famous bureaucratic leaders
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Bureaucracy
The term bureaucracy (/bjʊəˈrɒkrəsi/) refers to both a body of non-elected governing officials (bureaucrats) and to an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected officials. Today, bureaucracy is the administrative system governing any large institution, whether publicly owned or privately owned. The public administration in many jurisdictions and sub-jurisdictions exemplifies bureaucracy, but so does any centralized hierarchical structure of an institution, e.g. hospitals, academic entities, business firms, professional societies, social clubs, etc.
Bureaucracy in a political theory is mainly a centralized form of management and tends to be differentiated from adhocracy, in which management tends more to decentralization.
1864-1920
Various commentators have argued for the necessity of bureaucracies in modern society. The German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) argued that bureaucracy constitutes the most efficient and rational way in which human activity can be organized and that systematic processes and organized hierarchies are necessary to maintain order, to maximize efficiency, and to eliminate favoritism. On the other hand, Weber also saw unfettered bureaucracy as a threat to individual freedom, with the potential of trapping individuals in an impersonal “iron cage” of rule-based, rational control.
Bureaucrats are generally not well known because they are the people who have chosen to work in public service as a career. Unlike people in political positions who may run for election every few years and get their name in the public eye, a bureaucrat serves the public from year to year no matter which political party or person may temporarily be on top. These public servants are the ones with the depth of knowledge in their particular field to keep things running the best that they can regardless of the temporary and sometimes ill-advised political agendas that are impractical or impossible.
State Department
While cabinet level officials are political appointees who may or may not have any experience with the federal government, their deputies who run the day to day operations and who figure out how to implement policy are bureaucrats. Senior Executive Service in the federal government are one such group of well-educated and highly experienced people.
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The people at the State Department who are not political appointments to the diplomatic corp are the professionals who are extremely well vetted before getting a foot in the door and eventually rise to the level that they are the number two at an embassy or an ambassador who rose on merit after working for years inside of that department. Unless something particularly newsworthy happens at their embassy or in the other departments that keep operations running, the public will rarely know their names or care to learn them.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Occasionally, someone will serve in federal or state government in a career position and then run for political office to get the highest position in their field. However, it is less common in most fields simply because employees often must resign before running for political office. The most common example of that situation that comes to my mind is when one or more deputy prosecutors in a district attorney’s office or similar office will resign in order to stand for election against the incumbent. I believe that Franklin D. Roosevelt worked in government positions before running for election in federal government, but I don’t know if he was ever in a regular bureaucratic position or only a politically appointed job. Perhaps someone more familiar with his early career could add information in that regard.
What is Bureaucratic Leadership?
Max Weber coined the term bureaucratic leadership in 1947 to describe an efficient way to set up large organizations[1]. Weber defined this leadership style as “an organizational structure that is characterized by many rules, standardized processes, procedures and requirements, number of desks, the meticulous division of labor and responsibility, clear hierarchies and professional, almost impersonal interactions between employees.” Think systems, structure, top-down control, and processes when picturing bureaucratic leadership. Communication is often classic Downward Communication. (Weber also defined the charismatic leadership style as part of the same framework.)
Sociologist George Ritzer took Weber’s concept of bureaucracy a step further by developing the concept of McDonaldization. In essence, Ritzer frames bureaucracy as a rational way to approach decision-making and the development of society. He used McDonald’s as a point of reference because of the inherent bureaucratic structure in their business model.
5 Examples of Bureaucratic Leadership In Action
Although there are various leadership styles that you can adopt as a business owner, bureaucratic leadership is ideal for companies operating in a highly-controlled environment.
Defined by its adherence to authority, structure and strict systems, it is also well suited to organisations that require little innovation or imagination from its employees. Indeed, it relies heavily on the development and implementation of carefully constructed frameworks to support critical business functions, meaning that any deviation from the overall outline could ultimately cause a bureaucratic structure to fail.
Examples of Bureaucratic Leadership
To demonstrate how this management method works in context, we’ve compiled a brief list of five bureaucratic leaders, each of whom perfectly illustrate the concept.
1. Steve Easterbrook
One of the world’s first truly iconic brands, McDonald’s didn’t become the fast-food behemoth it is today without a defined form of leadership driving it forward. Although there has been a long line of colourful CEOs present throughout its history – such as Ray Kroc, immortalised by Michael Keaton in 2016’s The Founder – Steve Easterbrook is the most recent.
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Indeed, sociologist George Ritzer coined the term “McDonaldization” in his 1993 book, The McDonaldization of Society, for this very reason. At the core of its operating strategy, McDonald’s focuses on being an industry leader while continuously developing a global presence through its franchising programme. Through efficiency, calculability, standardised predictability, and overall control, Easterbrook’s McDonald’s created and consolidated a specific culture that permeates down to each restaurant location – a mantra that will surely be continued by his successor, Chris Kempczinski. Consequently, when a new entrepreneur opts to buy a franchise from the company, they expected to adhere to the rigid rules and regulations that are already in place.
McDonald’s brand
By maintaining such a robust bureaucratic structure, McDonald’s – and the quality of the McDonald’s brand – remains consistent on a global scale. All employees accomplish tasks at an optimal pace, meet quantifiable sales objectives for set timeframes, and deliver the standardised “McDonald’s experience”, including staff uniforms, kitchen processes, and levels of customer service.
2. Harold Geneen
As president of the International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (ITT), Harold Sydney Geneen was a prime example of a bureaucratic leader; he was also able to utilise this style to transform his company into a hugely successful multinational corporation.
Although Geneen’s corporate structure was notorious, it generated over $7bn in profits during his tenure – a success based heavily upon the implementation of a carefully cultivated operating framework.
3. Alfred P Sloan
Appointed General Motors’ (GM) chairman of the board in 1937, Alfred P Sloan was a bureaucratic leader that genuinely pushed the management boundaries of the style. Although he primarily relied on a specific framework to support the functioning of his company, he still fostered the creative and innovative minds of the people within it. This rooted in his passion for running the organisation in a rational yet (then) modern manner; in adopting this approach, he revolutionised not just GM, but the motor vehicle industry in general.
4. Shinji Sogō
The fourth president of Japanese National Railways (JNR), Shinji Sogō is one of the best examples of a bureaucratic leader revolutionising their organisation. It is thanks to him that the dangan ressha (or “bullet train”) – previously viewed as an ambitious and perhaps unachievable project – came to fruition. Through perseverance, a resolute control of the JNR, and a calculated efficiency from the project’s inception to its completion, the dream of the bullet train was able to manifest as a reality.
The idea was important to Sogō, as he insisted on adopting a standard gauge railway system despite opposition from within the company and the wider general industry. Backed by his convictions, though, he devised a plan to present to the Japanese government and was able to secure funding for the project.
5. Winston Churchill
Though not a business owner, Churchill’s bureaucratic leadership still represents a good example of the method and, as the UK’s Prime Minister during the Second World War, was able to demonstrate it under particularly testing circumstances.
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Just like a business going through a tough time due to market conditions or other external factors, Churchill realised that a sense of structure, careful control and consistent uniformity were necessary to prevail. However, the relative disasters of his subsequent post-war political career also illustrate that bureaucratic leadership is not always the best course of action, and that organisations in different states of flux often respond differently to the same approach. For instance, just as a dying business sometimes needs autocratic leadership to keep it alive, a growing startup often requires a more positive, democratic approach, a point proven by the former PM’s failures as much as his legacies.
Thank you for staying with this post “famous bureaucratic leaders” until the end.
