The Shit about the Chain of Command in Leadership!

The single shit about the chain of command in low societies is that it doesn’t work. Period!

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Just like all others, you and I must have condemned president Museveni on several occasions for jumping structures or institutions for this and that, and implementing things himself, thereby making these other structures irrelevant and powerless. And every time the public (or politicians) hit on that issue, the reason is always this; family, relatives, tribe-mates, and those with special favors are the ones that visit the president to have their requests endorsed minus going through right administrative channels. However, my current findings plus personal experience point out to another and more serious reason; failure and reluctance of those structures or offices to do their work!

3 reasons why the chain of command doesn’t work!

In 2009, Jeffrey W. Kassing published a study entitle ‘breaking the chain of command: Making sense of employee circumvention’. The author wanted to understand why, despite the very many claims of uses and great advantages of obeying chains of command and organizational structures, people or employees still enjoyed bypassing their immediate bosses and supervisors to the directors or overall bosses of institutions. He offered a questionnaire to about 150 employees in different industries (banking, health, education, etc). According to the study findings; here are the three major reasons for breaking the chain of command.

1. Supervisor inaction; when an employee’s expression of dissent to a boss was met with either a shrug or an unfulfilled promise.
2. supervisor’s subpar performance; employees reported concerns about how their boss mismanaged such tasks as scheduling vacations, managing workflow processes, and conducting performance evaluations.
3. Questionable behavior by the supervisor, including employee harassment, unethical behavior, and abuses of organizational policies and practices.

I would summarize the above reasons as; ignoring the subject’s concerns or issues, failing to address the issues, and abuse or mistreatment of the subject. And, seriously, put up your hand if you think these are not the reasons. The chain of command can only work in a society or organizations whereby the lower structures diligently execute their duties, can be flexible, creative, and technical in solving client’s issues, and have esteem dignity or are bound to ethical codes to not violate other people’s rights and privileges.

In other words, if a certain office or officer shall make you move up and down before solving your issue, use his power and position to abuse you and show that he can actually determine your life, and or fail altogether to understand and solve your issue, what more would you want to do with him except bypassing him and his fake non-functional office and visit the overall boss?

In delegation in management, most writers like to argue that the failure of the delegate or envoy to fulfill the duties given is due to inadequate power and authority or resources transferred to him. While this is true, it is not entirely true; in most cases, even the topmost manager does not have all the resources or power as many claim, but, trusting his position and knowing he has nowhere else to go to, is creative and innovative, has self-esteem, and the inner zeal that things must work with him. This flexibility, innovation, and trust in his position as one who should solve issues puts him in a spot for innovation, compromising, improvisation, and all sorts of measures to solve or answer the queries or requests that employees present.

My experience with chain of command!

According to my experience, the chain of command is simply unhelpful or, to be polite and exact, has a class of people and organizations it can work with (the kinds of people and organizations that Timothy Kalyegila always highlights). Actually, according to Elon Musk at the conversation, some organizations (especially the small and middle-sized firms) would better advocate for ‘flat’ organization than the hierarchal chain of command illusion. In his words;

“As organizations strive to respond quickly to new challenges and opportunities, flatter organizations shorten the chain of command, increasing communication between employees and management.” According to Elon, researchers Raaj Sah and Joseph Stieglitz had warned; “hierarchic style organizations produce problems like the rejection of good projects without reason. The greater the number of organizational decision-making layers, the greater the probability that a good project will be rejected that would have otherwise had a positive impact on the company’s growth.”

Indeed, I have always seen supervisors and immediate in-charges bouncing back sounding ideas, requests, reasons, and developments of students and clients, and yet, if these requests or needs would have a chance to see the director or the topmost management, would be granted or endorsed. And as we already made it clear, the only reasons why your immediate supervisor may not endorse your request or meet your needs as an employee are; negligence, failure, or abuse of power. In this case, tell me, why wouldn’t you ‘jump’ or circumvent the ‘rat’?

At school (during my college years or even now at the university), it is hard to have a request or issue honored because each leader keeps shifting power and authority to the next one. I will not forget the day I missed an exam due to lack of school fees clearance card. Even when I reported on that Saturday morning with the exact fees and requested an opportunity to have the money held hostage and be allowed in class, every leader and administrator kept shifting power and responsibility to the next until I failed on all of them. It is then that I wished I had the vice chancellor’s number or that of academic registrar.

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At my workplace, it is always common to have a staff’s request or issue addressed and forwarded to the director’s office and never make it to his desk simply because the relay offices (either human resource, accounts, registry, or even secretaries) could not forward the documents. In other cases, documents that could be cleared within one day take months or even a year before they are cleared simply because the relay or immediate supervisors and offices could not act on them and or do the forwarding. Sometimes, the director endorses a staff’s request and forwards it to the finance, human resource, or your immediate supervisor for action and these same requests are stuck for years in these small offices. In my experience, it is rare to have a document delay in director, ACN, or, maybe, the hospital’s administrator’s office for months; your request is accepted or rejected but in time.

NB: By the way, in most organizations, we are asked to apply for jobs through the human resource, right? Well, now, tell me, how many human resource officers can actually identify the vacancy or create a necessary one and offer you a job? Almost none. In all these organizations, you are better off if you presented your job application to the director, the principal or at least the academic registrar. Also, in case you have dropped you application in human resource’s office, it is better you still have some visit to the director’s office and let him know that you want a job and just dropped your application in his human resource’s department.

So, tell me, given the chance and opportunity, why would a nurse write through her immediate supervisor when she is aware that she will be forced to move up and down for years, edit or keep changing the letter’s gramma for months, or even be discouraged or scorned altogether that the requests or issues she is raising don’t make sense? Through immediate supervisors and proper channels, how many requests for further studies or financial support or for accommodation ever make it through? I have met with tens of nurses and doctors, who, according to their stories, deserve accommodation, going back school, deserve financial support and other benefits but their pleas are stuck somewhere along the chain of command.

Only those in chain of command demand for it!

There is another unique element that I have come to realize about the chain of command; people who praise and demand for it are usually those who have been jumped or bypassed by employees. It is rare to find someone out of the chain of command demanding for it. In Uganda, every individual would love to meet the president personally. In organizations, all workers would be glad if they could meet directors face to face. No one advocates for these relays despite the very many claimed advantages. Why? Because they (the relays) don’t work!

This is because people have been disappointed down there. And please, don’t say that it is because the topmost boss failed the relay offices for I don’t see it as the reason my mother pays for every letter of the district attorney or judge’s signature. If people or employee’s issues can be solved locally or at least be forwarded to the topmost offices for action, that would be helpful. But does it happen?

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Listen, I am not saying that the chain of command is bad; I am saying we have failed it. There is no need of sharing evidences concerning the advantages of chain of command for they are many. The only problem is that it is only in few effective and highly specialized organizations and nations that it (the chain of command) works. Surely, these special and developed organizations do not belong here, not here in Uganda.

Therefore, until relay offices grow up and learn to do their duties diligently in real time with great sense of making things work and not just turning away or delaying projects, requests, and issues before they are solved, people shall (if they can) keep ambushing president Museveni or that organization’s director within the corridors for their itchy issues of sick and dying parents and children, school fees or desires to go for further studies, accommodation shortages, salary delays or diversions or the recent abuses they encountered on their way to him.

Final take: The chain of command doesn’t work, not in Uganda!

Usually, the relay offices or immediate supervisors are incompetent (fearing and unable to make rational decisions), are full of themselves and thus ignore and dismiss the requests of their subjects (especially, if these requests might make the subjects more powerful and excellent than the relay offices or officers themselves), and or abuse their offices and power and thus abuse their subjects. In most organizations, there have been reports of sexual harassment, corruption, different prejudices, and other forms of abuses encountered in immediate supervisors’ offices or relay structures and yet these might be avoided by storming directly the highest offices of such organizations. Besides these, the chain of command indeed delays decisions and dismisses projects that would otherwise transform organizations.

Are we in for the chain of command or not? Time for your views; what exactly makes you bypass your immediate boss to the topmost level of your organization? Write down your comment or send your view to thecompletey@gmail.com