Focusing on Making the Weak Links Stronger

Co-authored with Dr. Thomas Kelemen

“A chain is only as strong as its weakest link” is an oft-stated piece of advice. Yet, in our day-to-day lives, we often betray this adage’s wisdom and typically focus on making the strong link stronger, as Malcom Gladwell outlines in a fascinating podcast episode on the topic. Per Gladwell's logic, given the choice, most of us would rather see a blockbuster deal that brings a famous player (strong link) to our sports team rather than a trade that brings several backup players (weak link). If we are looking to donate money, we often give to well-known non-profits (strong link), when a local charity (weak link) may have benefitted more from that dollar. We may trust the idea of one private-school alumna (strong link) more than the collective wisdom of a team of public-school graduates (weak link). Rather than focusing on small actors, our tendency is to be captivated by the “champion-based” model featuring strong protagonists. We want to hear of David facing Goliath, Alexander the Great conquering the known world by his thirties, and Robin Hood purging corruption from Nottingham.

In the world of business, politics, and applied psychology, this logic can become more problematic than the realm of storytelling. For instance, why do CEOs make 399x more than the average worker? Well, perhaps this disproportionate compensation (which appears to be on the rise) may be attributable to the fact that we love the strong link.

Below, we apply this concept to two camps in the field of leadership studies: Upper Echelons (which often focuses on the contributions of upper executives and can be thought of as strong links) and Followership (which often focuses on the contributions of front-line workers and can be thought of as weak links).

Upper Echelon’s Theory

In studying leadership, a lot of research focuses on upper executives. In fact, a whole stream of research (known as Upper Echelons Theory) argues that subtle characteristics in these leaders’ lives impact organizations. This research includes scrutinizing a CEO’s birth order, exploring whether the CEO is divorced, and if the CEO attended a university with a religious affiliation. In studying these effects, researchers argue that elements of a CEO’s personal life have significant impact on the firms they lead (see meta-analytic research results on this point). This research has to be counterbalanced, though, with the question of: What about the thousands of others who work as part of the organization? Does their birth order, divorce status, and religious affiliation matter as well? If focusing on executives represents the “strong link” of organizations, then turning our attention to followers helps us see the “weak link” that may warrant more of our attention if we truly want to make the weak link in the chain stronger.

Followership

Some scholars have called into question the aggrandizement and glory we give to our leaders. For example, the article, “The Romance of Leadership” seeks to explore whether leaders are given too much credit (and punished too harshly) for success and failures. If the economy is succeeding, we praise our politicians. In contrast, if inflation and unemployment is high, we hit the eject button.

Building on this critique, Followership Theory argues that front-line workers are often “left out of the leadership research equation,” as Dr. Uhl-Bien and her coauthors put it. Followership emphasizes that even if you are a follower, you can still lead, and if you are a leader, you can still follow. In other words, just as leader emergence is not the same as leader effectiveness (which we have written about before), leader behaviors are not the same as leader titles. As one writer put it, the title of “boss” doesn’t necessarily equate to “leader.”

What both the Romance of Leadership and Followership Theory have in common is they fundamentally reject the notion that the strong link argument is always the best way to view the world, and invite us to think about followers, who are often seen as the “weak link” of an organization. With this perspective as a lens, perhaps organizations would fare better if resources were dedicated on raising followers’ pay, rather than increasing the compensation of the top management team. A weak link focus would likely be associated with internal hiring (for example, Costco) and would probably seek to identify problems (and solutions) from the rank-and-file worker.

So, What About the Strong Link?

Of course, there are advantages and disadvantages to the weak/strong link argument. Leaders do matter. One of our favorite definitions of leadership—i.e., a disproportional influence over decisions and resources—is built upon the idea that leaders are more powerful than followers. Yet, returning to the realm of storytelling, recall Gandalf who enabled unknown hobbits (weak link) to dethrone the greatest evil of Middle Earth (strong link).

We study leadership (such as leader humility), and in our assessment, research on upper executives is much more developed (and has more empirical support) than sister research on followers. As anecdotal evidence, an informal academic search of “upper echelons” returns ~3,000 results compared to the ~1,000 results for the search “followership.” While this back-of-the-napkin insight is far from conclusive, we can each reflect on how much attention we pay to the strong links of societies and, if given the choice, whether we would invest more in the strong link or the weak link. In the words of Robert Kelley: “Leaders matter greatly. But in searching so zealously for better leaders we tend to lose sight of the people these leaders will lead.”

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Regardless of where you stand in terms of the strong-versus-weak-link debate, the important takeaway is that humans are all-too-often biased toward romantic or overdramatized explanations when trying to explain failure and success. As a manager, you will be tempted to focus solely on the strong link, promoting the superstar. However, the notion of the so-called “weak link”—if we take the idea seriously—invites us to remember the everyday acts of each and every follower in an organization.

Dr. Thomas Kelemen is an Assistant Professor at Kansas State University. His research focuses on leadership and work-family dynamics.