COMMENT
Loyalty as a concept is defined as being faithful to a prince or a supervisor. It is about being devoted, true and faithful. It is built on allegiance and fidelity. When young, we are faithful to individuals, when older we grow more loyal to situations and to types (The unquiet grave).
Loyalty can be a very high-sounding word when it comes to being faithful to a sovereign or the country. No single individual can expressly be disloyal to the nation. Regardless of which country, all constitutions globally render to the guillotine, the ‘disloyal’ who are branded as traitors. In the context of the state there is no room for disloyalty. And it should be that way. It is an indisputable concept. However, it is also an undeniable historical reality that most founders and fathers of the nation have traditionally moved from ‘disloyalty to loyalty’. So is loyalty a matter of opinion, a state of mind in a given situation. Therefore, is it alterable and negotiable? No, it is not. No framework of law gives any concessions, particularly within the concept of state hood. Loyalty to state is real. But is there a thing called, ‘corporate loyalty’? Let’s examine.
Is corporate loyalty a reality? Loyalty can be about loyalty to country, to belief system, to society to family...but corporate loyalty - what? Most will define and identify corporate loyalty with low staff turnover rates. Such management live in a spell of make belief opinion; that if people do not leave the organisation, it is because they are ‘loyal’ to the institution. However, is the length of stay or association with an organisation reflective of the aspect of loyalty or of its many manifestations? Human resources in any organisation that do not get affected by Newton’s law of motion are essentially the collected items of dead wood, placed on the corporate shelf as hallmarks of loyal workers. Those in rest mode, will remain in the rest mode, until a foreign force acts upon them - are these loyalists?
As management trainees we were being addressed by a new joiner, a senior executive who was attempting to preach us the ‘unsure-uncommitted lot’, what loyalty to institution is all about. His remarks centred around the Japanese culture of management from the institution to the cemetery - thou shalt not look at any arising opportunity in the market – you shalt stay and suffer but not look at alternatives…when our internal revulsion became unbearable, remarked a batch mate, “..… but sir you have joined ‘our’ institution after having ditched three organisations…so what is loyalty?” Checkmated on the corner most point of the chess board of conversation, he remarked in a lighter tone, ‘loyalty is meant for youth’. So is loyalty a time bound activity, loyal today, disloyal tomorrow?
Corporate culture of the organisation also determines the validity of loyalty concept. If the courtier’s culture is rampant where reverence, subservience and absolute submission are hallmarks of loyalty then it is a matter of trade-off between two views. Unlike athletes in direct competition, managers are not supposed to be trying to defeat one another. When they do, it’s a sign of pathology, a symptom that something is gone wrong with the system’ (Elliot Jacques).
We must recognise and determine if demand or measurement of loyalty is related to trading your principles with consent. Does one have to trade expression of view to silence with a selfish motive representative of a sign of loyalty? As managers, is the forfeiture of principles to covet general praise (read bonuses and increments) a picture of loyalty?
If the guiding principle of the supervisor is my way or the highway and you choose ‘his way’ is that loyalty? Only in the battlefield or the military life is the ‘March of the Brigade’ couplet valid, ‘not to reason or rhyme but to do and die.’ In the corporate world raising a question is neither an act of provocation nor does or should it reflect ‘disloyalty.’
Most managers create an environment where the ‘best’ worker knows their place - under his heels. When a report foolishly licks boots and does so with visible enthusiasm, the attempt is to convince the boss of unalloyed loyalty - no matter how much of it is faked and put on. Such are colleagues who are wolves in sheep’s clothing!
That brings me to types and grades of ‘loyalty’. There is emotional loyalty, economic loyalty and the most lethal of all, expedient loyalty.
Emotional loyalty is when the boss uses relationship tactics to seek fealty. ‘You are part of family how can you do this to me’ or even better, ‘we don’t let family members to excommunicate themselves’. If an individual succumbs to emotional loyalty, he is preparing his final resting place.
Economic loyalty is extracted through manipulative expectation of a colleague’s needs and the needs can be genuine. Here the boss buys ‘loyalty’. Being recipient to the economic generosity of the boss, the employee ‘surrenders’ and calls himself most respectfully as ‘a’ loyal and devoted worker. In doing so, there is total disdain to the virtuous words of Lincoln, “Commitment (not loyalty that’s my addition) is what transforms a promise into reality.” Economic loyalty is sometimes measured by the number of hours spent at the work place and can include in extreme evaluation process, the number of holidays on which an individual marked himself present at work station.
Expedient loyalty represents duplicity of mind, thought and action. Hence it is the most unreliable of all formats of loyalty. It is dynamic and will change according to emerging trends and circumstances. As supervisors, be extremely wary of this lot. They are essentially the quiet and silent filth columnists in your ranks; chameleons that change colour continually to suit their objectives. It is done under the garb of ‘loyalty. Such a lot is best described in Alexander Pope’s words. ‘I am His Highness’s dog at kew; pray tell me, sir whose dog are you?’
In demanding loyalty, most indulge and seek deception as their major accomplice. And the loyalist here is recognised by the fact that he is a stiff person with everybody, except the boss. Performance is based on fear and not hope.
Loyalty is still the same whether it wins or loses the game; true as dial to the Sun, although it be not shined upon (Samuel Butler).
Simplistically to me, loyalty is never to bad mouth that you leave and move on…It can be person(s) or an organisation.
The writer is a senior banker and freelance columnist
