NASSAU, BAHAMAS – With everything happening at BPL, perhaps it is time we look beyond generators, maintenance and increasing demand and talk about something we rarely want to discuss leadership and the people being led.
Over the years, we have celebrated more women moving into positions that were traditionally held by men. And rightly so. But progress cannot only be about who gets the top job. We also have to be able to talk about what happens after they get there.
Leadership is about people.
For generations, work has been an important part of a man’s identity. For some men, rightly or wrongly, the workplace was also somewhere they had a certain amount of independence and respect.
Now, as more women move into leadership, particularly in workplaces that are still heavily male, I believe there is something worth considering.
A woman leading a predominantly male workforce has to understand the men she is leading, just as a man leading women needs to understand them.
If a man feels that he is constantly being corrected, dismissed or controlled, eventually he may stop talking. He may stop questioning decisions. He may simply do exactly what he is told, even when experience tells him something may be wrong.
And sometimes the problem is not what an employee tells management. It is what he decides not to tell them.
That can be dangerous in a place like BPL.
The men and women working around engines, generators and transmission equipment every day know those systems. Some have spent decades doing this work. Management may make the final decision, but management also needs people underneath them who are comfortable enough to say, “I don’t think this is going to work.”
That requires a certain kind of leadership.
And before anyone turns this into an attack on women, it is not. Men can be terrible leaders too. They can be arrogant, intimidating, dismissive and unwilling to listen. We have all encountered that type of boss.
My point is that putting more women in leadership should not mean we stop asking whether the leadership itself is effective.
If employees at BPL do not feel comfortable telling management what is really happening on the ground, we have a problem. If experienced technical people believe it is easier to keep quiet than to challenge a decision, we have a bigger problem.
I do not know if that is what is happening inside BPL. But with the difficulties the company continues to experience, it is a question worth asking.
We spend plenty of time talking about old generators, failing equipment, increased demand and how much money is needed to fix the system.
Maybe somebody should also be asking the people who work there what the culture is like when the office door closes.
Because sometimes the problem with an organization is not only the equipment that isn’t working.
Sometimes it’s the people who have stopped talking.
-Thomas Casey
