6. ‘Good Leaders Do the Dirty Work’: Implicit Leadership Theory at the Multicultural Workplace

Participant observation and shadowing allowed the researcher to observe leadership practices as they played out in the natural work setting, and during observation and interviews, informants described different leadership practices as either good or bad. The ideas of good and bad leadership are presented in Table 6.2. The ideas of good leaders can be summarised as follows: good leaders are visible and present in the unit, they listen to their employees, and they support and fight for their employees instead of simply accepting the demands of their supervisors. Good leaders are communicative, and they recognise the efforts of their employees and speak nicely with the employees. They place themselves at the level of the employees and are not afraid of doing the dirty work. Employees highly value leaders who put on the uniform and share the employee workload. Hilde, one of the unit managers at Marigold, said the following at the validation meeting: ‘What my staff really remembers and what I get credit for is that I cleaned the floor in one of the residents’ room – not that I negotiated a higher salary for them’. In the study, informants’ ideas of good leadership reflected general leadership expectations of a flat structure, of involvement and being treated as equals as well as context-specific factors like presence in the unit and putting on the uniform to share common tasks. These expectations were confirmed in the validation meetings.

Where do the ideas of good and bad leadership come from? From the data, two sets of sources were identified: contextual factors from the institutional, field and organisational levels and individual experiences of leadership from the country of origin and the country of residence.

The first source of implicit ideas of leadership is related to contextual factors. Contextual factors were identified at the institutional, field and organisational levels. As described above, the Working Environment Act is one of the regulatory factors at the institutional level that frame leadership in Norwegian work life. Together with the Basic Agreement accorded by employers’ and trade unions, the Working Environment Act regulates the work environment. These frameworks were frequently referred to in the nursing homes, and employees were conscious of their rights:

We work under the same rules and the same obligations, you know. And rights. (…) We have the same rights all of us, and the same obligations. So that doesn’t worry me. (Omar, health care worker at Riverside)

Jonathan [unit manager at Marigold] follows the Norwegian rules. If he doesn’t, we can complain. (Alvin, health care worker at Marigold)

Employees expected leaders to play by the rules and were conscious of the mechanisms that protected them and regulated the power balance between managers and employees.

The shadowing of the six unit managers showed that being unit managers in a nursing home shaped the manager role in a significant way, which can be attributed to nursing homes as a sector or institutional field. The unit managers engaged in similar types of activities (e.g. supervising clinical work, staffing shifts, attending meetings, responding to emails and phone calls), and they related to the same set of actors (CEOs, other unit managers, employees, residents, relatives of the residents). One of the factors that featured in the list of good leadership was appointing substitutes to compensate for employees on sick leave. Again, the use of substitutes may be attributed to the field level as the healthcare sector is characterised by a relatively high percentage of employees on sick leave, and the completion of tasks depends on the number of hands available. The topic of sick leave and use of substitutes was discussed frequently among the employees.

Organisational factors seemed to cause differences in the patterns of leadership between the unit managers. Tasks included in the job description and access to office space were two examples of such organisational factors. Among the unit managers, the access to a separate office space was not consistent. Jonathan and Hilde at Marigold had their own offices on one floor, while their units were located on other floors. At Riverside, Banu and Kristin did not have a separate office space. For administrative work, they used the computer at the staff room that was accessed by all staff members. At Cornerstone, Dragan and Kari had private office spaces next to the staff room in their units. The physical conditions of the space where the unit managers spent time during the day influenced how they interacted with the employees and thus the employees’ expectations towards their managers.

The tasks included in the unit managers’ role descriptions varied between the nursing homes. While all the unit managers were trained as nurses, the extent to which they were expected to participate in the daily care of residents varied. At Marigold, unit managers did not participate in care on a regular basis, but when needed, they would put on the uniform and share the tasks with other employees. At Riverside, Banu and Kristin were counted as part of the staff in care on a regular basis. Since they also had other responsibilities, they often took on the lighter cases or dropped out to attend to other commitments. At Cornerstone, the unit managers participated in care once a week. These differences implied that Banu and Kristin at Riverside wore the uniform at all times, whereas the unit managers at Marigold and Cornerstone wore regular clothes and changed into the uniform only when they participated in care. The degree to which managers and employees share the same tasks and wear the same clothes influences expectations towards leadership practices and the implicit ideas of good and bad leadership. I perceived that unit managers at Riverside, who participated in care on a daily basis and wore the same uniform as other employees, were expected to behave in a more egalitarian way than managers in the other nursing homes.

The second source of implicit ideas of leadership was the individual experiences of leadership from the country of origin and from Norway. Taken together, the employee backgrounds of the informants across the nursing homes represented more than 40 countries. Their time spent in Norway and in the Norwegian education system varied. As such, employees with an immigrant background brought with them a mix of experiences from different countries. One of the most striking patterns in the data was the almost unanimous description of leadership in their country of origin offered by employees with an immigrant background. Despite their different country backgrounds, their descriptions of leadership in their country of origin were far more similar than expected. Leadership in their country of origin was in general described as hierarchical, and leaders were perceived as inaccessible. The following excerpts from informants of different country backgrounds illustrate this perception:

In [my country in Eastern Europe], leaders decide everything. There is no room for communication so … they are dictators. Employees do what the leader says, and the leader has absolute power” (Dragan, unit manager at Cornerstone)

[In my country in Asia] it is something about how they have this great respect for their leaders, that when the leader says it has to be done, they do it. For they are a bit afraid of being punished, you know. For there are consequences. (…) It’s good in a way. Like a bit authoritarian. (Vanessa, nurse at Cornerstone)

In [my country in Southern Europe] you only speak with your leader if there is a problem – something that you cannot solve. You may not even know your leader. (Magdalena, nurse at Marigold)

Although the descriptions of leaders given by employees of different country backgrounds seemed unanimous, they should not be perceived as specific descriptions of leadership in the respective countries. The descriptions were relative—comparing leadership in their country with what they experienced in their Norwegian work context. In the data, there were fewer references to typical Norwegian leadership, but aspects like a flat structure and the approachability of the Norwegian managers stood out. A key factor in the conversations with employees from an immigrant background was that they continuously related to both the culture of their native country and that of their present work country (Norway).

Implicit leadership theory applied to societal level tends to guide one’s attention towards commonalities and sharedness of leadership ideas. However, tensions and disagreements were also observed in the data of implicit ideas of good and bad leadership in the nursing homes. In general, the hierarchical and authoritarian leadership style prevalent in their native country was perceived as negative but not without ambivalence, as demonstrated in the quote from Vanessa. She saw being ‘a bit authoritarian’ as positive and useful in the work context. Other informants referred to how leaders in the Norwegian context were expected to talk to employees in a polite and nice way, even when criticising or correcting employees. Some of the informants described this as problematic as the Norwegian leaders appeared evasive when employees underperformed. Further, because of the flat structure, some employees with an immigrant background perceived that the employees controlled the leader and not the other way around. Vince, a nurse from Asia at Cornerstone, had a frustrating experience as unit manager at a different nursing home:

Here, it is the employees who manage the boss. It is “my way or the highway”. The smallest thing, and the employees write a deviation report on their leader. “I am protected because I am an employee”. Here it is the Working Environment Act and all that stuff.

These examples show that employees were not uncritically socialised into the Norwegian context. They did not simply accept what was considered typical Norwegian leadership as good leadership.

In summary, the implicit ideas of leadership in the nursing homes stem from a variety of sources. Figure 6.1 illustrates how contextual factors at the institutional, field and organisational levels along with experiences of leadership from the country of origin and Norway feed into the implicit ideas of good and bad leadership. This illustrates the dynamic cultural configurations of managers and employees in the nursing homes. The figure also illustrates the interplay between contextual factors and personal experiences, showing how for example the structurally given frameworks shape implicit ideas of leadership. The dotted lines point to the permeable and overlapping nature of each of the sources. Their weight and importance vary from person to person.

To illustrate how leadership is negotiated at the multicultural workplace, the three managers with an immigrant background are presented as examples.

Jonathan (Marigold). Jonathan, from a West African country, had studied nursing in Norway. He had no formal management training when he took over as unit manager about two years prior to the field study. When he took over, the employees in his unit were on sick leave on average 28% of their regular working hours. His major achievement as a unit manager was to reduce this percentage to below 6%. Jonathan, the staff and the CEO at Marigold, attributed this achievement to his leadership style and especially to his visibility in the unit and his flexibility in accommodating the needs of the staff. Jonathan spent little time in the office doing administrative work. Once or twice a week, he stayed back after normal work hours to complete his administrative tasks. Jonathan preferred informal areas for interacting with the staff—the hallway, the kitchen or the resident rooms where he accompanied the staff. When employees asked for changes in their shift schedules, Jonathan tried his best to accommodate. The employees found him understanding and easy to talk with, and he claimed he made an effort to be so. He said that at times, he felt like a social worker but added that the give-and-take was a part of the game: ‘If you show them that in case of sick leave, you call in substitutes, within reasonable limits, it works’. When the staff sensed that he made an effort to cover shifts with substitutes, they made an extra effort to not fail him. Overall, Jonathan responded to the core aspects of the implicit ideas of good leadership in the nursing home and was appreciated and respected for it.

Banu (Riverside). Banu was from an Asian country and had completed her nursing degree as well as management studies in Norway. She took over the unit six months prior to the field work. Banu participated in care on a regular basis, but instead of recognising her for sharing their tasks, the staff complained that she was not doing enough and that they could not rely on her. Further, because she did not have a separate office space, she was expected to be in the unit, and the staff complained when she was not there. The employees described Banu as professionally and theoretically very competent. She was respected for her courage to stand up and take charge in difficult situations with residents and relatives. However, when it came to other aspects of her leadership, the employees were more negative. Banu claimed to care for her staff, but the staff found her harsh and felt that she cared more about budgets and favourable reviews from the top management:

She is a bit direct. And it is not everybody who likes that. You feel that you are treated very hard sometimes. Nobody likes to be treated badly. Everybody does their best, and still they get “pepper”. (…) And then we have heard she is the best to save money. So, it means that she doesn’t spend money on calling in substitutes. (Zahra, nurse at Riverside)

When analysed in the context of the implicit ideas of leadership, Banu failed to live up to core expectations of leaders: to be understanding, to remain loyal to employees and to communicate in a soft and kind manner. Her strengths—being performance-oriented, strategy-driven and a visionary—did not align with the leadership characteristics highlighted in the implicit ideas of leadership in the nursing homes; as a result, she did not earn legitimacy or support from the staff. Banu argued that as a leader, she could not expect to receive positive feedback from the employees. The support from the CEO and positive comments from residents and their relatives were more important to her. In a way, it seemed like she had resigned from negotiating leadership with her employees, and the level of conflict with the staff in the unit was high.

Dragan (Cornerstone). Dragan was from an Eastern European country and had started working as a manager about six months prior to the field study. Being a unit manager at Cornerstone was his first formal management position. During the field study period, an employee survey was conducted in the nursing home, and the staff gave Dragan impressively high scores. A striking aspect that was highlighted in the fieldwork and interviews was the autocratic style of Dragan’s leadership. He maintained a log of the mistakes and deviations of each employee to gather evidence, and he insisted on being direct when correcting mistakes:

They are not used to direct feedback. They mean I should wrap it more in and say it in a nice way. No one likes to receive criticism, even if it is constructive. (…) My job is to correct the mistakes and supervise the employees so that they don’t make mistakes. So, I need to have this kind of … a bit direct leadership. (…) I need to become dictator as long as we have serious mistakes.

The autocratic tendency was in sharp contrast to what was perceived as good leadership in the nursing homes. So how did Dragan get away with it and receive high scores on the employee survey? It appears that Dragan had special ways of demonstrating affection towards his employees. The employees used emotionally charged words when expressing how much they liked him. Alvin, a healthcare worker from Asia, captured the tension between the affective attachment and Dragan’s directness: ‘It is kind of like a father. We are the children and get scolded by our father. We are like a family’. Alvin seemed very satisfied with this style. By developing an affective relationship with the staff and creating a family spirit among the employees, Dragan created a space for himself to be direct and, at times, autocratic. Thus, he responded to the core aspects of ideas of good leadership in the nursing home but also renegotiated them to create acceptance for his more authoritarian leadership practices.

How did culture influence the three managers’ negotiation of leadership? Interestingly, all of them clearly distanced themselves from the leadership practices in their country of origin and frequently cited ideas of leadership that they had adopted in the Norwegian study or work context. However, they also deliberately drew on their cultural background as a resource. Dragan specifically noted how his temperament as an Eastern European was different from that of the typical Norwegian and allowed him to connect with the more emotional and expressive temperaments of his employees from around the world. When Jonathan handled permission requests from employees who wanted to visit their home country to care for their family members, he drew on his personal experiences with a sick mother in West Africa and his family members who expected him there. Some employees linked their managers’ leadership practices to their country backgrounds even though the managers’ self-perceptions indicated otherwise. Other employees argued that it had more to do with the manager’s personality.

The examples of the three unit managers show that it is difficult to isolate cultural values from their country of origin or country of residence as factors determining leadership practices. Contextual factors from the institutional environment, the field and the organisation, as presented above, framed their leadership practices. As such, the unit managers drew on a repertoire of resources in their leadership practices. These resources may be traced back to the culture of their country of origin and to the Norwegian context, but also to professional background or leadership discourses that transcend national boundaries.