Executive Leadership training in LucerneLeadership Excellence in the canton of Lucerne: how can leaders explain an unfavourable decision without concealing its cost?
In the canton of Lucerne's often family-run businesses, short lines of communication make leaders accessible, but do not necessarily make their decisions transparent. For SHR's « Leadership d'excellence » programme, this raises a precise question: how can leaders announce an unfavourable decision without treating explanation as automatic justification?
1. What the literature establishes: distinct dimensions of justice
Jason A. Colquitt (2001, Journal of Applied Psychology) presents an empirical validation distinguishing four dimensions of organisational justice: distributive, procedural, interpersonal and informational. These concern, respectively, allocated outcomes, the procedures used, the treatment of individuals and the explanations provided. For a leader, this means that a courteous, detailed announcement does not by itself establish that either the allocation or the procedure is fair.
2. A second study: explanations can affect reactions
Jerald Greenberg (1990, Journal of Applied Psychology) examines reactions to a temporary pay reduction in manufacturing plants. Observed theft increases more when the explanation for the reduction is inadequate than when it is more thorough and considerate. This finding suggests that how a loss is announced matters, without fully isolating informational content from interpersonal treatment.
3. The hasty conclusion: better explanations make anything acceptable
It would be unjustified to conclude that good communication can compensate for any decision. A precise explanation can also help employees identify inconsistencies between the stated criteria and their application. The leadership task is therefore not to secure acceptance at any cost, but to make the decision understandable and open to challenge through an explicit channel. (our executive and employee training programmes)
4. The limits of the evidence and of close relationships
Validating a measurement instrument does not establish the causal effect of an announcement method, and a study of pay reductions cannot predict reactions to every managerial decision. These studies do not provide evidence specific to the canton of Lucerne, whose economy combines tourism, hospitality, regional financial services and industrial SMEs. In a locally rooted family business, close relationships might make questions easier to raise, but challenges harder to voice: this is a hypothesis to test, not a finding about the canton.
5. A practical check in Lucerne
Consider a hypothetical example in Lucerne: a family-run hotel must allocate less desirable shifts during a busy tourist period. As an application exercise for the « Leadership d'excellence » programme, the manager can prepare a brief setting out the constraint, allocation criteria, rejected alternatives and route for reconsideration. After the announcement, the manager asks employees individually to restate the criteria and checks the actual rota against them. Recording correctly understood criteria and unjustified exceptions provides two verifiable measures, without confusing understanding, fairness and agreement. To go further: explore the Executive Leadership training in Lucerne in the canton of Lucerne, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
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