The Four Gods of Leadership

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“The wrong God in the wrong place means pain and inefficiency”

This statement involves organizations, and to understand the meaning of this statement, one has to understand ‘who’ and ‘what’ the Gods are. The ‘Gods’ in this case are associated to the four Greek Gods of mythology; Zeus, Apollo, Athena and Dionysus, and these Gods represent the four Gods of management. God has a different managerial style of running/functioning a business, and these have a few things in common, although they are mostly different. Each God has also got a named culture and a representing picture.

Zeus – (club culture, web picture) The leader is at center and work is based on functions/product. Advantage: speed for decision Disadvantage: Selection and succession.

Apollo – (role culture, temple picture) The leader gives orders and rules. Assumes that man is logical and that everything can and should be analysed. Approach is based around the definition of the role or the job to be done. Secure. Advantages: Stability and predictability.
Athena – (task culture, net picture) Solution to problems. Defining the problem and allocating to its solution the appropriate resources. Judging performance in terms of results, solved problems. Several leaders at the interstices, not at center like Zeus. Advantages: teams, purposeful commando, knowing your job. Disadvantages: expensive (experts), errors  finance.

Dionysus – (existential culture, cell picture) Focused on specialities, talents and skills of individual, gathering all together. Helps individuals to achieve their purpose. Preferred by professionals. No ‘boss’. Advantages: Preserving own identity and freedom, organization won’t suffer if one or two departs, splendid places to work in. Disadvantages: Shudders – lack of control.

Now, to get back to the statement. After seeing the differences between the managerial Gods, it is then also easy to see that each of these styles won’t be successful in every single profession. Just like different cultures, lifestyles and types, there will be certain managerial god styles that will work better/worse than others. Different types of organizations need different kinds of styles. Apart from that, organizations will also need to switch from one culture to another, in order to prevent periodic or functional changes. Each culture will work on the basis of its suppositions and on the basis of the function. Some will work better, others might not work at all.

So, why do inappropriate cultures lead to unhappiness and inefficiency? Because simply, a Zeus structured organization will not feel happy or effective in an Apollonian structured organization. Neither will Apollo find Dionysian efficient, because the types of cultures are so much dependant on different ways of leading the organization. The most usual clashes within the cultures are communication clashes. Also, the attempt to go on doing things as they used to be done as previous times, when the culture actually needs to be changed. Different Gods are needed for different tasks. Each will work well in certain situations. Therefore, there is no such thing as ‘one way to manage being the best’ – these totally depend on organizations and the individuals.

To justify this statement, we can simply take a look at the Karolinska Hospital in northern Stockholm and Connex Headquarters in Sweden (because I previously used to work there), again located in northern Stockholm. The Karolinska Hospital works in a Dionysus culture, where doctors are specialized, but still share the office, telephone and so forth. They work based and focused on their professions; they are experts in what they do and they know their jobs. The doctors are mainly not dependant on each other and if one or two leaves, they won’t be drastically affected as they are mutually interdependent.
Connex on the other hand, is an Apollonian organization. The culture is based on Connex’s jobs and functions, not the employees’ personalities. Their leader gives orders and rules. The workers are subdivided into different sections for different matter. It is a tyupical bureaucratic organization, where workers are set in place. The different functions within the job are analysed, so it’s easier for Connex to predict the future. Connex manages securely and, it can also be called formally. Let’s imagine Connex adopting a Dionysian style – just like the doctors at the Karolinska Hospital. Would this organization continue successfully? There are reason to doubt that…

Connex is a kind of organization which needs control – as the job at Connex consists of working together, cooperating together and making the trains function on specific timetables, giving the service the public requires. This, when put into a Dionysian management, will predictably cause a complete chaos, where the CEO won’t need his position and the company breaking apart. The doctor and clerk profession require different environments with different working styles.

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