{"id":9293,"date":"2017-06-03T23:01:36","date_gmt":"2017-06-03T23:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=9293"},"modified":"2017-06-03T23:01:36","modified_gmt":"2017-06-03T23:01:36","slug":"scandals-at-uber-and-fox-show-dangers-of-letting-macho-cultures-run-wild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/scandals-at-uber-and-fox-show-dangers-of-letting-macho-cultures-run-wild\/","title":{"rendered":"Scandals at Uber and Fox show dangers of letting macho cultures run wild"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bert Spector<\/a>, Northeastern University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Most of us have probably seen the video<\/a> of Uber founder and CEO Travis Kalanick scolding one of his own drivers, cursing and lamenting that \u201csome people don\u2019t like to take responsibility for their own shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fox News, meanwhile, continues to reel from a cascade of sexual harassment<\/a> allegations and charges that its corporate culture demeans women, leading to the ouster<\/a> of founder Roger Ailes and star Bill O\u2019Reilly<\/a> following an exodus of advertisers.<\/p>\n

What do these anecdotes have in common? These are more than just manifestations of men behaving badly. They are expressions of hyper-masculine values emanating from the top and shaping the culture down to the bottom.<\/p>\n

I have studied gendered, macho cultures and the role top leaders<\/a> play in imposing and perpetuating them. Such cultures are harmful to organizations and their employees in many significant ways. <\/p>\n

Importance of culture<\/h2>\n

Corporate culture has been recognized by scholars<\/a> and executives<\/a> as a powerful force for shaping the behaviors of employees at all levels. \u201cCulture is not the most important thing,\u201d observed Jim Sinegal, Costco\u2019s co-founder, \u201cit\u2019s the only thing<\/a>.\u201d <\/p>\n

Indeed, high-performance organizational cultures can help propel companies to great heights<\/a>. A solid strategy and superior products are required, of course<\/a>. But cultural attributes such as trust, respect and openness to diverse opinions are also important for long-term effectiveness<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Companies as diverse as Google<\/a>, Zappos<\/a> and Sun Hydraulics<\/a> show it can provide significant competitive advantage<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But not all cultures are benevolent. Some can hurt and even destroy a company. Enron<\/a>, for example, collapsed in 2001 under the weight of a culture<\/a> that prized \u201cmaking numbers\u201d over long-term performance, with a kind of ruthless lawlessness that emanated from the very top.<\/p>\n

A faulty corporate culture can encourage short-term advantage<\/a> at the cost of looming catastrophes, stifle innovation<\/a>, foster distrust<\/a> or fuel excessive risk-taking<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In summary: \u201cCulture<\/a> trumps everything.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n \"\"
\n A protest-fueled backlash over sexual harassment allegations prompted advertisers to flee Bill O’Reilly\u2019s show and eventually his firing.<\/span>
\n AP Photo\/Bebeto Matthews<\/span><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Who wants to be a macho man?<\/h2>\n

An especially damaging subset of corporate culture relates to the over-emphasis on macho values.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t too long ago that every CEO of a Fortune 500 company was a man<\/a>. While things have improved a lot since the era depicted so dramatically in \u201cMad Men<\/a>,\u201d the macho cultures on display at Uber and Fox powerfully illustrate that it\u2019s still a \u201cman\u2019s world\u201d in some companies. <\/p>\n

In such environments, stereotypically masculine characteristics<\/a> such as assertiveness, top-down control, overconfidence, daring and competitiveness are held to be attributes of top performance, valued above all others<\/a>. Winning<\/a> is pursued as its own end rather than as an outcome of effectiveness.<\/p>\n

Conversely, stereotypically feminine characteristics \u2013 such as being helpful, kind, sympathetic and nurturing \u2013 are diminished as less effective. Despite their powerful contribution<\/a> to the implementation of a company\u2019s strategy, these values tend to be unrecognized and unrewarded<\/a> in a macho culture.<\/p>\n

Extensive research<\/a> into hyper-masculine culture has uncovered unsurprising but nonetheless disturbing patterns of discrimination against women. Uber\u2019s culture provides a dramatic example of this. Offensive sexual references by the boss, reports of sexual harassment<\/a> within the company and meetings at strip clubs<\/a> forced Uber to engage an external investigator<\/a> to uncover just how widespread this macho dysfunction has spread.<\/p>\n

In such cultures, the contribution made by women to the strategic functioning of the company is devalued as \u201csoft,\u201d and promotions become systematically more unlikely<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Denied equal opportunity, women with options may simply leave<\/a>. Those who stay often curtail their ambitions<\/a>, depriving<\/a> organizations of an indispensable resource, particularly at the higher levels of the executive hierarchy. Men may also flee such a macho culture, as a recent string of executive departures<\/a> from Uber suggests.<\/p>\n

The paternalistic, rigid nature of macho cultures can manifest itself in a more general intolerance of differences and a rejection of groups labeled as \u201coutsiders<\/a>\u201d by the white males who dominate. For example, they are more likely to target both sexual orientation<\/a> and racial minorities<\/a>, something that appeared to be the case<\/a> at Fox as well. <\/p>\n

Beyond damaging morale and leading to the departure of talent, such a reckless disregard for boundaries also threatens the long-term viability of a company, placing it at financial and legal risk.<\/p>\n

Where culture comes from<\/h2>\n

Those of us who study leadership and culture have long recognized that the values, behaviors and decisions of an organization\u2019s leaders<\/a> exert the most powerful force in shaping cultural values \u2013 that is, what behaviors they reward and punish; where they assign the company\u2019s financial assets; and, perhaps most importantly, how they behave<\/a> themselves.<\/p>\n

When our leaders are running around berating and sexually harassing their employees, we clearly have a problem. But what can we do about it when the man at the very top of our society dismisses women opponents based on their looks<\/a>, rates women on their sexual attractiveness<\/a> and brags about assaulting them<\/a>?<\/p>\n

\"TheThis is what begins to normalize such abhorrent behaviors in our business organizations and broader society. Everyone must be held accountable, of course, but we can start by acknowledging the special role and particular responsibility of those who sit at the top.<\/p>\n

Bert Spector<\/a>, Associate Professor of International Business and Strategy at the D’Amore-McKim School of Business, Northeastern University<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bert Spector, Northeastern University Most of us have probably seen the video of Uber founder and CEO Travis Kalanick scolding one of his own drivers, cursing and lamenting that \u201csome people don\u2019t like to take responsibility for their own shit.\u201d Fox News, meanwhile, continues to reel from a cascade of sexual harassment allegations and charges […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":9294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,277],"tags":[178,365,2476,2473,2474,943,2475,1516],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9293"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9295,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9293\/revisions\/9295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}