How “Permission Leadership” Breeds The Fiercest Of All Loyalties
In business and politics
On my first day of work as a young upstart, a colleague pulled me into a conference room to warn me about the company’s unofficial rules.
“Do everything by the book,” he said. “Keep your mouth shut in meetings, and don’t volunteer any brilliant ideas unless you’re given explicit permission.”
The culture at this revered insurance company was one of subservience. A novel idea could land you on the boss’s shit list. Too many of them would get you fired.
But then, fraud hit.
The cultural distaste for creativity and new ideas led to technological inadequacies, leaving us vulnerable to unscrupulous employees.
A management shakeup ensued, and a new boss took over — an outsider who tasked us to come up with solutions.
A week into his tenure, he demanded solutions. None came. We all thought we’d get in trouble since we had never been permitted to share our thoughts before. Slowly, over the next few weeks, we’d throw out ideas, just to gauge the enemy fire.
Some of our novel concepts were terrible, but nobody got in trouble. Instead, he demanded more of them. He even sanctioned a few experiments, some of which failed. Still…
