Don’t be quick to condemn bosses who yell

Head coach Tom Izzo of the Michigan State Spartans yells from the bench. Elite coaches worldwide are notorious for yelling at their talented athletes. They raise their voices to command attention and results, and they indeed inspire great performances and even greater loyalty. PHOTO/FILE 

In Summary

• Harvard Business School recently published a case study that explored the leadership style of Sir Alex Ferguson, Manchester United’s recently retired manager and the most successful coach in the history of the English Premier League.
• Ferguson was a fantastic leader and motivator. However, he was also particularly famous for his “hair dryer treatment”. When Ferguson was angry with his players, he shouted at them with such force and intensity that they felt as if they had a hair dryer blowing directly at their faces.

By NYT
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Steve Jobs, Martha Stewart, Bill Gates, and Jack Welch: All of these leaders are, or were, known for being successful, visionary, competitive and demanding.

And each has a well-deserved reputation for raising his or her voice. Doing so was an integral part of their leadership and management styles.

Is that bad? Is that a flaw?

Harvard Business School recently published a case study that explored the leadership style of Sir Alex Ferguson, Manchester United’s recently retired manager and the most successful coach in the history of the English Premier League.

Ferguson was a fantastic leader and motivator. However, he was also particularly famous for his “hair dryer treatment”.

When Ferguson was angry with his players, he shouted at them with such force and intensity that they felt as if they had a hair dryer blowing directly at their faces.
 Does that make his leadership less worthy of study and emulation?

HIGH DECIBEL TRAINING

Of course, sports belong to a unique category. Elite coaches worldwide are notorious for yelling at their talented athletes. They raise their voices to command attention and results, and they indeed inspire great performances and even greater loyalty.

High-decibel intensity is also found in training for military special forces. Yelling is intrinsic to the elite military culture. It’s expected.

But perhaps the inherent physicality and emotional stresses involved in sports and the military make yelling more acceptable than it is in more creative endeavours.

But wait: Even the seemingly genteel world of classical music evokes clashes other than cymbals.

Some of the world’s best and most highly regarded conductors, such as Arturo Toscanini, are famous for raising their voices even higher than their batons.

There’s surely never been a shortage of film and theatre directors who emphatically raise their voices to raise the level of performance among their actors and crew.

Nobel laureate Ernest Rutherford was a force of nature who rarely hesitated to firmly and loudly make his questions and concerns known during his astonishingly successful tenure running Cambridge’s Cavendish Lab.

To be sure, yelling doesn’t make someone a better leader or manager. But the notion that raising one’s voice represents managerial weakness or a failure of leadership seems to be nonsense.

The empirical evidence suggests that in a variety of creative and intensely competitive talent-rich disciplines around the world, the most successful leaders treat yelling as both a core competence and brand attribute.

But is that a good thing, or a necessary evil?

Bob Sutton, a professor of management science and engineering at Stanford University, is not quick to condemn leaders and managers who raise their voices with intent.

POIGNANT FEATURE

“To me, it is all about context and culture, and the history of the relationship. So in some settings, yelling is accepted and is not viewed as a personal insult, but an expected part of leadership,” he argued via email.

“Much of it comes down to intent and impact. Does it leave the person feeling demeaned and de-energised, or is it taken as acceptable and expected, and even as a sign of caring?”

Exactly. Would you pay more attention if you were being yelled at by someone who cared as much about the quality of your work as you do, or would you find it discouraging?

Conversely, if, or when, you raise your voice at a colleague, does that person hear someone whose passion matters more than the volume of her voice?

When raised voices mean raised expectations, the volumes reflect intensity, not intimidation. In other words, yelling isn’t necessarily a flaw. In fact, it can be a poignant feature.

If you are yelling because you want to humiliate and demean people, you have bigger professional issues than your decibel level.

But if raising your voice because you care is part of who you are as a person and a communicator, your employees should have the courtesy and professionalism to respect that.

Michael Schrage, a research fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School’s Centre for Digital Business, is the author of Serious Play.