LETTER | One employer brings in a consultant to look over work processes and ongoing problems of conflicts in the workplace and then warns his/her subordinates separately to watch what they say to the consultant.

Another holds regular meetings with the staff body in the organisation where the entire meeting is spent with the head shouting at and humiliating his/her subordinates.

A head of an educational institution warns his/her staff that their jobs are on the line if they don’t pass sufficient numbers of students and keep positive evaluations of their “clients” rolling in.

A head of department makes it his/her business to discuss personal matters of his subordinates among other subordinates to create ill will against groups of staff – a simple case of divide and conquer.

An academic head of department in a university provides glowing evaluations to subordinates who publish journal articles, in which the head is cited as an author, even though this person has not done anything for the paper. These are examples of the silent crisis of leadership in the Malaysian workplace.

These stories exemplify the quality of leadership available in corporations, institution and organisations in Malaysia today. Such leadership is the result of workplaces promoting mediocre staff with limited capabilities for various reasons: such people do not demand much of their superiors above them, in fact they are usually sycophants – their most essential skills being a unique need to please superiors; nor do they question the superiors.

And in most cases, such appointees also cost less than a more eligible candidate for the same position.

But these inadequate middle-management leaders are 'useful' in several ways. They serve as a buffer between those in upper hierarchy and the general worker or employee, thereby enhancing distances and ensuring that a bureaucracy of a bygone age survives at work.

During periods of voluntary separation schemes, such middle-management heads are particularly useful. Their lack of imagination, their simpering need to please upper management as well as their lack of empathy or compassion for the lives of those who preside over, ensure that they are most effective in terminating contracts or firing people.

These heads also serve as a firewall for upper management. Much current practice indicates that what happens in the department stays in the department. And even in the most delinquent departments, this is how it works.

The upper hierarchy adopts an apparent culture of faith in the leadership of the mediocre leader in times of conflict, when the reality is that they do not want to acknowledge that the problem lies with the leadership they have appointed and all problems stem from that choice.

They take little interest in the goings-on in the department, and have little wish to find out about the employees and their concerns.

Even when town hall sessions are called, it is more an upper management display of power than a genuine practice of finding out about employee lives and how work conditions may be enhanced and improved. There is little listening and a whole lot of talking down to people.

In such a workplace, the employee is a disengaged automaton. They have little respect from the employer and very little respect for the employer since there is little acknowledgement of their skills/abilities and very little to look forward to for the rest of their time in that workplace.

The indicators of employee dissatisfaction in such workplaces are manifold: people on MCs, lesser productivity, a lack of initiative and volunteerism, a culture of looking out for one’s own interests and such.

The crisis in leadership in this instance is the need for power and control which results in a disengaged workforce. Such leadership priorities loyalty to leaders rather than the organisation.

The consequence is an organisation performing well below its full potential and a workplace that never rises above the mediocre.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.