Participative Leadership
We have heard the phrase “only I” can solve this problem! Conspiracy unites with a bias toward individualism and the role of a single “hero” who saves the day. The effectiveness of leaders in addressing the challenge of conspiracy relates directly to the act of countering this individualism. Conspiracies can be addressed only in a collective manner.
Research regarding conspiracy theories that are operating in organizations suggests that a specific leadership style makes a big difference. Van Prooijen and De Vries (2016) summarize this finding:
Despotic and laissez-faire leadership styles both were significant positive predictors of organizational conspiracy beliefs, (whereas) participative leadership was a significant negative predictor of organizational conspiracy beliefs.
With this quote, we begin to see more clearly how effective participative leadership can help not only to combat organizational conspiracies but also the crises of expertise. Participative approaches lead to increases in the generated and acknowledged expertise in a group—as we will explore more fully in Chapter Fifteen.
Education and Training
There is a second role to be played by leaders that makes a difference. Effective leadership requires the promotion of education and training. As we noted previously in our discussion of education levels, a constituency that tends to be less educated and lacking in critical thinking skills increases the likelihood that these hoaxes will be believed is greatly heightened. We have already pointed to the key role played by reflective, slow thinking in addressing other contemporary organizational challenges. Leaders should not only model this form of thinking, but also foster the acquisition of critical thinking skills by other members of their organization.
Communication
There is a third role to be played by leadership when confronting the matter of conspiracies in their organization. This third role has to do with skillful communication and with the thoughtful use of language (Fong, et al., 2021):
Our results indicate that the language used by conspiracy influencers as well as their followers on Twitter is more likely to be characterized by negative emotions such as anger. In addition, we found that conspiracy influencers and their followers use language related to power, death, and religion more than their science-focused counterparts” (The language of conspiracy: A psychological analysis of speech used by conspiracy theorists and their followers on Twitter.
Van Prooijen confirms that leaders are in the most influential position to overcome this fearmongering: “If one manages to transform widespread pessimism into optimism, irrational conspiracy theories will decrease among the public. As these aversive feelings are closely coupled with feeling out of control, we propose, likewise, that making people feel in control reduces conspiracy theories.
Furthermore, to the extent that information often flows through a network (such as gossip network) rather than just the formal network, those people who are situated at the “node” (cross-roads) of the network might also be quite influential (Schön, 1973). Stated from a somewhat different perspective, people working at all levels and providing functions of all kinds in an organization must experience a sense of empowerment in order to become less suspicious. Indeed, research demonstrates that simply having participants remember a time in their life when they felt completely in control has helped to reduce belief in conspiracy theories.
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