The 'Executive Jumper' and Career Immorality (original) (raw)
The Encouragement of Executives Immorality and Mismanagement by 'Jumping' Careers
Recent business scandals encouraged research of executives’ immorality, which missed a major explanation: the common career advancement by ‘jumping’ between firms which causes large gaps of job-essential know-how and phronesis (Greek for practical wisdom), tempting ‘jumpers’ to covertly conceal managerial ignorance (hereafter: CCMI) rather than learning through ignorance-exposing vulnerable involvement in practitioners’ deliberations, which jeopardizes their authority. CCMI causes vicious distrust and ignorance cycles and mismanagement, it bars performance-based career advancement and encourages immoral careerism (Im-C), advancing by various immoral subterfuges. Im-C is a known managerial malady but its explanation missed ‘jumpers’ tendency to use CCMI, probably due to executives’ secrecy, ignorance of their own ignorance and a dearth of executives’ ethnographies. A longitudinal semi-native ethnography of five high-capacity automatic cotton gin plants and their parent inter-kibbutz regional co-opertaives, by a managerially experienced and educated anthropologist, untangled this tendency: 69-75% of 32 ‘jumper’ executives studied preferred CCMI and Im-C by either detachment from practitioners’ deliberations or seductive-coercive autocracy that generated vicious distrust and ignorance cycles, incompetence and mistakes and failures; executives survived in jobs and furthered managerial careers by immoral subterfuges, ‘riding’ on the successes of vulnerably-involved ignorance-exposing mid-levellers who created virtuous trust and learning cycles but who was not rewarded by promotion to executive jobs. Only 16% of the executives were high-moral vulnerably-involved ignorance-exposing learners of practitioners’ know-how and phronesis, successfully managed and enhanced innovations that led their plants to excel (15% were borderline/inconclusive/data missing cases). The findings suggest that common ‘jumping’ careers are a major root of executives’ immorality. Remedies for this corporate malady are called for, with suggestions for further research.
Amoral Careerism and " Jumping: " The Role of Avoidance of Knowledge Gaps Exposure
Executives’ amorality became a major research topic but research missed how careers of “jumping” between firms causes gaps of job-essential tacit local knowledge that tempts authority defense by avoidance of gaps exposure. Avoidance retains gaps, encourages their camouflaging/concealment by either detachment and/or autocratic seduction-coercion, generates employees’ distrust and information screening that fail managerial job-functioning and bars performance-based career advancement, rather encouraging amoral careerism (AC). AC is a known managerial malady, but not its encouragement by larger knowledge gaps of “jumpers” which are often dark secrets concealed on organizations’ dark side by conspiracies of silence. A longitudinal anthropological study of five “jumper”-managed automatic processing plants and their parent inter-kibbutz co-operatives by a managerially experienced and educated anthropologist, found 69% of 32 “jumper” executives practiced AC versus only 26.6% of mid-level “jumpers.” The findings point to nurturing executives’ amorality by “jumping” careers. Plausible remedies are discussed and further research suggested.
Covertly Concealed " Jumper " Managers' Ignorance, Distrust, and Amoral Careerist Mismanagement
The explanation of organizational distrust missed covertly concealed managerial ignorance (hereafter: CCMI), a dark secret veiled on organizations' dark side and facilitated by managers' unknowing of their own ignorance and by unstudied " jumper " managers' coping with gaps in local tacit know-how and phronesis (Greek for practical wisdom). Employees may trust " jumpers " coming from the outside who risk their own authority, expose their ignorance, learn, fill the gaps, and become competent, but managerial power enables defense of authority by using CCMI and camouflaging resulting mistakes and failures by bluffs, power abuses, scapegoating, and other subterfuges aimed at amoral careerism (AC). Anthropologists untangled subterfuges, but without becoming managers they missed how such defensiveness caused mutual distrust, curbed knowledge-sharing, learning, and problem-solving, furthering mistakes and failures in vicious distrust and ignorance cycles. A longitudinal study of five automatic processing plants by a management-educated and experienced semi-native anthropologist untangled that only few of their " jumper " executives, 7 of 32 studied, chose ignorance-exposing vulnerable involvement and became job-competent. As the import of " jumper " executives is now common, this problem is worsening and calls for solutions that are, suggested besides recommendations for further study.
The Encouragement of Executives Immorality and Mismanagement
Recent business scandals encouraged research of executives' immorality, which missed a major explanation: the common career advancement by 'jumping' between firms which causes large gaps of job-essential knowhow and phronesis (Greek for practical wisdom), tempting 'jumpers' to covertly conceal managerial ignorance (hereafter: CCMI) rather than learning through ignorance-exposing vulnerable involvement in practitioners' deliberations, which jeopardizes their authority. CCMI causes vicious distrust and ignorance cycles and mismanagement, it bars performance-based career advancement and encourages immoral careerism (Im-C), advancing by various immoral subterfuges. Im-C is a known managerial malady but its explanation missed 'jumpers' tendency to use CCMI, probably due to executives' secrecy, ignorance of their own ignorance and a dearth of executives' ethnographies.
Executive derailment: Three cases in point and how to prevent it
Global Business and Organizational Excellence, 2008
The high rate of executive derailment is cause for concern, especially as large numbers of less experienced individuals begin to move into executive roles vacated by retiring Baby Boomers. Research has identified the most prevalent causes of derailment, and company intervention-along with the individual's resolve to improve-can successfully put an otherwise talented executive or high potential back on track. The authors discuss the most common factors in the failure of CEOs, executives, and high potentials; examine three cases where companies implemented well-designed plans to save a career in trouble; and provide recommendations to individuals and organizations alike for preventing promising careers from stalling out.
Leadership in Action, 2007
A staggering waste of talent and money, derailment is an enormous setback that in many cases can be reversed.
Out-of-Control Executives -What Trumps Smart?
Journal of Management Policy and Practice, 2013
With many apparent strengths, some of the most successful organizational leaders ultimately fail and often cause significant damage to their organizations, their families, and themselves. This paper questions what motivates executives to make bad decisions and take unethical and/or illegal actions. From studying various executive scandals, questions were developed that relate to greed, power, Narcissistic personalities, values and ethics, status differentiation and social isolation, and sex. In addition, demographics of the executives and types of scandals were analyzed. Since executive scandals impact society as well as individuals and organizations, this paper offers suggestions of ways that these executives could help others avoid unethical and illegal actions. Future considerations include the issue of time theft since executives involved in scandals spend time in unethical and illegal scenarios instead of spending time productively in ethical, legal scenarios for themselves, their families, their organizations, and society. INTRODUCTION Academicians, organizational leaders, students and others study successful business people, especially CEO's and other executives who are often considered to be intellectual giants and/or corporate heroes. These people are often known for their business acumen, their strategic shrewdness, and their transformational leadership. They are frequently pillars in their community, and their espoused values for their organizations mirror their reputations. Yet many of these corporate heroes eventually fail, despite their apparent strengths. Hogan and Hogan (2001) believe that "failure is more related to having undesirable qualities than lacking desirable ones" (p. 41). So the question becomes, "What trumps smart and thereby unravels executive success?" Is it greed, wrong values, power and hyper-competitiveness, narcissistic tendencies, sex or some complex combination of those and other problems? Do CEO's experience increasingly higher levels of social isolation and status differentiation that negatively impact reality for them? Research provides potential answers, but the answers may actually be symptoms of even bigger, more complex problems related to their organizations and their followers as well as the executives' own personal issues. The consequences for these failed corporate heroes are often dire, including job loss, jail and prison, loss of families, loss of reputation, and death, sometimes suicide. For
Psychodynamics of a successful executive
The study is based primarily on the in-depth interviewing of 150 middle-level executives (all males) representing three business concerns in Northern India and was designed to make a statistical comparison between two groups of executives--obviously successful and obviously unsuccessful--in terms of their background variables, critical decisions (academic and professional) of life, and their interpersonal relationships with people around job. Success was objectively measured through a rate of progression score. All three variables contributed significantly, to career success. A successful executive was found to be good at every thing he touches. The implications of the findings are discussed, and directions for future research are suggested.
Back on Track: The Coaching Journey in Executive Career Derailment
2006
Y THE TIME MANAGERS OF commercial enterprises reach midcareer their tenure in office seems increasingly fickle. Change comes faster than ever. Investors have turned unforgiving. Globalisation, deregulation, consolidation, acquisition, all create new and highly complex environments. Certainly, the degree of 'fit' between the individual executive, the organisation's receptivity to change, and external market forces might help to explain why some CEO's fail . But these factors by themselves don't explain the near epidemic of shortfalls and failures. What are the deeper causes of executive career derailment and can executive coaching help?
‘It’s not all it’s cracked up to be’: Narratives of promotions in elite professional careers
Human Relations, 2019
How do organizational decision-makers and promotion candidates experience promotions in elite professional careers? Despite literature recognizing that promotions are important career events for organizations and individuals, this question has received little scholarly attention. Drawing on a narrative approach and combining spoken and visual accounts, this article examines how organizational decision-makers and promotion candidates experience the promotion to partnership in law firms. Our study reveals four narratives that illustrate important differences and similarities in their accounts. In the official script, organizational decision-makers uniformly recounted promotions in a detached way, emphasizing objective meanings of career success. In contrast, promotion candidates’ accounts were varied, ranging from joy and anticipation in walk in the park, to anger and frustration in dark art to anxiety and ambivalence in bittersweet narratives. The study makes three contributions to t...