How Leadership Styles Influence Your Culture of Compliance

By: Joe Calarco, CIS Senior Manager
joecalarco@cis-partners.com

Managing compliance activities in a Clinical Operations group was an implicit expectation. Ensuring compliance with government regulations, corporate policies and departmental performance metrics all required routine oversight. As a result, keeping staff engaged and vested in company outcomes was a top priority. This required the ability to create a productive and responsible work climate.

This sounds simple enough, yet every corporate culture I have been a part of has struggled to consistently establish such a climate. In fact, most employees speak of such peak engagement as a fleeting experience incapable of being sustained. Interesting, more research is starting to quantify the financial impact of employee engagement [1]. Allow me to take you back to your Introduction to Psychology class and discuss how traditional leadership styles may impact both employee engagement and compliance efforts.


Participative Leadership

Involving employees in the identification and resolution of compliance challenges will heighten engagement. Such dialogue also allows leaders to justify the importance of compliance efforts (e.g. risk mitigation, improved resourcing/productivity, etc.) in the context of the company’s mission and strategy while affording staff the ability to report on situations they face in their day-to-day activities. This approach has been called “participative” or “collaborative”[2] and should be utilized in a majority of situations. The positive outcome from this approach should be twofold: 1) more productive/content employees and 2) better risk management. The improved risk management comes from employee willingness to speak up on potential concerns, thus reducing the number of surprises that may catch an organization off guard.

I once had a colleague say to me, “If I practice participative leadership, I will constantly have people in my office whining”. So let me set the record straight, participative leadership does not mean being a push over or hanging out your therapy shingle. As the leader, you still have the decision-making authority and may not always implement advice or address a concern of staff. What remains vital is for staff to feel they can come to you with their concerns and/or ideas.


Authoritarian and Delegative Leadership

The alternative to participative leadership is authoritarian or delegative leadership[2]. Authoritarian leadership has its time and place in any corporate culture when one needs to handle a crisis. When teaching communication workshops I tell my participants that I do not seek input from my four-year-old regarding his desire to play in the street. Some situations simply require a call be made quickly and not be questioned. Most employees respect this no matter how unpleasant it may feel at the time. However, if used as the primary approach to staff interactions, the authoritarian style will lead to what I call “morale compliance failures”. Staff will quickly learn to not question authority, and thus stop letting you know of any potential concerns. Worse, they may stop caring completely and allow compliance risks to go unnoticed.

The delegative style leaves the decision making responsibility solely up to the staff. I would equate it to a ship without a rudder. Without any guidance from leadership, staff at best will guess correctly sometimes and at worst surprise leadership with a significant compliance problem.


Leadership and effective communication styles are critical to a successful compliance program and should be tailored to the compliance culture your organization wants to create. Feel free to contact a CIS consultant to discuss strategies to create your collaborative culture of compliance.



Sources:

[1] Towers Perrin (October 22, 2007) Towers Perrin Study Finds Significant "Engagement Gap" Among Global Workforce
http://www.towersperrin.com/tp/showdctmdoc.jsp?url=HR_Services/United_States/Press_Releases/2007/20071022/2007_10_22.htm&country=global
[2] About.com:Psychology Lewin’s Leadership Styles
http://psychology.about.com/od/leadership/a/leadstyles.htm