Leader As Bystander
Crisis Levels of Inaction by the People Who Lead
The bystander effect occurs when the presence of others discourages intervening in an emergency, against a bully, or during an assault or other crime. The definition of crime expands into hostility towards another human or set of humans in any setting, incivility happens on the streets, workplaces, families, places of worship and board rooms.
The bystander effect was popularized by social psychologists following the murder of Kitty Genovese in her New York City apartment in 1964. She was stabbed to death outside her apartment while dozens of neighbors did nothing. Why?
Why do we behave the way we do in terms of the bystander effect?
If there are a bunch of people, someone else should take care of it.
I must watch because I don't know what to do. If you do nothing, so will I. I don't have my own agency to act.
WHO'S doing WHAT WHERE in terms of NOT doing ANYTHING ANYWHERE?
Blow this behavior up to the leaders who have power. Leaders are at the front of any governance structure like our congress, the military, homeowner associations, chamber of commerce, church and boards of trustees. They're your direct report, the man who runs your household, the woman who decides who gets what money and which plumber to use. They have power.
Power occurs when someone can control valuable resources, impose their will on others, and shape their outcomes and the outcomes of others in ways that others cannot (Sturm & Antonakis, 2015).
These are the leaders’ making decisions in all your groups. Executive action or inaction as a bystander looks like this:
Other leaders can handle it.
I watched this other leader, and he didn't respond. I will copy that and stay safe.
You just got zamboni'd by a Leader acting as a Bystander, and you don't even know it. Or maybe you do, but due to the power grid of control, there's not a dang thing you can do about it.
It's not complicated why leader bystander is all the rage. We're in a labor market we have never seen before, it's an election year and the U.S. civil and culture war is real. Civilian bloodshed is happening worldwide while globalization is being challenged at all levels.
We didn't get here overnight. Hard issues are driving all the crazy behavior, and it's rooted in how we develop and, of course, our attitudes as we change.
We will be in a period of change for quite some time given the systems that sustain us will no longer work.
Where there's change, there's the need for training and education.
Workplaces, churches and family settings are not trained on change, differences of opinion and how to get along. We will need to train; intervention is scary in terms of power dynamics, and retaliation both physical and otherwise. Training is going to be mandatory in how to intervene safely in all environments.
Training and education go hand in hand. We need them both. Science Direct published an article "Witnessing Wrongdoing, The Effects of Observer Power on Incivility Intervention in the Workplace"
One of the observations in this article is that the powerful only support targets if they see incivility as a status challenge. This will trigger responsibility.
The study worked to prove that high-power people are more likely to "step in" than low-power humans to do a damn thing. Hmm...
Question from the cheap seats: What happens when the low-power human is the empowered leader like the company owner, the chamber, the board, the church or the senator?
What happens when the low power has all the control like street gangs breaking into Kansas City businesses or a bad corporate culture like Dollar Tree and it's the only available place to work in a rural environment?
What happens when low-power people have all the control for buying/selling goods and then agree to a plan to keep the income stream where it needs to be serving themselves well at a cost to the whole? This.
It's not Harry Potter; it's how we behave in our systems and why things will end as they are.
As an executive coach, the biggest underlying issue is, "Is your way of being sustainable?" Is what you are doing day in and day out, in your personal life and your professional life sustainable?
Does being a bystander fix your current busted-up world?
Can you afford and tolerate more crime in your city when no plans have been made for change and leaders won't work together? Bystander effect.
Can you afford and tolerate less healthcare access, less service, less all of it with the priciest system in the world? Bystander effect.
Your kid needs to be punished but taking the smartphone punishes the busy parent. Bystander effect.
We have huge issues in our family, but we must not bring them up. For God's sake, don't talk about it or solve it. Bystander effect.
Yes, I am coming for all of you hard. I'm a coach! Stagnation is not my jam but currently the name of the game of "pass the buck, I am gonna save my own fanny and stay safe" is not working.
The bottom line is we're not trained in "handling the hard stuff." The Midwest is not big on truth, and we are not trained on it. In fact, and I get to say it; truth is shunned as it's messy and may cause the "Rules of Midwest Living" to be strained.
The Midwest is a hard place to pop up at the Hy-Vee to reveal "Ey my husband of 20 years has been having an affair." Judgment tends to swing in for starters and the Midwest doubles down on dualism all day. Judgment and the Midwest go hand in hand.
That's a strong fertilizer for a "way of being" hell-bent on no change. We are who we are.
Frigging Willard Duncan Vandiver said, "Show Me." This isn't someone who's open, just saying. "Show Me" as a banner plays right into the bystander effect.
It's even harder if your city is on fire. Governance and accountability are a hot mess. Finding someone who will answer the phone is even a difficult task.
Training is going to be necessary to get moving, to become unstuck and to educate us about what all "this standing around" is costing the planet.
Right To Be partnered with Green Dot on their Bystander Program in 2012 which was designed to pioneer bystander education, empowerment and action, for invention when a human sees harassment of another human. They updated it again in 2015.
The tactics are simple and easy to digest and designed to support someone who is being harassed, with emphasis on the five Ds of Bystander Intervention:
Distract
Delegate
Document
Delay
Direct
These steps also work in confrontations professionally. Distracting a bully in the board room must be a subtle but strong move due to the Elephant Egos that boards typically produce. Same for a street gang. Ego is everything and yes, these days, highly dangerous. We first distract when large egos have all the power. We try this first in all settings for best outcomes.
Simply engage the professional who is being attacked, not the other professional who's attacking and graciously ignore the sentiments that were just dropped by the board bully. "Steven, I do not understand the run rate, can you review that again for me?" Distract, and push out the troublemaker who's bullying. To evade and distract, stops the behavior.
The five Ds allow you to move along with the training, escalating stronger tactics matched to escalating negative behavior if the bully or the problem child doesn't "stop" the unwanted behavior with the first tactic. The five Ds is a spectrum of intervention answers for negative behavior. So, if distracting the bully in the board room or on the street didn't work, move along to the next tactic. Back to basics. Back to training.
We must isolate and remove those who have zero interest in group betterment. I didn't come up with these incredible ideas about group conduct and what works. (Old Book. Still ignoring.)
What I do know is that we’ve forgotten that a group comprised of trained leaders gets the right stuff done. Yes, it’s slower and yes, it costs to train.
To keep going AS IS like most leaders TODAY is by definition “Bystander Effect.”
Crappy leaders, and groups of poor performers, are easy to spot, but the bystander effect has left these folks in power. We work on these issues in fits and bursts as a culture. Did you know that in 2019 there were more CEOs being dumped for misconduct than financial performance?
Corporate boards, the article states, realize "there's a greater reputational hit of not acting than acting" to remove the executive.
Calling for more pressure on bystanders who fully digest they are being led by humans who are self-appropriating, protecting their turf and using their control to block betterment for all versus tribe or worse, self. Reputations at the board level matter it seems.
Change is inevitable but we have worked for many decades to not change.
The bystander effect will get very loud, noisy and worst of all, you’ll become part of the problem.
