are others I'mthinking of John's work where he
found the higher your leadermember relationship, often you
have less communicatecommunicative exchanges, because
you understand each other,you're working from the same
shared space of knowing so yeah.
All right. Thank you, Scott. Sonow I want to shift gears. So we
(49:07):
spent a lot of time talkingabout our manager metaphor
publication. And now I want tolook at what the work that
you're doing as you finish yourPhD. So can you tell us in
layman's terms, what you'reexploring?
Scott Shank (49:20):
Sure. So I Curiosity has led me on a
variety of topics. And as youknow, the socialization of new
members to organizations issomething I've long been
fascinated with. It has all ofthe elements of growth and
development of adjustment ofcommunication. So that's an area
(49:41):
that I've been honing in on in alot of past work, past work, the
audience might know, has beeninterested in how organizations
kind of structure the experienceof new employees. So we think of
onboarding. You think of thoseearly, you know, trainings those
early things. But what We'relooking at in some some of the
(50:02):
earliest essays onsocialization. So like in 1960s,
Bremen Wheeler talked about theimportance of when a new member
that's exposed to role modelsfrom the work group that they'll
be working with. And although Ithink many have noted that you
know, really it's the day to dayworkgroup that exerts a lot of
(50:24):
influence to help a personadjust and socialize to the the
norms and practices that theyneed to learn. A lot of the
research has looked at what doesthe organization doing are
complimented that with theindividual newcomer? How does
like their proactivity theextent to which they go about
(50:46):
seeking information and things?
How does. So what we're lookingto do is extend that to focus in
on the everyday workgroup. So ifyou go to work, chances are the
HR department isn't shaping yournorms, but it's the
Dr. Leah OH (51:04):
really hope they aren't like, what is going on?
Scott Shank (51:07):
Yeah, they gave you some information, they help
orient checks to theorganization, providing
information about the history,the culture, you know, filling
out those forms for like gettingyour benefits in order and like
all of the things that need totake place before you start your
job. But when you're actuallydoing your job, that's such a
(51:28):
rich context for social learningfrom role modeling. And I think
to like, let's face it, like ifwe have pressure to get things
done, it likely may come fromthe peers that we're working
with. So I know that's it's alittle bit broad, I won't get
into the technical details. Butto sum up, I guess I'm
interested in both that workgroup as the context that new
(51:52):
people's new members oforganizations kind of grow and
adjust. And also, the kind ofthe influences that that
Workgroup has like, whether it'slike normative social influence,
whether they're usinginformation or communication,
like just kind of, that's kindof the ballpark with which I'm
(52:12):
playing.
Dr. Leah OH (52:14):
Yeah, and so important, because like you
said, we think aboutsocialization, when you think
about onboarding does that like,one day, two days, three days,
maybe tops, and then go ahead,you are ready to spread your
wings and fly? I mean, theresearch that I love leader
member relationships, peerrelationships at work group is
(52:35):
so pivotal in shaping what workfeels like, right? So I love
that you are you're going toexplore that entry in that
perspective. Because again,we're we kind of act like it
happens in a silo, this HR silo,and then we are like, No, we're
good. And so really, reallyimportant contributions to the
(52:57):
literature. And then the thetakeaway. So that's my next
question is the follow up. Sotell us why this is important.
And what takeaway lessons youthink could come from this that
would help employees in veryreal ways? Yeah.
Scott Shank (53:14):
So I think one, it's important to just simply
answer the question, does thesocialization of a new member,
does it is it differentdepending on the work group that
they're part of? So if you havea really high performing and
supportive work group, where ifyou have kind of a low
performing, or maybe a highperforming very low supportive
(53:34):
group, that experience is goingto be different? So that's one
way like, how much does itmatter? Because we know that
sometimes people will, willthrive because of their
individual kind of, you know,proactivity that go get them? So
maybe, if you're a really highengaged and proactive person, it
may not matter as much for like,if you're looking to take
(53:56):
someone who is just learning,and but you want to socialize
them, so that they become reallyhigh performing. Maybe this is
more relevant to that. And thenthe second question is, what
type of communication are theygoing to experience that really
makes the difference? So this iswhere I'm looking at. This, like
(54:18):
kind of a simple framework thatI used to use when I was a
leader did a lot of mentoring.
And a lot of coordinating ofdifferent groups in what I tried
to look at were these threeaspects of like challenge,
feedback and support. So I'mquite agree. And I think you'll
appreciate this from like theelinext standpoint, because
(54:38):
you're interacting withdifferent people that all have
various thresholds of challenge.
So like, you can't challengeeveryone the same. You can't.
Everyone doesn't need the sameamount of feedback for support.
So like you mentioned, if like aperson's transferring in, they
have different needs than that.
A person who just graduatedcollege in his integrating into
(55:01):
their first time career typejob. So I'm interested like what
type of messages what type ofcommunication challenges a
newcomer a little bit beyondtheir comfort zone? Maybe like
messages that convey highstandards or accountability for
things along that camp. But thendoes the does the new member to
(55:23):
what extent do they have qualityfeedback from members of their
work, to let them know howthey're doing, where they're
standing, how they could grow?
And then the third, I mean,social support becomes such an
important part, especially inthese uncertain environments
where people have to learn,right there already. I mean,
(55:46):
many new members are already alittle hesitant. They're a
little tentative, they don'twant to be perceived or viewed
as being less competent. Theywant to prove that they can do
it. So a workgroup that conveyssupportive messages. Those are
kind of my my three ingredients,so to speak. Yeah. Well, we'll
see. Well, we'll find out how tomeasure them. We will we'll look
(56:07):
at them, and we'll see if Yeah,is there any difference between
workgroups within the sameorganization? And is, are there
some commonalities that like,hey, generally speaking, you
know, these, these three thingswill help facilitate newcomers
learning and adjustment to theirrole?
Dr. Leah OH (56:27):
Yeah, so, so interesting. And I mean, we can
think about it, of course, thehuman humanistic perspective,
this is right to do foremployees, right. But then if
you don't want to, that's notyour, your lens, if we want to
look at this from a moremanagerial HR cost perspective,
reductions and turnover, right,maintain and retaining
(56:47):
employees. So I think, you know,any way we look at it, we can
see clear value to this workthat you're doing. So to be
continued. Yes.
Scott Shank (56:57):
Hey, thanks. Yes.
Dr. Leah OH (57:00):
So Scott, I have two final questions for you. As
you know, I'm the communicativeleader, we like to leave
listeners with pragmaticleadership or communication
tips. He was thinking, you know,you're a longtime listener,
first time guest. From from thatperspective, let's think of our
title leaders first. So what isthe tip advice or challenge you
(57:22):
would like to leave them with?
Scott Shank (57:24):
Wow. Um, so I'm not going to assume that I have
incredible technical competencein management. But I've read a
ton on leadership, I've been inleadership positions in
something that that I think, ismore important, that might often
get overlooked, because it's nota tactic is I would encourage,
(57:47):
titled managers to find someoneto talk to, you know, have a
person in your life, whetherit's like a formal coach that
you scheduled every two weeks,or if it's like another manager,
like someone who experiences thesimilar things, that you can
just spend 15 minutes, 20minutes, every now and then
talking about your experience. Ithink that is a form of
(58:10):
communication that I haven'tread a ton of articles about,
but I think it'd be reallyinteresting is the extent to
which managers have a a networkof similar peers with similar
responsibilities that they can,you know, talk shop with, in in
one of those meetings, I thinkit'd be fun, like, Wouldn't it
be fun managers to, to kind oftease out in five minutes, 10
(58:34):
minutes, like, wow, what aresome of the metaphors that have
that would describe or exemplifysome of these, maybe not the
approach, but some of thedifferent approaches over the
years that you've tried, in thisvery challenging task of getting
people to do their work to treateach other fairly, to be both
productive and supportive, andin all of the other things that
(58:57):
you can do to motivate them allof the things that you have? I'm
sure you've tried a lot. So Ihope this exploration of
metaphors might prompt some kindof fun, interesting, maybe even
funny conversations that youmight have with with other
managers.
Dr. Leah OH (59:14):
Yeah, I love that response. Got so and I was also
thinking even for, because weknow this being in that title
position, it can be lonely,we're not able there's certain
information we can't share withour team. And that that can be a
heavy burden. And so we havethat connection there. We can
access support. I was just askedI received an email asking for
(59:41):
an episode entitled you don'thave to do it alone. From the
managers perspective, this ideaof support, but I was also
thinking and really hard timesif you know, there's a extra
stressful season having thesemanagers being like, you know,
my team's being a bunch ofmonkeys right now. What's your
team being right? Could evenflip but in a way to let off
(01:00:01):
some pressure and to, you know,just connect over those shared
similarities. I love that idea,Scott. Yeah. No one has ever
made that recommendation on thecommunicative leader. So really
great insight. And
Scott Shank (01:00:15):
maybe like, if your audience wants to engage and
reach out, maybe we can flip thescript a little bit and ask what
metaphor for employee slashdirect reports like the, you
know, the some literature talksabout follower behavior or
followership? Yeah, whatmetaphors come to mind when you
(01:00:36):
think of those who lead thatcould live another interesting?
Dr. Leah OH (01:00:42):
Yeah, yeah. 100% to explore it from that
perspective. And so you know,what's coming next? My last
question. So we've talked aboutour formal titled leaders, what
about all our other employeesacross industries across ranks?
What advice tip or challengerelated to leadership? Or
communication? Do you want toleave them with?
Scott Shank (01:01:03):
Okay, so this, I would think, so say you have a
manager, you have no controlover who they are, you know, you
work for an organization, andyou don't get to choose who the
leader or the manager is. I, Iwould recommend in in, there's
some, this is another researcharea of interest for me, or how
(01:01:26):
leaders communicate how managerscommunicate to those they lead.
But I think there's less on howdo effective employees or
members or followers communicatewith their manager. And I think
often, there's the idea thatwhoever has the most status
needs to be the most proactive,like the responsibility for
(01:01:48):
managing relations. Yeah, what'sto them. But I've kind of I'm
tinkering around with themeasuring this, this idea called
the communication acumen thatthe employer the direct report
would have, where if you canlearn to understand like, what
your leader or manager is reallyabout? What are what are their
(01:02:09):
goals, what are they trying todo. And you can communicate in a
way that establishes consistencywith them. So if you understand,
you likely have preferredcommunication styles or
patterns, as does your manager,so if you can maybe take on some
(01:02:31):
of the proactivity ofunderstanding this, the way that
the manager prefers to receiveinformation prefers to share
information, and if you canunderstand like what they're
trying to do. And you can justshift a few things in, in how
you do your work to help yourmanager GET wins, I think you
(01:02:55):
will be surprised how it willtransform your relationship with
them. And you'll develop kind ofthe savvy, this kind of
communication, calm, or acumen,which is really good. Like
you're basically you're scanningand monitoring the environment
you're looking, how can youbehave and act in ways to not
only get your individualresponsibilities done, but to be
(01:03:19):
not only a team player, but onethat like says, hey, I want to
help my team and my manager whenthat is only going to benefit
you in the long run. So it's anarea that I think needs a little
bit more investigation, likewhat are people doing? Like,
does this but but yeah, I'mthinking from a communication
competence perspective, I'm so Ihave individual goals, but I
(01:03:44):
also want to be kind ofattentive and responsive to
those around me, so that I cangive my own goals while helping
them achieve their goals. And Ithink that mindset, I mean, just
think of what a refreshingchange of pace that would be. If
you if you become that personthat your manager is like, Oh,
my goodness, so refreshing.
Like, it's almost like you readmy mail, and you knew what I
(01:04:07):
needed. And you're actuallyhelping, you know, so that's, I
could go on a little bit more,but that's my, my two cents.
Dr. Leah OH (01:04:16):
Yeah. I love that he kind of becoming the manager
whisperer, the person who's thisultimate team player, and they
kind of molded that position forthemselves through their
communication. And thenrecognizing that, you know,
we're all better together.
Scott Shank (01:04:35):
Yeah. And to be honest, I think it'll result in
you the employer, the directreport, becoming more
influential within yourworkgroup. I agree. And yeah,
and developing the higher LMMax, which so many people Yeah,
love to have, you know.
Dr. Leah OH (01:04:52):
Exactly. Scott, thank you. Thank you. Thank you
for sharing your expertise forsharing your time you've left
Lois dinners with so manythoughtful and pragmatic tips to
make their work life what theywant it to be. Oh, well
Scott Shank (01:05:07):
thank you for having me. It's been so fun to
to connect and I can't wait tillwe can, you know, touch base and
hang out again.
Dr. Leah OH (01:05:15):
All right my friends. That wraps up our
conversation today. Until nexttime, communicate with intention
and lead with purpose. Lookingforward to chatting with you
again soon on the communicativeleader.
Today on the communicative leader, we welcome
(00:02):
Scott Shank who is a PhDcandidate at Michigan State
University. Scott uses bothqualitative and quantitative
approaches to understand andexplain the efficacy of leader
communication, social supportand social influence to enhance
or undermine newcomeradjustment, leader member
relationships and work groupperformance. In this episode, we
(00:24):
look at some of our recentresearch on manager metaphors.
Are you a lion, a coach or theanti Midas? And of course Scott
leaves us with concrete appliedleadership communication
takeaways. Hello, and welcome tothe communicative leader hosted
by me, Dr. Leah Omilion-Hodges.
My friends call me Dr. OH. I'm aProfessor of Communication and a
(00:45):
leadership communication expert,and the communicative leader.
We're working to make your worklife what you want it to be.
So, Scott, thank you for joiningus today on the communicative
leader. I am thrilled to haveyou and that's that even that is
(01:05):
an understatement. But before wedive into this fun conversation,
can you give us a littlebackground on yourself? Your
connection to leadershipcommunication?
Scott Shank (01:16):
Yeah, absolutely.
So, I have been studyingleadership communication for a
long time, I've been in variouspositions that have relied on
Leadership for quite a bit. Infact, I've even taken leadership
classes at Western MichiganUniversity with the one and only
Dr. Leah OH (01:37):
you don't say, yeah,
Scott Shank (01:40):
so it's, um, you know, you, I guess for the
audience's I had the thequestion of I love people, I
love interacting with people.
And I found that almost anygetting anything done requires
social influence. So I tend tobe very relational type of
person not liking to kind ofappeal to authority or to
(02:02):
position. So that has involvedfiguring out how do I
communicate to inspire people?
How do I communicate to motivatepeople, in most of my leadership
context, has been working withpeople in a more developmental
capacity. So I worked withcollege students, as a pastor
(02:23):
for many years. I teach collegecourses, I may work with
organizations, but most of it iswithin how do you help people
grow and develop into differentareas or competencies? So very
pragmatic, which is why I thinkI was drawn to some of the
courses you taught on persuasionand social influence, as well as
(02:45):
leadership from a communicationperspective.
Dr. Leah OH (02:49):
Yeah, right. And I love how in you've always done
the Scott, you've done this sowell in figuring out, okay, what
is the literature say? So youhave these kind of data driven
suggestions and a springboard,but you don't, you don't just
leave it there. Like it's I useit as a springboard to say, how
do I make these connections,more authentic and more genuine,
(03:11):
and what I really want them tobe and that's something I've
always admired your ability todo, and to do it so well.
Scott Shank (03:17):
Oh, thanks. I think just curiosity in the enjoyment
of solving problems. And
Dr. Leah OH (03:26):
yes, so speaking of tinkering, we've done a lot of
research together. And we foundsome pretty interesting, very
impactful findings. And onetoday, I'd like us to kind of
talk about in greater detail isthis recent publication on
evocative metaphors managers andemployees use to describe
(03:47):
managerial attempts at enactingleadership? Wow, that's a
mouthful. Yeah. So essentially,folks, we were looking at
metaphors and saying, Well, whatis your manager? And then what
does that make you? And viceversa? We asked managers, what
is your metaphor for managing?
What does that make your team?
So before we dive into this,what I think will be a really
(04:08):
colorful chat, I'd like to askyou a few questions with the
goal of leaving listeners withsome practical takeaways and to
kind of help them understand howwe're doing this theoretical
leadership communication work,but how it really can help them
in the workplace. So to start,can you kind of talk to us about
(04:30):
the importance of metaphors andmaybe how these can be more
helpful than just askingsomeone? A direct question?
Scott Shank (04:38):
I think one of the important things that metaphors
have to offer is it reallyfocuses your attention on a
specific area. So I'm talking tostudents about how a lot of
times theories are likemetaphors. We're saying this is
like that, or we're comparingthings. So if we say something
like this leader is like a Lion,you know what it does, it draws
(05:02):
our attention to all of the waysthat the person is like a lion.
But the thing about metaphors,it's, they're very insightful.
But they also can result insome, like, I don't know, you
could call it distortion,because it's, it's focusing our
attention on all of the ways themetaphor works. But we kind of
were backgrounding all of theways. I mean, I'm sure whatever
(05:25):
individual isn't entirely, likethe metaphor suggests. So I
really enjoy kind of the nuancethe insight that this type of
examination has to offer,because you get a lot of
creative responses. So somethingof research, you know, that I've
done is very, like, you know,measuring variable specifically
(05:48):
looking for patterns. But whenyou ask someone, hey, what's a
metaphor for your your managersapproach to leadership, and then
you just like quiet your mouth,and listen, it is fantastic, the
things that come out theexperiences that come to mind
that may not even be consciouslyarticulated before, but you
(06:08):
really get this kind of vividand nuanced understanding of how
they've experienced leadership.
Dr. Leah OH (06:14):
Yeah, you're right, because it's, it's so visual.
And a lot of these metaphorsare, like, hit you in a very
visceral way, right? When youthink about a manager who is a
lion, right, they're like, myfirst thought is, you know,
thinking about being in aenclosure with a lion and being
very, very fearful. But we couldalso flip that, and we'll think
(06:36):
about that later on, about how alion can be really protective.
So we have that employeeexperience, and we can really
feel what that employee isfeeling or trying to convey.
Yeah, excellent. So anotherthing that we know, and you've
kind of touched on this withyour responses, a lot of
(06:56):
research is very, based onvariables, we're looking at
outcomes, satisfaction,commitment, turnover. All
important. We know we're notknocking those, but it does
gloss over the complexity ofcommunication, the importance of
those, those interactions thatare part of being in a in an
(07:16):
organization. So when we thinkabout this, can you kind of
articulate to us why it'simportant that we look at this
process, the communicationinteractions, the relationships,
in addition to the behavioraloutcomes? Oh,
Scott Shank (07:30):
sure. Yeah, like, it's so important, I think the
behavioral outcomes and a lot oflike, quantitative research that
identifies key predictors, likeI like simplicity. So it's very
valuable knowing like, hey,focus on these key behaviors
that result in, you know,increased commitment or
satisfaction, or whatever it is,we'd like to predict. But that
(07:53):
doesn't give us kind of the thequality of experience. So I
think with, sometimes if youlook at I mean, you can look at
a process approach, using somemath and quantitative data, but
it involves having access to howthings change over time, which,
you know, research would love tohave, sometimes the easier way
(08:14):
to get at kind of, like,descriptions of the process of
how people communicate is simplyby asking them, you know, tell
us about your manager, tell usabout your relationship with
your manager, you know, describeto us, and granted, there's
like, you know, pros and cons toall forms of research. But I
think as we both appreciate theway that different approaches to
(08:37):
observing, understanding,explaining an area of study,
they're very complimentary. So Ithink this particular article
was unique in just how it shedlights and it kind of liven up a
lot of, you know, previousresearch that we've done, while
(08:57):
emphasizing, you know, the kindof more communicative
interactive, you get in some ofthese metaphors, how interaction
with a manager makes them feel alot of, you know, sentiment, I
would say, you know, like I kindof used by one that refer to
their manager as their distantcousin. Like, just think of all
(09:21):
meant, like, I never have wouldhave thought of this, but it
just leaves you with kind ofthis weight of pondering what
does that even mean and so richin so like, kind of, I don't
know, just it gives a little bitmore vividness to these like
relational things that don'talways get captured when we're
asking them to scale from one tofive. Yeah, I
Dr. Leah OH (09:45):
was. It's funny you say that I was just thinking of
the one to five scale and I waslike, okay, a distant cousin. Is
that going to be a two? Is thatgonna be a three? And certainly
quant I was I was said I wasraised as a quantitative scholar
because that's how it feelsright? I did. In most of my
training, all quantitative, andthen the very end started to
realize I needed to talk topeople to better understand what
(10:08):
these statistics were sayingwhat these patterns were saying.
And so you're right, we can'thave, we're not promoting one
over another. But recognizingthat there are, you know, huge
benefits to both. But in thisstudy, in particular, what we
would have gotten, if we justused a Likert, one through five,
(10:30):
one through seven scale to askabout your interactions with
your manager, or yourinteractions with your employees
was going to be really leavingus with a lot of questions. And
understanding what those trendswere. Right. So we're
understanding why we have thosetrends. Right. So yeah, so we
(10:51):
have like you said, sentimenthere.
Scott Shank (10:54):
Yeah. And to be honest, like, as I was going
back through our studies, itwould almost be fun to do this
again. Because you learn so muchby asking by the surprise of
what people describe their,their managers as and what that
means for them, because we alsoask them if your manager is from
(11:14):
blank, yeah, does that make youin the car? So getting kind of
that understanding of, you know,relationship to ally in her in a
relationship to the pilot? Youknow, I might be part of the
crew. I could be I think aperson pointed out the cargo
like, so. Yeah, really. You'reletting the person kind of speak
(11:36):
in kind of lead, where we'regoing so that it manages feeds
into the curiosity that we bothhave, which really made the
study fun. Yes.
Dr. Leah OH (11:47):
And Scott, can you remind everyone the metaphor
that we used as part of thetitle that came from the data?
Oh, remember?
Scott Shank (11:57):
Yeah. Someone out there referred to their manager
as the anti Midas, you know,King Midas, who everything that
he touched turned to gold within this case, their manager was
the anti Midas in as theydescribe everything they touch
turns to crap. So like, I mean,I was shocked, humoured, amused,
(12:18):
but you know, saddened becauseyou're like, Oh, my goodness.
Yeah. This is someone's, likegenuine experience. You know,
granted, maybe they were beingplayful. But I mean, there's
something to how they weredescribing, interact with in
their 100%.
Dr. Leah OH (12:35):
And do you remember they said, so my my managers,
the anti Midas right, everythingthey touch turns to crap. That
makes us right, the workgroup,this this participant in their
peers, I still remember thethrone upon which they sit?
Yeah. So I don't think we couldget more vivid than that in
(12:56):
terms of being able to helpsomeone to understand what it
feels like in that particularworkgroup from this person's
perspective.
Scott Shank (13:06):
Exactly. Wow.
Dr. Leah OH (13:08):
So this is this is a really nice segue, Scott. So
as a follow up, I'm wondering ifyou can help to explain and I
don't know, you probably getthis question a lot from folks
outside of communication. Iknow, it's one I field a lot.
But what is the communicativeview of leadership? Well, let's
start there. And then I then Ihave a follow up for that. So
(13:29):
first, how do we see leadershipslightly different than maybe
someone in management orpsychology or industrial and
organizational Psych? Yeah.
Scott Shank (13:39):
And I, I mean, I think we're not so much trying
to identify like, what specific,you know, traits does the leader
have that makes them stand out,or even like the extent to which
they have a formal title, youknow, select through
organizational history, you'vegot the formal structure of the
organization, but communicationscholars, when we started
(14:01):
looking at, like the, thecommunication networks, and lo
and behold, we find, wow,there's a formal structure, but
that's not how things get done.
So I love the contrast betweenlike a, a structure of
authority, and a structure ofinfluence, and being so
interested in social influence.
I tend to associatecommunicative leadership with
(14:26):
the ability to communicate tointeract strategically to use
social influence. And this couldI mean, there's a broad topic,
we just, you know, wrote achapter on framing together.
We'll get into but, you know,there are so many ways that a
communication can be leveragedin a variety of different
(14:48):
contacts. And a lot of it isreally context dependent. It
depends on the relationshipdepends on you know, the
organization or the units,culture climate. So I think to
me communicate to view is a bitmore complex. It's a bit more
reliant upon messages andmeaning in order to influence
(15:09):
people towards the goal. Ratherthan maybe position or authority
based leadership, maybeleadership that tries to
identify like the keycharacteristics of the leader.
We're very much interested inlike what a leader says and
does. And the, you know, theconsequences, both good and bad.
Dr. Leah OH (15:30):
Yeah, exactly. And a follow up, and you've kind of
touched on this too. So from acommunicative view, or
perspective, how do we expectsomeone's communication to
change when they move into thattitled leadership position?
Scott Shank (15:46):
Wow, this is a great question. Because I don't
know, like, I'm thinking back tomy own journey, when I went from
like, a very competentindividual performer, to now
having responsibility to likelead and influence people. And
you, you've just assume everyoneelse are just these competent
(16:07):
individual performer just like,committed the organization ready
to hit the ground running inthen you realize, oh, my
goodness, I don't think I havewhat it takes to motivate people
to do things that I thought werejust normal and good and
positive. I would say that theexpectations for how to
(16:28):
communicate drastically change.
Often I don't think there's alot of training in, let's talk
about how the relationship toyour peers is now fundamentally
altered now that you've receivedthis kind of promotion and
position, and how like, how youinteract with them is going to
change, they're going to look atyou differently, they're gonna
expect differently from you. Andnow, you know, advice, I think
(16:50):
sometimes is better taken from apeer. But now, there are many
ways I found that the positionof authority somehow got in the
way became like a speed bump, orstumbling block to the types of
influence that I previously had,when I was kind of working side
by side, not in every case. Sothat it's a new skill set. It's
(17:12):
like motivating, inspiringdirecting, learning how to not
only like create, orstrategically like structure
experience for the people youlead, but then to, to kind of
implement and to communicatewith them how to go about I
mean, it seems like it's nevernever ending. Yes. Or, I had the
(17:33):
satisfaction of just like, lookat what I did look at what I
contributed. But now, like, whatyou your contribution to an
organization isn't so easily.
Like, it's not as tangible. Youknow, and I think that's kind of
the challenge. A lot of it islike, how you communicate, so
(17:55):
that others, you know, arecontributing or looking what
they did? And I don't know, Icould ramble on, but it's a very
interesting kind of area in andI'm looking at some stuff on
like socializing, not newmembers, to organizations, but
new managers into our role. AndI think, you know, if this is
(18:16):
something your audience isinterested in, maybe give, give
her a shout out on, you know,what practically, we should be
looking at?
Dr. Leah OH (18:24):
Yeah, thank you.
Such a thoughtful response,Scott. Honestly, knowing you, I
would not expect anything elsethat I cannot, when I was
listening to you, the word Ikept thinking about was
responsibility. Right? So yourresponsibility with of course,
with the position but withcommunication changes, in in
really large ways. You almostflip it on your head. And I
(18:48):
think to especially someonewho's already in an
organization, there are so manyassumptions made. They know the
culture they've been here, theyhave these pre established
relationships. And we make themistake of assuming it's going
to be an easier transition. Andactually, I think folks coming
(19:08):
from the outside in, there are alot of a lot more latitude.
They're allotted a lot more. Oh,that's okay. You missed up to
your new you don't know. Wedon't recognize how hard
communicating in that new rolecan be and for all of the
variety of reasons that you'veyou've addressed. At home. Yeah,
thank you. And I love that ideaof doing a episode just that.
(19:33):
Okay. I'm a manager now. Now,what do I do? Yeah. So Scott,
we've talked about the impact ofmetaphors. we've chatted about
importance of looking atcommunication in the workplace.
So now let's look at the funstuff, the data. Can you walk us
through the variety of metaphorswe found and kind of how we how
(19:55):
we tried to make sense of them.
Scott Shank (20:00):
Yeah, I think well, first off, if I remember, the
first round of data collectionwere happened with them,
managers, practicing managers,titles, managers being
interviewed, you know, and Ithink there are 2527 or so
interviews, that was kind of thefirst we thought, this is really
interesting, right? So you havelike, some that, you know,
(20:23):
viewed themselves kind of likein control of things like a,
like a racecar driver, a pilot,others were like, felt helpless,
like, Time Bomb, like really?
What, what? Well, then, we hadsuch rich metaphors of those, we
thought, wouldn't it beinteresting to kind of compare
and contrast this? With whatmembers think, you know, so
(20:44):
unfortunately, we couldn't getlike their direct reports, that
would have been amazing. But wedid get a, a completely
different sample of people thatto describe the metaphors that
they would use to describe theirown managers, and what that how
that position them in life. So Iwas I found it very interesting
(21:07):
one, the variety, like I don't,I mean, there are some
commonalities. But we have likethe distant cousin that I
mentioned, my manager is a bumpon a log. And my manager is
like, a monkey trying to lead apack of wolves. Right, so some
of these are pretty, prettynegative. On the energetic dog,
(21:30):
there's one person thatdescribed their managers a kick,
Puppy yearning for life in apreemie. So this is very, very
different those to my ownconception, when I think of
managers, right, and not all ofthem. 100% Yeah, no, negative
from the members perspective. Iremember one person said, Oh, my
(21:54):
manager is the apple of my Idescribe them, or my, my manager
as a tree planted by a river.
And I mean, some of these reallyinspirational and motivated so
it really the contrast was funtrying to identify some some
patterns and some type of schemeto interpret these metaphors.
(22:18):
Were as well.
Dr. Leah OH (22:21):
Yeah, and I was I was just thinking of the one the
tree by the river, I rememberthen, you know, if that is the
manager, then this participantsaid they were they were able to
like they were the wet thebranches beneath branches. Yeah.
So like part and parcelsomething life giving me
(22:42):
something strong and sturdy isso different than that clumsy,
big, clumsy dog, or worse yet,the puppy who's yearning for for
affection and attention? Yeah,like you said, we saw the scope
of, of experiences. I think welooked at powerful managers,
(23:04):
empowered managers and powerlessmanagers. As a way to kind of,
to make sense of that. Yeah, sogo ahead. Oh,
Scott Shank (23:15):
yeah, one thing that kind of stood out is like,
we were asking, what's ametaphor for their approach to
leadership? Right. But it seemslike so many of them, we didn't
get approaches to leadership, wegot like, people, like we got
nouns we got descriptions of, ofthe person kind of exemplifying
who they they believe theirmanager to be, or who the
(23:37):
manager kind of saw themselves,right, like, so I think the the
metaphors did elicit somethingimportant, something that, that
maybe like, we didn't ponderenough on, you know, I think we
could go back and look at someof these things and really tease
out like, what does this mean,you know, and, and I think it'd
be interesting to get a group ofmanagers together in like a
(23:58):
focus group or not even a focusgroup, but in a conference, and
I think they would benefit andbe surprised as if they just
casually discussed you know,metaphors of leadership and the
implications for those things.
Dr. Leah OH (24:14):
Yeah, you are so right, Scott. And as always so
insightful. So as you said, weasked them what is your managers
approach? And as you justpointed out, they gave us noun
say, Give us who they are. And Ithink yeah, between my managers,
a coach or my managers, a memberof the KGB, that was what really
(24:34):
really stuck in my memory. Soyes, and I you know, what, a fun
dataset to revisit and continueto explore. So another juicy
question and I when I waswriting these questions, I was
laughing so like, of course, youknow, we really love leadership
communication work when I seethis as like juicy fun. But how
(24:56):
did the metaphors managers offerfor their own approach to
leading How did that differ thanthe employee data set? Hmm.
Scott Shank (25:06):
Well, if I, if I remember correctly, I don't know
that the managers were like, youknow, really, really positive,
and the members were really,really negative, I think there
was a kind of a blend infrequency of all three. And all
of a both of them kind of trackssimilarly with them, we did a
coding scheme of some of themreally kind of conveyed this
(25:28):
kind of powerful manager, somekind of this powerless or
helpless manager, and then somethat were more empowering, they
were kind of other focus. Ithink the the frequencies if we,
when we looked at, from themanager metaphors versus the
number metaphors, they werequite similar with, the majority
of them were kind of empowering,positive, like Coach, the
(25:52):
driver, like, like a very kindof motivating metaphors for
management. But there were, youknow, a good hefty number that
were more negative that werepowerful and power lists. So I
don't think that we could havejust looked at these in terms of
positive or negative, butteasing out like, there are some
differences between say, even,like powerful, so like, the
(26:15):
lion. And maybe this kind ofgets into another question. But
like, the lion is a completelydifferent metaphor, depending if
like the co workers and themembers are the Cubs that the
lion is protecting, or the preythat the lion is facing. Right?
So you got a little bit of thatnuanced from getting these two
(26:36):
perspectives in granted, itwould be great to like, do an a
replicate the study by askingthe managers direct reports. So
we could, like they're talkingabout the same person in it. But
I wouldn't be surprised if theseperceptions were different,
right? So the way the managersees certainly is not
(26:57):
necessarily the same as the waythat one member sees them, or
multiple member sees them. Orthere may even be some like,
variety within their work groupon how like one member season
really positively, but theanother person doesn't based
upon those communicationexchanges, interactions, etc.
Dr. Leah OH (27:18):
Yeah, right.
Because we think about, exactly,so someone who likes tough love,
someone who's like, give me thatconstructive criticism, please
be very direct to this is what Ineed. This is how I can make
sense of it and respond is sodifferent than another person
who has a really hard time withdirect either direct
communication, with feedbackpresented in certain ways. So I
(27:40):
think one employee might say,This is my coach, this is a
person who's there on thesideline cheering for me letting
me know when I need to pivot.
And another person who's like,this is my, this is my critic,
or this is a dictator. Right?
Even like you're saying, samemanager. So yeah, you hit on so
many important things here,because I think you're right,
(28:03):
this data set, when we lookedat, we looked at the manager
first, and then we had theemployee data. We're like, Whoa,
this is tracking in a verysimilar ways. And I don't, I
don't know that I expected that.
And as you hinted on, we havethis section in the man in the
publication, same but different,and you kind of talked about
(28:26):
that lion. And I remember whenwe are going through and coding
and making sense of the lion. Sotypically, when we're doing this
qualitative work, and we'recoding, right, if we see lion,
it's going to be coded the same.
But in this in this data set, itwas really wildly different for
many of these. So can you talkto us about how some have used
that same metaphor, but todescribe really different
(28:49):
employee experiences?
Scott Shank (28:53):
Yeah, absolutely.
So the lion is probably the moststark because the contrast
between the lions cubs in likethe maternal instinct of a
manager protecting the Cubsproviding for the cubs in the
safety is the complete oppositeof the relation to a lion as
being the prey that has toalways be on guard. I mean, I
think it like those like, youknow, willed abuse, that's like,
(29:16):
just reacting whenever thepresence of the manager comes
around, they're perked up andthey're getting ready to run.
But that wasn't the onlydifference. There was like the
pilot, where some responses dothe co workers and the team is
the CO pilots or the flightattendants. Whereas others
describe the the members ascargo, or in one case,
(29:41):
casualties implying a planecrash. So you really did see
that it wasn't like one metaphorwas entirely good, or entirely
bad, but the, the meaningassociated with the new
associations were based onexperience. instance, with the
individual. So some people lovethe structure of like a sergeant
(30:04):
or Colonel, you know,supportive, they were
protective, they were organized,where then others described a
more as like power hungrydictators. So yeah, a parent
even, you know, like the parentas like a leader, some people
viewed the parent in thesepositive, nurturing caring ways.
Whereas others likecondescending and controlling,
(30:25):
like, just like a parent,they're inhibiting my autonomy
or contrast, just like a goodparent, you know, they're,
they're like, guiding me andlike setting me up for learning
or whatever. So I was a littlewhile interested to find that,
even though the same word ormetaphor is being used, it
really is grounded in theexperience with that person to
(30:48):
determine what that associationis. And again, it kind of points
out like, you know, metaphors,they draw our attention to some
things, but then kind ofbackground other things. So
there's certain parts of, youknow, these different metaphors
that are kind of become a littlebit more salient or more
emphasized, than others, youknow, made it take a little bit
(31:10):
more time kind of going throughthis data, like, what do we have
here? But really, as we started,like, going through and going
through it again, and in pickingup things like whoa, like this,
this is really interesting.
Yeah, yeah. And
Dr. Leah OH (31:26):
I love that you brought up the pilot example,
because, again, that, okay, mymanager is like a pilot, but I'm
part of the crew, or I'm aflight attendant, and we see we
work together, we're on the sameteam. And then we switch my
manager as a pilot, but I'mcargo, okay, I'm along for the
ride. I've lost my agencyautonomy, but not necessarily
(31:46):
dangerous, then when I'm acasualty, right? Managers
literally lead me to, you know,to mayhem. So, yeah, as you
point out how powerful metaphorscan be, and helping us to
understand someone else'sexperience. So, you know, for
(32:07):
me, this is, I love behavioralresearch, I love variables. I
love doing the statistics andlooking at those patterns. But
there is something that we domess when we don't look at these
interactions at this particularlevel, and through a qualitative
lens.
Scott Shank (32:25):
Yeah, and I think part of the fun with this was,
it helped us to think like we'retrying to, like, how do you make
sense of this? Yeah.
Dr. Leah OH (32:34):
Yeah.
Scott Shank (32:35):
You know, cuz being familiar with like different
leadership theories anddifferent approaches. I mean, I
find both of us, we're stilltrying to identify some type of
patterns or models, which leadto a little bit later. But you
know, the the nice thing about,you know, things can get messy
when we're looking for thingsemerge from the ground up. But
(32:56):
in some cases, if, if, if ithappens to match the data,
things that emerge might helpyou realize, ooh, I think we
found a model that we can nowtest, if this is translate to
different contexts. If we did itagain, would we find similar
results? So again, I am ramblingnow. But I, I think this is was
(33:19):
great for inspiring somedifferent types of thinking
regarding like Leadership Theoryand Practice and like, wow,
like, how do I apply priorknowledge in light of pictures
I'm getting from this data.
Exactly.
Dr. Leah OH (33:36):
And that is a perfect lead on to this next
question is one thing that I'mreally proud of in this work
that we did in this publicationwhen we're thinking about the
discussion. So non academicfolks or discussion, I always
think about this is how we tieit together with a nice bow, we
returned to our introduction,when we say, Hey, this is why
(33:56):
it's important. Here's theproblem that we're addressing,
or here's the gap we're tryingto fill, we return to the
scholarly literature to say thisis what's been done, that this
is how what we've done hasincreased what we know are
complicated what we know orchanged what we know. So these
discussions, we typically willlook at them theoretically,
(34:17):
again to speak to the scholarlyliterature. But then also
pragmatically, what does thismean for folks in organizations,
for our managers out there forour employees out there? And
Scott, when we got to this, youhad this ingenious idea of how
to map the metaphors and wecreated a table and we looked at
(34:37):
how the metaphor was used todescribe power over people and
power over environment, right?
We could be high or low on onboth of those. So in for us,
this became a way to understandthose fundamental differences in
these metaphors and what thismight mean for this type of
enactment of leadership andcommunication. So can you to
(34:58):
talk to us about this that, youknow, the power over people and
power over environment, what isthis mean for employees? Sure.
Scott Shank (35:07):
And this was kind of my attempt of just trying to,
like I said, I like problemsolving. I like figuring out
puzzles. So this was an attemptto, like, how can we make sense
of these things, because on theone hand, leaders and members
both desired a powerful leader.
But on the other hand, it waskind of like, there were
contingencies on like how thatpower was used, whether or not
(35:29):
you admired the leader, orwhether or not you were afraid
of the leader. So this was kindof like, an easy to buy to. So
we've all encountered a leaderor manager that uses their power
to, you know, control,potentially command people,
right? The Dictator, thedictator, leadership, I mean, we
(35:52):
don't know that anyone likes it,I don't know anyone likes
performing it, but sometimes,like things need to get done. So
it does, as you know, kind oflike a go to some people will
rely on position. Or some peoplemight rely on Karen's charisma,
but the focus of the leadershipis getting people to do what
they want. But then there aresome people that that weren't as
(36:15):
interested in that. And I kindof from my own past, I've kind
of teetered between these high,low, high low in my own
leadership styles andapproaches, where sometimes you
can structure the environment,or sometimes you can stage
experiences, or you can use yourexpertise, in order to initiate
(36:38):
structure, how some, you know,leadership behaviors might refer
to it, where you're more kind ofusing your power over the
environment, to set things up sothat people can do their work.
You know, you're you're plowingthe way getting rid of obstacles
and things, but you're not somuch, you know, using social
(36:59):
influence or communicating withpeople. And I think both of
these have potent effects,right, we can think of a leader
that relies on high power overpeople and social influence for
high, you know, almost likethat. Strategic Systems
Engineer, that is content to bein the background, you might not
even know they're there. Butthey're coordinating and
(37:22):
orchestrating the whole thing.
So in the low low, like a kindof a laissez faire, a monkey
leading a pack of wolves.
Example we put under that, like,yeah, they're there, I mean,
maybe less interesting. Or maybemore interesting, but we kind of
just dismiss, probably notdesirable. So let's move on to
(37:43):
what's
Dr. Leah OH (37:45):
going to be so successful. Yeah,
Scott Shank (37:48):
to be as successful as a monkey leading a pack of
wolves, maybe you need to exitfor a time and in regroup. But
then that the high power overpeople with high power over
environment, there seem to besome like a, like the the
athletic coach, or an orchestraconductor, that seemed to have
expertise, and seemed to have anability to coordinate systems to
(38:11):
coordinate that knew theenvironment. So a coach knows
the rules of the game, hasdeveloped strategies, has
watched film of the other teamknows the situation. And I think
a coach is admired because oftheir acumen in taking command
over the situation, but alsoknowing where to put people
(38:31):
knowing how to use. So that waskind of some of the thinking
behind this, of course, you andI, we have to put the most that
high high box, we have to callit communicative leadership,
because,
Dr. Leah OH (38:43):
of course, he's got, you know, we're
Scott Shank (38:47):
just some fans of little things. But I think, to
get at the heart of what we'retrying to do here, explaining
some of the differences betweena parent that says like, the
parent that has no power over,you know, say, the situation,
(39:08):
the peer group in his only justtrying to direct the individual
might come off as like, youknow, constraining or like
controlling, but you know,there's a parent that might
think, you know, what does mychild need to be successful? And
they might set the child up. Imean, you don't want too much
you don't want to like just I'veheard the phrase lawnmower
(39:29):
parent where you just, you know,mow down a path to go. Yeah, but
but I think by having someexpertise, having some influence
both over environment and overpeople in a more balanced and
constructive way. Seems to belike, I don't think a lot of
employees or members have aproblem with leaders and
(39:52):
managers using power. I thinkit's expected, but it seems to
be in a more balanced way in amore constructive way. And I
just the things that stood outto me were, how some of the
leaders were admired. And I knowjust I'm interpreting this
through my own experiences. Idon't necessarily like when
people have power over me. Butwhen they take command over the
(40:15):
situation, right, don't we justlook up to people that maybe in
adversity, they appear on faith?
I have uncertainty. I don't knowwhat's going on. But you look at
the manager, and it just appearslike, they they're not
concerned, because they're like,no, no, I got this, this
situation and here before. Andso I think like, kind of the
interplay between those two, Idon't know that we did. You
(40:39):
know, I don't know that we did athorough, you know, unpacking of
this. There's there's to thinkabout, but that kind of goes
into the thinking of what what Ihad in mind when we're
discussing it and trying to mapit out. Yeah, yeah, certainly
Dr. Leah OH (40:56):
another follow up.
And I think when you weretalking, I was thinking about
the communication competencerequired for someone in that
high high quadrant, right thansomeone who can power over
people. Again, you we can thinkabout it in so many different
ways. But with the positive andI love your the coach analogy
that you test out there, it'srecognizing, because of my
(41:18):
experience, because I've I knowthis game, because I've I've
studied the other team and thesedifferent strategies. And
because I know my people, soWell, I know I can move this
person to this position, andgive them a little time, and
they're probably going to grow.
And if it doesn't fit, they'regoing to be okay, if I move them
back and recognizing anotherplayer, no, gotta leave them
(41:41):
right there, this is what'sgoing to be best for them. And
so that's, that's a reallyhelpful and healthy way of
looking at power over peoplethrough communication. I think
you're right, your communicationtoo, if we want to exercise
power over an environment, wehave to be an incredibly complex
(42:01):
communicator. So probably meansconnecting across departments,
it means being able to thinkstrategically about the
resources we need and how wewant to use them and
communicating that vision in apersuasive way, in a compelling
way. So again, I think it justreally highlights those in
(42:22):
managerial, you know, titleleadership positions, that
communication competence, isthat ongoing skill, we have to
continue to grow and to hone andto, to work on because it's just
going to help us be moresuccessful. Yeah. So Scott, with
this, considering this work, youknow, what are some practical
(42:45):
suggestions for Title leaders?
And is there a particularmetaphor that they should strive
for? That is better thananother?
Scott Shank (42:54):
No, that's a good question. And I think I could go
a variety of differentdirections. In, I think, first
thing that comes to mind was nowthat we get into practical
suggestions. So now we're intothe world of the manager, where
they are asked slash required towear a lot of hats, they
(43:15):
probably don't have near theamount of time that they would
wish to kind of sit back likewe're doing just let's reflect
on, you know, approach.
Metaphors would probably begreat, too. But most managers
that I know and interact withtime is their friend, they have
a series of meetings, they havelots too much information, not
enough time to process it.
(43:37):
They're making decisions,they're doing a lot of things.
So first off, hats off to all ofyou managers that are depressed,
or busy doing it. So with thatin mind, I'm going to try to
make practical suggestions thatare less like, you know, oh, my
goodness, look at theseacademics talking. So I'll try
that. Exactly. Yeah, they justdon't know. So I think one thing
(44:02):
that I think a manager shouldwalk away, or maybe they already
know this, there is not oneideal metaphor for leadership.
So I know lots of books thatI've read from popular press,
they're like, tried to promote acertain style or, or here's some
helpful, and I spent a couple ofyears trying in search of my
ideal leadership type or myideal forms of leadership. And
(44:26):
I'm just not so sure one exists.
I think you could be aneffective bear. You can be an
effective doctor, you could bean effective pilot. You could be
I mean, huh, maybe like, maybeeven an effective monkey once
you learn how to pack of wolves.
Exactly. Yeah. So I not gettingcaught up on what's the ideal,
(44:48):
but looking at thingspractically in terms of how am I
communicating with people andhow, what is their experience
with these interactions. So onething that stood out To me is,
you know, if you're focusing on,what's my ideal form of
leadership? And maybe if youwere to answer the question,
(45:09):
what metaphor is your bestrepresents your approach to
leadership? I mean, this is agood exercise, but you might
find these are very aspirationaland ideals. To note that, to ask
yourself the question, I wonderhow my, you know, my direct
reports, would describe myapproach to leadership, it might
(45:31):
be the case that they have noidea. They're not describing
your approach to leadership,they're just creating some broad
picture of who you are basedupon the positive or negative
experiences they've had withyou. So for me, like I think, if
you draw attention to the simplequestions of like, is how is my
(45:55):
desired approach to leadership?
Would my direct reports view meas doing that or doing something
different? I mean, that could beinteresting, you know,
conversation? Yeah, for sure.
And then the other thing is,like, again, I don't think
there's an ideal form ofleadership, but narrowing things
down to how am I communicating.
And it doesn't mean that youhave to communicate more, in
(46:20):
this kind of this is like adifferent topic. But some other
areas of research I'm interestedin is the calibration of
communication. Because when welooked at like, just more or
less, we don't under we don'tget at whether or not there's
like a sweet spot. You know,communication is good to a
(46:40):
point, but then too much of agood thing might not be
worthwhile. So I think there'slots of things in leadership,
that maybe it'd be worthwhilefor managers to think, how much
is the right amount? In additionto maybe like, the looking at
these metaphors in terms of howtheir self understanding might
(47:01):
be similar or different, or evendifferent among the people they
lead, you know, they're vieweddifferently and asking, like,
why might that be? You know, Ithink those get I tried to be
concrete, but they're not goingto like reflecting on that. Of
course.
Dr. Leah OH (47:19):
No, you're right. I mean, because there's just so
many, so many tangible, helpfulsuggestions we could pull from
here. And I love the idea thatyou, you know, I think raising
up that idea of what would myWhat would my team say? What
would their man, what wouldtheir metaphor be? And is that
(47:39):
something that I'm striving for?
Is it something that I feel goodabout? And as you noted, I don't
think I think the number onequestion I'm asked is a
leadership communication scholarfrom, you know, people at
soccer, the grocery store familymembers is like, what is the
best leader, what what type ofstyle should I be and like, not
and you should be a scoutleader, you should be a leader,
like you need to lean into thebest parts of your your natural
(48:04):
abilities, and figuring out, youknow, what are my strengths?
What are areas for improvement,because then we have
authenticity, right? We aregenuine, because when we are
trying to act like a Democraticleader, if that's not ours, or
it's our interpretation of it,there is an ick factor, right?
(48:24):
Because our people know thatthis just doesn't feel quite
right. Right. So yeah, thank youfor touching on all of that. And
you're right, that Goldilockslevel of communication is a hard
one to find. But the more timewe spend with people we
recognize, okay, this personneeds a little bit more. This is
this equips them to be the bestemployee they can in this role.
(48:47):
And there are others I'mthinking of John's work where he
found the higher your leadermember relationship, often you
have less communicatecommunicative exchanges, because
you understand each other,you're working from the same
shared space of knowing so yeah.
All right. Thank you, Scott. Sonow I want to shift gears. So we
(49:07):
spent a lot of time talkingabout our manager metaphor
publication. And now I want tolook at what the work that
you're doing as you finish yourPhD. So can you tell us in
layman's terms, what you'reexploring?
Scott Shank (49:20):
Sure. So I Curiosity has led me on a
variety of topics. And as youknow, the socialization of new
members to organizations issomething I've long been
fascinated with. It has all ofthe elements of growth and
development of adjustment ofcommunication. So that's an area
(49:41):
that I've been honing in on in alot of past work, past work, the
audience might know, has beeninterested in how organizations
kind of structure the experienceof new employees. So we think of
onboarding. You think of thoseearly, you know, trainings those
early things. But what We'relooking at in some some of the
(50:02):
earliest essays onsocialization. So like in 1960s,
Bremen Wheeler talked about theimportance of when a new member
that's exposed to role modelsfrom the work group that they'll
be working with. And although Ithink many have noted that you
know, really it's the day to dayworkgroup that exerts a lot of
(50:24):
influence to help a personadjust and socialize to the the
norms and practices that theyneed to learn. A lot of the
research has looked at what doesthe organization doing are
complimented that with theindividual newcomer? How does
like their proactivity theextent to which they go about
(50:46):
seeking information and things?
How does. So what we're lookingto do is extend that to focus in
on the everyday workgroup. So ifyou go to work, chances are the
HR department isn't shaping yournorms, but it's the
Dr. Leah OH (51:04):
really hope they aren't like, what is going on?
Scott Shank (51:07):
Yeah, they gave you some information, they help
orient checks to theorganization, providing
information about the history,the culture, you know, filling
out those forms for like gettingyour benefits in order and like
all of the things that need totake place before you start your
job. But when you're actuallydoing your job, that's such a
(51:28):
rich context for social learningfrom role modeling. And I think
to like, let's face it, like ifwe have pressure to get things
done, it likely may come fromthe peers that we're working
with. So I know that's it's alittle bit broad, I won't get
into the technical details. Butto sum up, I guess I'm
interested in both that workgroup as the context that new
(51:52):
people's new members oforganizations kind of grow and
adjust. And also, the kind ofthe influences that that
Workgroup has like, whether it'slike normative social influence,
whether they're usinginformation or communication,
like just kind of, that's kindof the ballpark with which I'm
(52:12):
playing.
Dr. Leah OH (52:14):
Yeah, and so important, because like you
said, we think aboutsocialization, when you think
about onboarding does that like,one day, two days, three days,
maybe tops, and then go ahead,you are ready to spread your
wings and fly? I mean, theresearch that I love leader
member relationships, peerrelationships at work group is
(52:35):
so pivotal in shaping what workfeels like, right? So I love
that you are you're going toexplore that entry in that
perspective. Because again,we're we kind of act like it
happens in a silo, this HR silo,and then we are like, No, we're
good. And so really, reallyimportant contributions to the
(52:57):
literature. And then the thetakeaway. So that's my next
question is the follow up. Sotell us why this is important.
And what takeaway lessons youthink could come from this that
would help employees in veryreal ways? Yeah.
Scott Shank (53:14):
So I think one, it's important to just simply
answer the question, does thesocialization of a new member,
does it is it differentdepending on the work group that
they're part of? So if you havea really high performing and
supportive work group, where ifyou have kind of a low
performing, or maybe a highperforming very low supportive
(53:34):
group, that experience is goingto be different? So that's one
way like, how much does itmatter? Because we know that
sometimes people will, willthrive because of their
individual kind of, you know,proactivity that go get them? So
maybe, if you're a really highengaged and proactive person, it
may not matter as much for like,if you're looking to take
(53:56):
someone who is just learning,and but you want to socialize
them, so that they become reallyhigh performing. Maybe this is
more relevant to that. And thenthe second question is, what
type of communication are theygoing to experience that really
makes the difference? So this iswhere I'm looking at. This, like
(54:18):
kind of a simple framework thatI used to use when I was a
leader did a lot of mentoring.
And a lot of coordinating ofdifferent groups in what I tried
to look at were these threeaspects of like challenge,
feedback and support. So I'mquite agree. And I think you'll
appreciate this from like theelinext standpoint, because
(54:38):
you're interacting withdifferent people that all have
various thresholds of challenge.
So like, you can't challengeeveryone the same. You can't.
Everyone doesn't need the sameamount of feedback for support.
So like you mentioned, if like aperson's transferring in, they
have different needs than that.
A person who just graduatedcollege in his integrating into
(55:01):
their first time career typejob. So I'm interested like what
type of messages what type ofcommunication challenges a
newcomer a little bit beyondtheir comfort zone? Maybe like
messages that convey highstandards or accountability for
things along that camp. But thendoes the does the new member to
(55:23):
what extent do they have qualityfeedback from members of their
work, to let them know howthey're doing, where they're
standing, how they could grow?
And then the third, I mean,social support becomes such an
important part, especially inthese uncertain environments
where people have to learn,right there already. I mean,
(55:46):
many new members are already alittle hesitant. They're a
little tentative, they don'twant to be perceived or viewed
as being less competent. Theywant to prove that they can do
it. So a workgroup that conveyssupportive messages. Those are
kind of my my three ingredients,so to speak. Yeah. Well, we'll
see. Well, we'll find out how tomeasure them. We will we'll look
(56:07):
at them, and we'll see if Yeah,is there any difference between
workgroups within the sameorganization? And is, are there
some commonalities that like,hey, generally speaking, you
know, these, these three thingswill help facilitate newcomers
learning and adjustment to theirrole?
Dr. Leah OH (56:27):
Yeah, so, so interesting. And I mean, we can
think about it, of course, thehuman humanistic perspective,
this is right to do foremployees, right. But then if
you don't want to, that's notyour, your lens, if we want to
look at this from a moremanagerial HR cost perspective,
reductions and turnover, right,maintain and retaining
(56:47):
employees. So I think, you know,any way we look at it, we can
see clear value to this workthat you're doing. So to be
continued. Yes.
Scott Shank (56:57):
Hey, thanks. Yes.
Dr. Leah OH (57:00):
So Scott, I have two final questions for you. As
you know, I'm the communicativeleader, we like to leave
listeners with pragmaticleadership or communication
tips. He was thinking, you know,you're a longtime listener,
first time guest. From from thatperspective, let's think of our
title leaders first. So what isthe tip advice or challenge you
(57:22):
would like to leave them with?
Scott Shank (57:24):
Wow. Um, so I'm not going to assume that I have
incredible technical competencein management. But I've read a
ton on leadership, I've been inleadership positions in
something that that I think, ismore important, that might often
get overlooked, because it's nota tactic is I would encourage,
(57:47):
titled managers to find someoneto talk to, you know, have a
person in your life, whetherit's like a formal coach that
you scheduled every two weeks,or if it's like another manager,
like someone who experiences thesimilar things, that you can
just spend 15 minutes, 20minutes, every now and then
talking about your experience. Ithink that is a form of
(58:10):
communication that I haven'tread a ton of articles about,
but I think it'd be reallyinteresting is the extent to
which managers have a a networkof similar peers with similar
responsibilities that they can,you know, talk shop with, in in
one of those meetings, I thinkit'd be fun, like, Wouldn't it
be fun managers to, to kind oftease out in five minutes, 10
(58:34):
minutes, like, wow, what aresome of the metaphors that have
that would describe or exemplifysome of these, maybe not the
approach, but some of thedifferent approaches over the
years that you've tried, in thisvery challenging task of getting
people to do their work to treateach other fairly, to be both
productive and supportive, andin all of the other things that
(58:57):
you can do to motivate them allof the things that you have? I'm
sure you've tried a lot. So Ihope this exploration of
metaphors might prompt some kindof fun, interesting, maybe even
funny conversations that youmight have with with other
managers.
Dr. Leah OH (59:14):
Yeah, I love that response. Got so and I was also
thinking even for, because weknow this being in that title
position, it can be lonely,we're not able there's certain
information we can't share withour team. And that that can be a
heavy burden. And so we havethat connection there. We can
access support. I was just askedI received an email asking for
(59:41):
an episode entitled you don'thave to do it alone. From the
managers perspective, this ideaof support, but I was also
thinking and really hard timesif you know, there's a extra
stressful season having thesemanagers being like, you know,
my team's being a bunch ofmonkeys right now. What's your
team being right? Could evenflip but in a way to let off
(01:00:01):
some pressure and to, you know,just connect over those shared
similarities. I love that idea,Scott. Yeah. No one has ever
made that recommendation on thecommunicative leader. So really
great insight. And
Scott Shank (01:00:15):
maybe like, if your audience wants to engage and
reach out, maybe we can flip thescript a little bit and ask what
metaphor for employee slashdirect reports like the, you
know, the some literature talksabout follower behavior or
followership? Yeah, whatmetaphors come to mind when you
(01:00:36):
think of those who lead thatcould live another interesting?
Dr. Leah OH (01:00:42):
Yeah, yeah. 100% to explore it from that
perspective. And so you know,what's coming next? My last
question. So we've talked aboutour formal titled leaders, what
about all our other employeesacross industries across ranks?
What advice tip or challengerelated to leadership? Or
communication? Do you want toleave them with?
Scott Shank (01:01:03):
Okay, so this, I would think, so say you have a
manager, you have no controlover who they are, you know, you
work for an organization, andyou don't get to choose who the
leader or the manager is. I, Iwould recommend in in, there's
some, this is another researcharea of interest for me, or how
(01:01:26):
leaders communicate how managerscommunicate to those they lead.
But I think there's less on howdo effective employees or
members or followers communicatewith their manager. And I think
often, there's the idea thatwhoever has the most status
needs to be the most proactive,like the responsibility for
(01:01:48):
managing relations. Yeah, what'sto them. But I've kind of I'm
tinkering around with themeasuring this, this idea called
the communication acumen thatthe employer the direct report
would have, where if you canlearn to understand like, what
your leader or manager is reallyabout? What are what are their
(01:02:09):
goals, what are they trying todo. And you can communicate in a
way that establishes consistencywith them. So if you understand,
you likely have preferredcommunication styles or
patterns, as does your manager,so if you can maybe take on some
(01:02:31):
of the proactivity ofunderstanding this, the way that
the manager prefers to receiveinformation prefers to share
information, and if you canunderstand like what they're
trying to do. And you can justshift a few things in, in how
you do your work to help yourmanager GET wins, I think you
(01:02:55):
will be surprised how it willtransform your relationship with
them. And you'll develop kind ofthe savvy, this kind of
communication, calm, or acumen,which is really good. Like
you're basically you're scanningand monitoring the environment
you're looking, how can youbehave and act in ways to not
only get your individualresponsibilities done, but to be
(01:03:19):
not only a team player, but onethat like says, hey, I want to
help my team and my manager whenthat is only going to benefit
you in the long run. So it's anarea that I think needs a little
bit more investigation, likewhat are people doing? Like,
does this but but yeah, I'mthinking from a communication
competence perspective, I'm so Ihave individual goals, but I
(01:03:44):
also want to be kind ofattentive and responsive to
those around me, so that I cangive my own goals while helping
them achieve their goals. And Ithink that mindset, I mean, just
think of what a refreshingchange of pace that would be. If
you if you become that personthat your manager is like, Oh,
my goodness, so refreshing.
Like, it's almost like you readmy mail, and you knew what I
(01:04:07):
needed. And you're actuallyhelping, you know, so that's, I
could go on a little bit more,but that's my, my two cents.
Dr. Leah OH (01:04:16):
Yeah. I love that he kind of becoming the manager
whisperer, the person who's thisultimate team player, and they
kind of molded that position forthemselves through their
communication. And thenrecognizing that, you know,
we're all better together.
Scott Shank (01:04:35):
Yeah. And to be honest, I think it'll result in
you the employer, the directreport, becoming more
influential within yourworkgroup. I agree. And yeah,
and developing the higher LMMax, which so many people Yeah,
love to have, you know.
Dr. Leah OH (01:04:52):
Exactly. Scott, thank you. Thank you. Thank you
for sharing your expertise forsharing your time you've left
Lois dinners with so manythoughtful and pragmatic tips to
make their work life what theywant it to be. Oh, well
Scott Shank (01:05:07):
thank you for having me. It's been so fun to
to connect and I can't wait tillwe can, you know, touch base and
hang out again.
Dr. Leah OH (01:05:15):
All right my friends. That wraps up our
conversation today. Until nexttime, communicate with intention
and lead with purpose. Lookingforward to chatting with you
again soon on the communicativeleader.
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