The recent allegations against the MasterChef presenter Gregg Wallace are dismayingly reminiscent of similar charges brought against strings of other celebrities, politicians and leaders over recent years. It’s almost as if there’s something about having influence or being in power that brings it out in people. Nik Kinley examines the lessons we can learn.
Regardless of whether the claims against Wallace prove true, possibly the most telling moment of the coverage so far was the Instagram video in which he dismissed his accusers as “middle-class women of a certain age”. The sheer level of misjudgement demonstrated in publicly stating this as he did revealed a man lacking understanding of his audience, how he would be perceived, or the impact his words would have.
Gregg Wallace lessons
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Many will have watched, wondering how on earth anyone could end up that out of touch. But from a purely psychological perspective, what we saw in that video really wasn’t that surprising. Because in terms of what prestige, power and influence can do to people, the misunderstanding and misjudgement demonstrated in that video are entirely common.
In fact, they can be found in every single workplace. They don’t always end that badly or that publicly, but they are always there, they are always a risk, and they are why it is so important that at moments like this, we learn from what has happened.
Psychological distance
The fundamental challenge here is that everybody in a position of power or influence becomes psychologically distanced to some degree from the people around them. For leaders, there are some benefits to this, giving them more of a helicopter view and allowing them to think more abstractly. But this distance also means they are more likely to use stereotypes and generalisations, more likely to objectify others, and more likely to find it harder to see things from others’ perspectives. And as a result, they can find it harder to really understand others.
What makes this worse, too, is that other people stop being so open with them. We all treat the boss slightly differently. We all tailor our words a bit, all say things slightly more carefully. And if we like them or want to keep them happy, then we’ll also be more likely to see the positive in what they do and perhaps even dismiss criticism of them. So not only do people with influence and power take a psychological step away from the people around them, but those people around them take a step back as well.
Important to note here is that it doesn’t matter how empathetic you are beforehand, or whether you are a TV star, a CEO or a factor floor supervisor: any person in any position of influence or power will experience some degree of psychological gap that gets in the way of them understanding the people around them, how they are perceived, and the impact they are having.
Obviously, the degree to which this is so depends on a number of factors, most notably the personality of the individual and the culture of the workplace. But it is entirely normal for everyone in a position of influence and leadership to lose some kind of connection with their audience.
Underlying processes
Which is why some of the public reactions to these events, while completely understandable, haven’t necessarily been helpful in terms of their ability to help us learn from and prevent similar events in future. The tendency has been to present the allegations as shockingly exceptional and to look for bad actors to blame, be that the individual concerned or the organisation they worked for. And to some degree, this is appropriate. After all, bad behaviour should never be normalised and accountability must always be held. But for those of us looking on, hoping to learn from these events, these reactions may not be useful.
Seeing them as different from what we encounter every day at work or as just about sexism or inappropriate behaviour limits our ability to learn from them. Yes, inappropriate behaviour absolutely appears – allegedly – to have been involved. But the big opportunity here is not to just focus on how to prevent one type of inappropriate behaviour in one organisation, but on how to stop the underlying processes that allow all sorts of leadership mistakes and toxicity to occur in all organisations.
It may feel distasteful to suggest that these current events are connected to more morally innocuous things, such as a leader inadvertently leaving an employee feeling uncared for or accidentally discouraging someone from speaking up with a good idea. But the underlying processes at play – psychological distance causing misunderstanding and misjudgement – are identical. And that’s why, from a psychological perspective, the misjudgement displayed in that extraordinary Instagram video was so telling. Because it revealed a man fundamentally separated from his audience. It was a powerful demonstration of what the distance created by influence and prestige can do to anyone.
If we as organisations truly want to help our leaders learn from these events, then we need to help them understand how the very roles they hold can affect them. Sometimes bringing out the best in them; but sometimes also not. Because the perils of power are not exceptional, and the risks they generate for organisations range from poor decisions to toxic cultures through to grossly inappropriate behaviour. And all these outcomes involve and rest upon that basic psychological disconnect inherent in all roles of influence.
We need, then, to start talking more about power and influence and what it does to people so that we can better prepare them for it, and better ensure that it does not so disconnect them from what is happening around them that they misjudge a moment as poorly as Wallace appears to have done.
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