Alan Goldman

Personality disorders in leaders

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to assess highly toxic leaders and dysfunctional organizations as presented via management consulting and executive coaching assignments.Design/methodology/approach – The paper employs an action research approach via two participant observer case studies incorporating the DSM IV‐TR: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.Findings – The paper finds that the nexus of dysfunctional organizational systems may be located in “pre‐existing” leadership pathologies.Research limitations/implications – First, additional research will be needed to confirm and extend the findings of individual pathologies in leaders to dysfunctional organizational systems; second, a closer look is necessary at the applicability of the DSM IV‐TR to pathologies at the organizational level; third, due to the action research, case study approach utilized, there is somewhat limited generalizability; fourth, there are limitations re: the applicability of DSM IV‐TR as an assessment tool for m...

High toxicity leadership

Purpose – This paper aims to assess highly toxic personality disorders in leaders, implications for organizations, and methods for assessment and intervention.Design/methodology/approach – Action research was used, including a thick description case study narrative and application of the DSM IV‐TR.Findings – Personality disorders are a source of a highly toxic and dysfunctional organizational behavior; borderline personality disorder in a leader may serve as a systemic contaminant for an organization.Research limitations/implications – A qualitative, case study approach may not lend itself to replication or quantification; usage of the DSM IV‐TR requires clinical training in counseling psychology; the growing incidence of personality disorders in leadership warrants cognizance, ability to assess, the creation of early detection systems and methods of intervention.Practical implications – Through the narrative of a case study researchers and practitioners can obtain a glimpse into the day‐to‐day operations...

The centrality of “ningensei” to Japanese negotiating and interpersonal relationships: Implications for U.S.-Japanese communication☆

Abstract In response to the “increasing dissatisfaction with the use of North American modes of communication to explain communication processes in Asia” this paper examines the indigenous concept of ningensei or “human beingness” as central to Japanese negotiating. Positioning ningensei within a philosophic context of Confucianism, clusters and axes of Japanese behavioral tendencies are cited, juxtaposed to U.S. negotiating style. Ningensei is developed as a matrix for systemically investigating relationships between a deeply rooted Japanese national cultural system, with symbols, premises, rules, forms, and restricted codes pivotal to the negotiating process. The argument is advanced that an insiders knowledge of Japanese-Japanese (intracultural) negotiating is a prerequisite for developing Western intercultural theory, predeparture training, and facing Japanese in interpersonal contact situations.

Company on the Couch Unveiling Toxic Behavior in Dysfunctional Organizations

In positioning the “Company on the Couch,” management consultants have increasingly called attention to toxic behavior in dysfunctional organizations. This article addresses how the mismanagement and failure to accurately and timely identify people problems in organizations is in itself a form of toxic leadership. Via two consultations presented in the form of case studies, this article illustrates how complex webs of organizational dysfunction are frequently an outgrowth of mild, unchecked toxicity in the workplace. Recommendations and initiatives are provided to better prepare managers for timely and accurate toxin detection and handling.

Implications of Japanese Total Quality Control for Western Organizations: Dimensions of an Intercultural Hybrid

This study investigates Total Quality Control (TQC), stressing the central role of com munication processes. Business communication scholars are challenged to incorporate TQC as a macro framework in the ongoing dissection of the quality movement within Western organizations. TQC is a hybrid of Western theory and innovations blended with Japanese cultural influences, implementations, and reinventions. TQC stresses communication that is: decentralized, vertical-upward, interdepartmental, interdepen dent, trusting, long-term, group-oriented, reciprocal, immediate, nurturing feedback, flexible, and characterized by close proxemics.

Intercultural training of Japanese for U.S.-Japanese interorganizational communication

Abstract During the mid 1980s I lived and worked in Tokyo, Japan, as an intercultural communication consultant and trainer for Japanese corporations. All contracting corporations wanted to obtain briefings on U.S. communicative style and expressed a need to develop in-house corporate, intercultural programs as a key to facilitating improved Japanese- U. S. interaction. Corporations such as Nippon requested briefings and intensive programs for understanding cultural differences, for overcoming communication barriers, and for breeding hybrid behaviors, all geared toward joint ventures, relocations, subsidiaries, mergers, predeparture training, and expatriate needs. The enclosed Nippon case study is based on a program I developed in May 1985. The program provided a didactic and experiential laboratory for eight Japanese managers requesting intensive training on contrasting Japanese-U.S. negotiating styles. This case study is offered as an example of widespread Japanese corporate investment in intercultural and corporate training, and as a prototype for U.S. corporations to consider in the course of engaging in interorganizational communication with Japanese.

A Briefing on Cultural and Communicative Sources of Western-Japanese Interorganizational Conflict

Offers Western managerial psychology a synthesis of cross‐cultural perspectives on Western‐Japanese inter‐organizational conflict. Argues that Graeco‐Roman and Confucian‐Buddhist‐based cultural and communicative codes are fundamentally antagonistic, contributing to misperceptions and conflict between Western and Japanese management. Presents the briefing as a blueprint or prototype for (a) identifying roots of Western‐Japanese conflict, (b) utilizing cross‐cultural data as a means for conceptualizing a broader based Western managerial psychology cognizant of East Asian protocol, (c) developing predeparture training for Western managers anticipating long– or short‐term assignments with Japanese associates. Recommends a Z‐Communication hybrid as a means whereby seemingly dichotomous Western and Japanese communication codes presented in the briefing may be converged and negotiated, and culturally based organizational and managerial conflict reduced.

JAPANESE MANAGERIAL PSYCHOLOGY: AN ANALYSIS OF CULTURAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL FEATURES OF “TOTAL QUALITY CONTROL”

Advances the argument that Western management must increasingly decode the organizational and cultural features of Japanese‐style management – if managerial conflict is to be reduced in joint ventures, subsidiaries, mergers, and relocations – and if Western management is to consider alternatives to its current approaches to quality production. Analyses total quality control (TQC) management as representative of the successful approach to Japanese management. TQC, built around culturally indigenous views of amal (interdependency), muri (excess), muda (waste), and mura (unevenness), contrasts with partial quality measures utilized in Western organizations. Key Japanese features are elimination and/or restructuring of quality control departments and specialists, designation of quality control to the production line, reduction of lot size, utilization of “U‐shaped lines” and a “just‐in‐time” modus operandi.

Consultant and Critics on the Couch

The process of situating the “client on the couch” also entails the seating of “consultant and critics on the couch” as they participate in a self-reflective and dialectical process. The author argues the importance of strategic use of the “toxicity” metaphor and the central role of an initially qualitative lens via corporate cases and narrative investigations into dark side, destructive behavior in companies. Central to the study of toxicity is the blending of micro and macro, as individual psychology and systemic company-wide perspectives are fused into consulting and coaching hybrids. The patience of an anthropologist is required for the consultant facing thick, textured cases of organizational and leadership toxicity, and similar emotional intelligence is depicted as essential for a bridging of both qualitative and metric-driven streams of consultation and research.