Leaders’ Timely Succession: Neither Term Limits nor “Golden Parachutes,” Rather Periodic Tests of Trust Ascendance

Abstract

Successful leaders tend to reach a dysfunction phase and to become conservative self-serving oligarchic. Polities and large organizations try to prevent this by term limits despite many drawbacks, while corporations use “Golden Parachutes,” a costly measure with major drawbacks as well. Despite much research, the timely succession of leaders in large organizations remains a recalcitrant problem demanding a solution. A review of current solutions points to the plausible use of intangible rewards rather than tangible ones by offering leaders possibility of multiple terms with each reelection requiring a higher majority in a proper constituency. This will reward leaders by plausible tenure prolongation, prestigious higher majority reelection, and plausible creative innovation due to long time horizon, while barring dysfunctional oligarchic continuity. Suggestions for practicing this solution and for further study of the problems it entails are offered.

Phronetic Transformational Leadership: Moral Rebel Trust-Creating Unknowing-Admitting Outsiders

“…Federative structures keep smallness within an advantageous scale, but often due to federation leaders' low-moral oligarchization, this solution fails to attract high-moral T-CVI-practicing officers [16]. One solution proposed was a supermajority-dependent succession mechanism, but as yet, it has not been adopted [84,85]. This calls for its adoption and/or seeking alternative solutions.…”

Identifying and Mitigating the Negative Effects of Power in Organizations

“…Evidence indicates that self-serving behaviors conducted at the expense of the organization’s objectives, as well as unethical actions displayed toward others, can be another effect of power that is not easily visible to power holders. Shapira (2019b) noted that leaders who occupy their position for a long time often become dysfunctional. They are no longer able to initiate vital changes, do not allow worthy successors to grow, and continue to collaborate with the same people who are also not likely to introduce modifications required in a fast-changing environment.…”

“…At the same time, those leaders may feel irreplaceable and unable to imagine themselves outside of the organization and the company without them. However, an organizational-level mechanism that allows their replacement is possible to develop and put into practice (see Shapira 2019b). In the analysis of managerial incompetence (Argyris 1976; McMillan and Overall 2017), a single-loop decision-making model has been identified.…”

Hierarchy’s subordination of democracy and how to outrank it

“…Vigilance is required to ward off the ever-present danger of the power-hungry looking for capital accumulation and self-aggrandizement. But misbehavior does not necessitate the establishment of hierarchical control; there are protections in participative organizations to prevent corporate abuse, such as replacement of self-serving managers with high-moral authentic colleagues committed to trust-based cultures (Shapira, 2019). Likewise, there are protections to be accorded to those accused of misbehavior, such as due process, to prevent clan or social control (Ouchi, 1979), another bane to democratic enterprise.…”