Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership
& Governance
ISSN: 2330-3131 (Print) 2330-314X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wasw21
White Bear Syndrome: Recognizing Potential
Roadblocks in Transitioning from Practitioner to
Leader
Tamara E. Hurst & Philip W. Hurst
To cite this article: Tamara E. Hurst & Philip W. Hurst (2017) White Bear Syndrome: Recognizing
Potential Roadblocks in Transitioning from Practitioner to Leader, Human Service Organizations:
Management, Leadership & Governance, 41:4, 438-447, DOI: 10.1080/23303131.2017.1281857
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/23303131.2017.1281857
Accepted author version posted online: 17
Jan 2017.
Published online: 08 Feb 2017.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 291
View related articles
View Crossmark data
Citing articles: 1 View citing articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=wasw21
HUMAN SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS: MANAGEMENT, LEADERSHIP & GOVERNANCE
2017, VOL. 41, NO. 4, 438–447
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23303131.2017.1281857
White Bear Syndrome: Recognizing Potential Roadblocks in
Transitioning from Practitioner to Leader
Tamara E. Hursta and Philip W. Hurstb
a
School of Social Work, The University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, USA; bHurst Behavioral
Group, Inc., Hattiesburg, Mississippi, USA
ABSTRACT
Social work practitioners are ingrained with values that shape their professional selves and the activities they perform. A critical piece of clinical social
workers’ motivation involves relationships with clients. This firmly entrenched
mindset can present barriers when practitioners become leaders in human
service organizations. Transitioning from clinical practitioner to leader requires
a paradigm shift. To help understand and overcome internal conflicts, the
authors use the white bear syndrome accompanied with symptoms and strategies to help pinpoint potential struggles. Key questions are provided to help
clinical practitioners successfully transition into leadership roles.
KEYWORDS
Leader; practitioner;
symptoms; transition
strategies; white bear
syndrome
The term leadership has been noted to have “as many definitions as texts” (Williams, 2003). Within
the field of social work, leadership has been defined as “the communication of vision, guided by the
NASW Code of Ethics, to create proactive processes that empower individuals, families, groups,
organizations, and communities” (Rank & Hutchison, 2000). Given this definition, social work
practitioners might wonder about potential obstacles involved in transitioning from direct practice
to human service organizational leaders. Cousins (2004) suggested that “the move from a social work
practitioner to that of a supervisor can cause a crisis in identity for some social workers, a point at
which professional values, roles, and commitment are questioned and re-analyzed.” Just as a shift
from social work practitioner to supervisor might present challenges, a shift from practitioner to
organizational leader might present other challenges including struggles with professional identity.
New social work leaders may have to transition from their known reinforcing tasks of providing
resources and therapeutic modalities for their clients to becoming leaders of human service organizations
who manage ever changing political climates, resource limitations, funding pathways, and shifting alliances
or partnerships. Wimpfheimer (2004, p. 46) noted that “[social work] managers often ascend through the
ranks of the organization after having worked as direct service workers and supervisors. Sometimes they
have received training as managers; but most times they have not.” To be sure, not all social workers seek to
make such a transition. And some believe that while taking on additional leadership responsibilities they
can remain engaged in their preferred direct practice activities. Nevertheless, better insights into certain key
paradigm shifts may help some social workers move from their roles as frontline practitioners to
organizational leaders.
There can be a host of task-related reasons for a turbulent transition from clinical social work
practitioner to leader—for example, lack of direct experience with developing business plans,
coaching others, team building, and strategic thinking, to name a few. It has long been recognized
that many schools of social work focus more on teaching case work, group work, community
organizing, and direct clinical practice than on developing and/or defining leadership expertise for
those who desire to guide human service organizations (Glicken, 2007, p. 30; Rank & Hutchison,
CONTACT Tamara E. Hurst
Hattiesburg, MS 39406, USA.
© 2017 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
tamara.hurst@usm.edu
The University of Southern Mississippi, 118 College Drive, #5114,
HUMAN SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS: MANAGEMENT, LEADERSHIP & GOVERNANCE
439
2000; Sheafor, 2006). Over two decades ago, Newsome (1995) cautioned schools of social work that
“without our serious attention to leadership preparation, those we educate for service delivery are
likely to be managed by other professions.”
In addition to certain operational skills that new leaders must acquire, they must also develop an
awareness of their own personal values. Understanding how one cognitively perceives who she or he
is in this world and gathering information as to how one is perceived by others may help avoid some
leadership pitfalls. Indeed, values identified in the Educational Policies and Accreditation Standards
set forth by the Council on Social Work Education (2015) include requirements that professionals
take time to gain self-awareness, practice self-reflection, and recognize personal values. Identifying
and defining these values is a key step to understanding how they present as behaviors.
There are books and articles that identify concepts linking various non–business-related principles,
laws, and syndromes to dysfunctional leadership behaviors that cause havoc within organizational
cultures. Many concepts or labels attempt to describe the influence of a human element on organizational
difficulties as opposed to attributing these challenges to market forces, branding, balance sheets,
technology, logistics, and so forth. A well-known and somewhat tongue-in-cheek example of such a
powerful human element is the Peter principle in which Peter and Hull (2009) suggested that employees
advance through organizations until they reach their respective levels of incompetence and at which
point they are no longer promoted. Employees stay at these ranks but function at low levels, thus
potentially destabilizing an organization through poor leadership and/or management decisions.
In the profession of social work, a scenario like this might play out in a child welfare organization
where a social worker performs well in a frontline position involving one-on-one interactions with
children and/or families. The social worker displays strong organizational skills, rapport-building
abilities, and effective crisis-management techniques. This worker is recognized by the organization
for good work and is promoted through its ranks. Eventually the social worker is promoted into a
supervisory role and then later into a leadership role. This worker tries to continue doing good work
but has reached a level of ineffectiveness. The refined one-on-one skills that prompted a promotion
are not the skills required for a leadership role. The worker performs marginally incompetent and
sometimes inadequate work but not enough to be fired or demoted.
Indeed, a Gallup survey noted that advancement based on tenure or success in nonmanagerial
roles frequently occurs in many organizations (Rigoni & Nelson, 2015). Their study of 2.5 million
manager-led teams in 195 countries led them to conclude that only about 1 in 10 people naturally
possess high talent to manage (Rigoni & Nelson, 2015). One can generalize that as this child welfare
organization and its leadership positions mature, its success might be jeopardized by multiple leaders
who exhibit ineffective leadership behaviors such as poor decision making, undermotivating employees, and failing to appropriately select and/or communicate key initiatives.
When employees and observers of agency operations witness dysfunction in an organization it
can be intuitively interpreted as a signal of deeper underlying problems with leadership. When we
take our observations of leadership behavior and stamp them with a concept like syndrome it leads
one to believe that we have discovered a reliable cause-and-effect relationship, yet there is little if any
empirical data other than mere observation that provides support for these claims. The advantage,
however, of using a term such as syndrome to describe apparent salient characteristics of a leader or
leadership group is that it can pave the way for reflective insight—that is, understanding more about
why you do what you do and what effect it has on others.
It grabs the attention of organizational leaders when you tell them that they have created a set
up to fail syndrome (Manzoni & Barsoux, 2002). This syndrome describes a Golem effect or a
dynamic opposite of the Pygmalion effect such that employees perform to the lower expectations
that micromanaging leaders have set for them. Heads often nod in agreement when exasperated
female employees learn that their female leader has the queen bee syndrome (Staines, Tavris, &
Jayaratne, 1973) in which a female in a position of authority views female subordinates more
critically. Powerful leaders may be unaware of negative workplace environments they have
created and may experience employees who fall prey to the oddly named bad employee syndrome,
440
T. E. HURST AND P. W. HURST
as described by Vlachoutsicos (2013). Within this syndrome, a workplace culture presents itself
as an unsafe environment that does not allow for employees’ positive contributions. Because of
this, employees try to please their bosses by agreeing with decisions they would have challenged
if someone else had proposed them. Finally, anyone who has been in the workforce for a period
of time has probably worked for or heard of a competitive, impatient leader who exhibits
symptoms of the alpha male syndrome (Ludeman & Erlandson, 2013). These leaders can produce
tremendous results while simultaneously wrecking the morale and motivation of those around
them.
No wonder Albrecht (2003) predicted that there will one day be a business-oriented Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual that will exhaustively list a full inventory of syndromes for organizations
similar to what psychologists have created for mental illness (p. 21). In his work, Albrecht (2003)
listed 17 syndromes of organizational dysfunction and even suggested his own Albrecht’s law,
whereby “intelligent people, when assembled into an organization, will tend toward collective
stupidity” (p. 3).
While any of the above syndromes may afflict leaders, there is one in particular, the white bear
syndrome, which might sometimes trouble clinical practitioners who become organizational leaders.
The white bear syndrome was a theory originally described by social psychologist Daniel Wegner
(1989) and later adapted to apply to certain mental health conditions. This article concerns itself
with Wegner’s theory as originally posited.
Wegner was interested in the concept of conscious thought suppression and mind control—that
is, once we explicitly try to avoid thinking of something (like a white bear) we find that we think
about it all the time. Specifically, Wegner theorized that while one part of a brain successfully tries to
avoid thinking about a certain topic, another part of the same brain constantly “checks in” to make
sure we are not thinking about the unwanted topic (Winerman, 2011). This action ironically brings
that very topic to mind again and again.
The white bear syndrome can appear when practitioners endeavor to become leaders of organizations. It is a paradigm shift for practitioners who previously immersed themselves in direct service
delivery. They must cognitively shift responsibilities to that of leaders that set the direction and tone
of their organizations. Their attempts to focus their thoughts on leading take them away from their
original comfort zones of working as frontline practitioners. The more they focus on leading, the
more their cognitive processes “check in” to make sure they are not focusing on direct practices.
Many times a balance can be achieved. Every once in a while, there are certain conditions (i.e., steep
learning curves for new leadership tasks; lack of positive reinforcement by employees or peers; or
newly introduced stressors) that reduce cognitive capabilities to maintain a balance. Attempts to
mentally avoid returning to their previous states as practitioners weaken and thoughts of their
previous careers begin to supersede thoughts of their new leadership positions. This has the potential
to discourage potential new leaders before their management potential has been discovered and
applied.
Symptoms of the white bear syndrome in a social work leader
Following are three stages and six symptoms of the white bear syndrome potentially found in new
leaders. Embedded among these symptoms are strategies for cognitively moving from the focus of a
clinical practitioner to the focus of a human service organization leader. These strategies are based
on Wegner’s and other researchers’ suggestions for those who experience challenges with transitioning their focus from one activity to another. Specifically, focused self-distraction was found to help
center thoughts on new activities while preventing a “rebound effect” to older activities (Wegner,
Schneider, Knutson, & McMahon, 1991). Focused self-distraction provides structured activities to
help change behavior. Without this focus, those who try to change activities without also changing
behaviors run the risk of becoming preoccupied with the activities they are trying to modify (Polivy
& Herman, 1985). As an example, the previously described scenario of a front-line social worker
HUMAN SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS: MANAGEMENT, LEADERSHIP & GOVERNANCE
441
whose excellent clinical skills propelled her into a leadership position even though she was not ready
to transition to such activities, may have benefited from such a change in focus.
Stage one: Prehire considerations
Symptom 1: Fear of direct service/practitioner drift
Human resource professionals and the use of tailored prehire procedures can help social work
practitioners better understand whether or not their reasons for significant changes in their
professional lives match the reality of what a new position will provide. There are many reasons
why a social work practitioner may seek promotion into a leadership role, and these reasons
may overshadow or color their perception of what they will experience. For example, financial
needs or incentives may provide motivation for such a change especially for those still burdened
by student loan debt. This debt can vary depending upon a social worker’s degree(s). One-third
of the respondents in a study of social work student loan debt reported loans of at least $30,000
for an undergraduate degree (Yoon, 2012). The same study reported average loan debt for
masters-level social work students ranging from $30,791 to $47,094 (Yoon, 2012). Although
social work salaries are highly variable, a majority of licensed social workers earn between
$35,000 and $59,000 (NASW, 2006, p. 28). These factors combined with other potential
financial responsibilities such as dependents can provide strong motivation to seek a better
paying position.
Seeking an internal promotion or a promotional move into a new agency may also be motivated
by a desire to creatively address social justice issues affecting their clients. As well, a social worker
might realize that even though direct client contact is fulfilling, a logical and productive next step in
his or her career to avoid stagnation might involve supervisory responsibilities such as training and
mentoring new social workers. Offering a social work practitioner a vision of what it will be like to
leave direct service may be eye opening. Discussing the importance of what is at the heart of the
social worker’s motivational needs for seeking promotion or change may help to clarify critical
position-related disconnects.
These reasons represent a few scenarios of why clinical social workers may seek out and explore
organizational leadership roles. This shift can involve internal conflicts. Social work leaders who do
not acknowledge that their reinforcement in professional life was grounded in performing clinical
practitioner activities may eventually fear losing the very motivation that brought them to the
profession in the first place. Imbedded in the psyche of many social work practitioners is a calling
to be on the front line in a social worker/client interface. The Council on Social Work Education
(2015) states, “The purpose of the social work profession is to promote human and community wellbeing . . . social work’s purpose is actualized through its quest for social and economic justice, the
prevention of conditions that limit human rights, the elimination of poverty, and the enhancement
of the quality of life for all persons” (emphasis added). Even though this purpose can be realized
through leadership roles, some practitioners do not envision such roles as avenues for them to realize
their full potential. Full-time work in a human service leadership role takes a social worker out of
frontline field action. This change from “working in the trenches” (even if you try to do some
percentage of field work as a leader) can be perceived as less reinforcing. The further a practitioner
moves away from direct social work practice, the more motivation for improving leadership skills
may wane. This may occur even when social worker leaders head organizations steeped in the causes
of promoting social justice and improvement of human conditions.
There are questions that clinical social work practitioners might ask themselves before accepting
leadership roles to prepare for such a transition:
442
T. E. HURST AND P. W. HURST
● Do you love working with service recipients but want to transition to leadership to escape poor
●
●
●
●
●
work conditions (e.g., long hours, insensible policies, bad boss, too little money)? Is there
another way to satisfy these conditions?
What is your understanding of your new leadership activities and what are the challenges that
might come with this leadership role? Are there role models to connect with that might help
you obtain insights into this new position?
What new leadership activities do you believe will be most reinforcing and which will be most
disliked? What percentage of your time will you be engaged in these types of activities? Is the
ratio of positive to negative activities weighted toward the positive?
What is your vision of how you will grow in your new leadership role?
What skills do you possess as an accomplished social work practitioner that translate to a
leadership role?
What do you think will be the most difficult part of a transitioning to a leadership role? What is
your plan to overcome these difficult challenges?
Once clinical social work practitioners begin to transition to organizational leadership positions,
it is important that they wisely engineer their working environments to create sustainability. This too
will require new leaders to have great self-insight. Once leaders have established a clear understanding of leadership activities and analyzed which activities they prefer, they can use this knowledge to structure their work days.
According to the relativity theory of reinforcement, often referred to as the Premack principle
(Premack, 1962), a higher probability behavior can be used to reinforce a lower probability behavior.
In other words “the key idea of Premackian conditioning is that actions, and the opportunity to
make them, reinforce other actions” (Killeen, 2014). Newly hired social work leaders who harbor
concerns about losing their practitioner selves might periodically integrate direct social work service
with leadership activities. For example, they could structure their days such that service activities act
as reinforcements for lesser desired leadership activity (e.g., if revising an organizational budget is an
undesired activity, follow it with a service activity). If leadership activities make up 100% of the
professional’s day, then use leadership activities that are most desirable to reinforce less desirable
leadership activities (e.g., if revising an organizational budget is less preferred than collaborating with
or empowering a team, which are higher preferred activities, revise the budget prior to collaborating
and empowering).
Symptom 2: Cross-eyed vision
This type of vision occurs when a social work leader’s mindset is fixated on a clinical practitioner’s
vision, mission, and values held for the welfare of a service recipient, to the detriment of what a bigger
picture of success looks like for an entire organization. Naturally, leader and practitioner must be
aligned under the overarching mission of the social work profession which guides social workers to
“enhance human well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all people, with particular
attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in
poverty” (NASW, 2016). Nevertheless, the responsibilities of a leader are structurally different. For
example, identified competencies of a social work leader such as abilities to engage in public/community relations, marketing, and organizational governance (Wimpfheimer, 2004, pp. 50–51) are critical
to supporting and sustaining an organization’s vision and mission.
It is critical to understand that clarity of vision, mission, and values for social work organizational
leaders versus social work practitioners sets the occasion for pinpointing their purposes (e.g., advancing the vision of the overall organization versus providing direct service); their roles (e.g., individuals
who develop and organize resources for an organization versus those who provide direct service); their
accountabilities (e.g., those held accountable for the overall health of the organization versus those held
accountable for delivering appropriate and effective services); and their outcomes (e.g., organizational
strategies, goals, maps, and key performance measurements versus improving the overall well-being of
HUMAN SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS: MANAGEMENT, LEADERSHIP & GOVERNANCE
443
clients). The vision, mission, and values for both leadership and practitioner roles must also hold dear,
as well as balance the values and ethics of the social work profession. Therein lies the challenge in
aligning professional goals.
Ideally, a principal vision can serve for both social work practitioners and organizational leaders
and should complement the view that “professional practice involves the dynamic and interactive
processes of engagement, assessment, intervention, and evaluation at multiple levels. Social workers
have the knowledge and skills to practice with individuals, families, groups, organizations, and
communities” (emphasis added; CSWE, 2015). For example, one client’s overarching vision statement for an across-state technical assistance organization stated, “Mississippi will have communities
made up of strong, empowered and hopeful members in which everyone has access, voice and
ownership to the things they need to live the life they want.”
The above vision was developed by practitioners who had been elevated into leadership roles. The vision
is passionate and descriptive as well as future casting in nature. It makes a strong statement for service
recipients to become healthy and acknowledges their right to self-determination. While this can serve as an
overarching vision for the organization as well, it remains important to clarify what the organization is
going to do, who it will serve, and what needs the organization will fulfill. This clarification should define
the operation of the organization and it should diverge from the responsibilities of a social work practitioner. For our client in the above example their organizational mission became “to provide support and
resources to child-serving agencies that utilize high-fidelity wraparound principles and philosophies.”
Establishing a clearly worded organizational vision and mission allows organizational leaders to
consider a number of important present and future strategic questions:
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
What place in the field does our organization hold today?
What do we look like?
Who are our internal and external customers, and how do we support them?
What are our key activities? How do we distribute our time?
How do we measure our success?
What place in the field will our organization hold tomorrow?
What questions should we consider going forward?
What changes do we need to embrace?
What are our organizational aspirations? What are the opportunities for expansion?
Has our initial focus changed or drifted? Should these changes become part of our long-range
focus or should we return to our basic structure?
● Are we measuring what matters for the success of our organization?
Stage 2: Role-focus confusion
Symptom 3: Client/customer dilemma
This dilemma occurs when a leader solely focuses on the satisfaction and support provided for
service end-user recipients (i.e., clients), thereby neglecting the needs of the internal and external
customers that form an organization’s base of support. This can create a role-focus issue for a social
work leader. New social work leaders might find as their baseline the ability to fluently articulate the
ecological or holistic supports required for service recipients. There is a need for new leaders to
expand their base of expertise to include others who support their efforts to serve clients. Sometimes
new leaders view those external to a client/practitioner interface as disparate partners to the process,
whether these partners are outside the organization such as fiscal sponsors, legislators, or other
supportive entities or within the organization such as another department.
Clearly identifying partners outside the organization as external customers can encourage leaders to
obtain critical customer feedback to formulate new action plans, key performance indicators (KPIs), and
marketing strategies. Through external customer identification and role definition, leaders can begin to
demonstrate organizational commitment to adaptation and change in response to feedback. In addition, by
444
T. E. HURST AND P. W. HURST
gathering feedback from internal customers, social work leaders can identify tactical interventions to
enhance services, supports, and employee retention; modify barriers to service delivery; discover opportunities to empower and engage frontline employees; and upgrade internal policies.
Key questions to ask regarding external/internal customers might include:
● Have we clearly identified our external/internal customers and their roles in our organization?
● How do we gather feedback from our external/internal customers? Is their feedback accurate
and honest? How can we improve our feedback mechanisms?
● How useful are the comments and recommendations from our external/internal customers?
How does this information pave the way for our organization to change or grow?
● What feedback loops are in place to show how our decisions are influenced by our external/
internal customer inputs?
● How satisfied are our external/internal customers? What is working well about our current
external/internal customer relationship? What is not working well about our current external/
internal customer relationship?
● What are the top three or four needs of each of our external/internal customers?
Symptom 4: Clinical practitioner activity trap
The clinical practitioner activity trap occurs when leaders fail to understand distribution of leadership activity time. A worthwhile exercise for new leaders of any kind but particularly useful for social
work leaders to help dispel role-focus issues is to list expected activities, objectives, and anticipated
time allocations. This will help behaviorally pinpoint and focus expected leadership activities and
frame leadership roles.
A simple but effect tool for pinpointing leadership activities is to create a simple chart using
headings pre-defined headings (see Figure 1).
During an annual retreat, a client defined required key behaviors for their new leaders to help
drive a process for just one of their identified internal customers (see Figure 2).
These activities fit well within their suggested time allocations for monthly activities with internal
and external customers (see Figure 3).
Technical support activities are provided by agency leadership to each identified customer.
Agency leadership also has administrative and task responsibilities outside in addition to the
provision of technical assistance.
In the absence of identifying the activities required to be successful, new leaders may have great
intentions but will lack direction. This could lead new leaders to engage in default to behaviors they
are accustomed to, or they may spend an inordinate amount of time engaged in less-than-productive
activities that do not support the vision of the organization.
Stage 3: Preventing white bear syndrome rebound
Symptom 5: Perception of organizational security
Social work leaders may be lulled into a false sense of security when financial supports from
external customers flow uninterrupted during strong economic times. Professionals engaged in
clinical-social-work-practitioner activities sometimes believe that working with vulnerable populations such as maltreated children or adults with developmental disabilities is a necessary and
Action:
What is the activity?
Objective:
What is the purpose?
Criteria:
How frequently should I
engage in this activity?
Figure 1 Example of column headings for a template to identify objectives and frequencies of leadership activities.
HUMAN SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS: MANAGEMENT, LEADERSHIP & GOVERNANCE
Action:
What is the activity?
Objective:
What is the purpose?
Facilitate coaching calls
To promote teamwork and
ongoing learning
To ensure that training
opportunities are evenly
distributed among trainers
To maintain fidelity to the
wraparound model and to
ensure ongoing trainer growth
To promote teamwork and
identify learning needs
throughout the state
To prevent drift from the
wraparound model, promote
collaboration, and comply
with certification standards
To prevent drift from the
model, and ensure consistent
information is shared
Manage training schedule
Provide feedback to trainers
and team facilitators
Solicit feedback from local
coaches regarding booster
topics and content
Attend on-site coaching
sessions
Serve as liaison between
agency coaches
445
Criteria:
How frequently should I
engage in this activity?
Once per month
Monthly
Within one week after each
training session
Monthly
Quarterly (at least 4 times per
year per coach)
Daily, as needed
Figure 2. Example of a completed chart identifying objectives and frequency of leadership activities for one internal customer.
Identified Customers
Internal- Supervisors/Facilitators
Internal - Provider agencies
Internal - Nationally Certified State Coaches
External - Fiscal sponsor(s)
Indirect Customer Related Activities
Development of new curricula and systems
Community awareness and training
Total monthly time allocation
Percentage of Total Monthly Time
Allocation
45%
15%
10%
10%
15%
5%
100%
Figure 3. Percentage of monthly time allocations for customers and non-customer–related activities.
sufficient reason for funding. This belief is guided by the white bear syndrome, wherein leaders
retreat into the old paradigms of what is meaningful and good. A useful aid for focused selfdistraction is to build awareness or understanding of the criticality of obtaining and maintaining
measures that highlight the effectiveness of an organization during shifts in political climates or
budgetary cutbacks. It is essential that fiscal sponsors empirically see and understand the value
proposition of what an organization provides—especially if sponsors prioritize funding and
make decisions based on who provides the most return on investment. Using organizational
goals and objectives as reference points, KPIs highlight success within areas such as customer
satisfaction (internal and external), financial benefits to the fiscal sponsor, and end-user client
improvements. Even with a strong organizational value proposition there is no guarantee of
ongoing funding. Nevertheless, strong KPIs can demonstrate a strong value proposition that can
certainly help tip the scale toward continued funding.
Key questions to consider for organizational KPIs and fiscal sponsors include the following:
● What empirical evidence do fiscal sponsors have to ensure they understand the organizational
value proposition?
446
T. E. HURST AND P. W. HURST
● What are the points of collaboration between the organization and fiscal sponsors to establish
KPIs?
● How do fiscal sponsors provide feedback to the organization regarding the value of KPIs?
● How do fiscal sponsors show their excitement and curiosity about organizational KPI progress?
If neither excitement nor curiosity exist, perhaps the organization is providing useless information on their progress to the sponsor.
● How does the fiscal sponsors demonstrate buy-in to organizational strategy for success?
● How can organizational KPIs increase market visibility?
Good intentions and good systems are often not enough to survive difficult economic times.
Social work leaders must take time to understand their fiscal sponsors’ financial and political
needs and provide them with enough data so they can support organizational growth and
sustainability.
Symptom 6: Communication babble
Another strategy for self-focused distraction to prevent falling back into the white bear syndrome is
to learn an organizational “elevator pitch.” The idea of using an elevator pitch is not new and has
been in the lexicon of business professionals for decades. One purpose is to provide a quick snapshot
of a concept during the time an elevator takes to move from Floor One to higher floors. Typically
this type of speech takes between 30 seconds and 2 minutes. Applying the strategy of an elevator
pitch can provide an opportunity for social work leaders to clearly articulate the value propositions
of their organizations to current and potential external and internal customers. Too often even
seasoned social work leaders neglect the practice of communicating what their organizations do and
how their organizations achieve their goals. Their communications should be succinct with messages
that will resonate with sponsors and customers, and prompt requests for more information.
Typically the vision of the organization is useful as an opening.
For example, when initially asked to provide an elevator pitch, our client cited direct practice
and clinical activities rather than providing an overall organizational perspective. Once revised,
our client’s elevator pitch started with the name of their organization and stated its purpose:
ABC Institute is a center of excellence that provides support and resources to child-serving agencies
using high-fidelity wraparound principles and philosophies. They then stated how their organization performs these responsibilities: We do this by training and coaching agencies’ internal
facilitators with the wraparound process, methodologie,s and tools. Next they indicated their
organizational key goal: Our goal is to divert 1,000 Mississippi youth from unnecessary psychiatric
treatment-facility admissions into more appropriate community placements over the next 4 years.
Finally, they provided some insight into why this makes a difference to the state: Our initial
results indicate that high-fidelity wraparound empowers families to provide stronger supports for
their children, while saving the state thousands of dollars in unnecessary psychiatric admissions.
By practicing and reciting a well-developed elevator pitch, our new social work leaders had a
template to organize their thoughts, thus helping to prevent drift into detailed explanations of
practitioner techniques.
Conclusion
Through academic experiences, clinical social work practitioners were provided with in-depth
knowledge of the profession’s values and ethics that can assist them in transforming from frontline
practitioners to leadership roles. Even with this knowledge, such transitions can be difficult. The
white bear syndrome, as originally theorized, might provide social workers and other practitioners
with insights into why such transitions can be challenging. Recognizing symptoms associated with
this syndrome along with educating practitioners on potential challenges and providing them with
resources has the potential to smooth a path forward for our future human service leaders. This
HUMAN SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS: MANAGEMENT, LEADERSHIP & GOVERNANCE
447
could make the difference between leaders who guide sustainable, impactful organizations that serve
vulnerable populations and those who have their futures as leaders unnecessarily cut short through a
lack of preparation.
References
Albrecht, K. (2003). The power of minds at work: Organizational intelligence in action. New York, NY: AMACOM.
Cousins, C. (2004). Becoming a social work supervisor: A significant role transition. Australian Social Work, 57(2),
175–185. doi:10.1111/asw.2004.57.issue-2
Council on Social Work Education. (2015). Educational policy and accreditation standards. Retrieved from www.cswe.
org/File.aspx?id=81660
Glicken, M. D. (2007). A brief history of social work in the 21st century: An introduction to social problems, the social
welfare system, and the role of professional social work. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Killeen, P. R. (2014). Pavlov + Skinner = Premack. International Journal of Comparative Psychology, 27(4), 544–568.
Ludeman, K., & Erlandson, E. (2013). Alpha Male Syndrome. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press.
Manzoni, J., & Barsoux, J. (2002). The Set-Up-To-Fail syndrome: How good managers cause great people to fail. Boston,
MA: Harvard Business School Press.
NASW. (2006). Assuring the sufficiency of a frontline workforce: A national study of licensed social workers. Retrieved
from http://workforce.socialworkers.org
NASW. (2016). Code of ethics of the National Association of Social Workers. Retrieved from http://www.socialwor
kers.org/pubs/code/code.asp
Newsome, M. (1995). Vision manifested in leadership. Social Work Education Reporter, 43(3), 1–2.
Peter, L. J., & Hull, R. (2009). The Peter Principle: Why things go wrong. New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Polivy, J., & Herman, C. P. (1985). Dieting and binging. A causal analysis. American Psychologist, 40(2), 193–201.
doi:10.1037/0003-066X.40.2.193
Premack, D. (1962). Reversibility of the reinforcement relation. Science, 136(3512), 255–257. doi:10.1126/
science.136.3512.255
Rank, M. G., & Hutchison, W. S. (2000). An analysis of leadership within the social work profession. Journal of Social
Work Education, 36(3), 487–502.
Rigoni, B., & Nelson, B. (2015). Leadership mistake: Promoting based on tenure. Gallup Business Journal. Retrieved
from http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/187871/leadership-mistake-promoting-based-tenure.aspx
Sheafor, B. W. (2006). Leadership development report. Retrieved from www.cswe.org/File.aspx?id=22221
Staines, G., Tavris, C., & Jayaratne, T. (1973). The queen bee syndrome. In C. Tavris (Ed.), The female experience. Del
Mar, CA: CRM Books.
Vlachoutsicos, C. (2013). How to fix the bad employee syndrome. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://
hbr.org/2013/07/how-to-fix-the-bad-employee-sy/
Wegner, D. (1989). White bears and other unwanted thoughts: Suppression, obsession, and the psychology of mental
control. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Wegner, D., Schneider, J., Knutson, B., & McMahon, S. R. (1991). Polluting the stream of consciousness: The effect of
thought suppression on the mind’s environment. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 15(2), 141–152. doi:10.1007/
BF01173204
Williams, C. (2003). Global leadership, education, and human survival. World Futures: The Journal of New Paradigm
Research, 59(3–4), 301–313. doi:10.1080/02604020310122
Wimpfheimer, S. (2004). Leadership and management competencies defined by practicing social work managers: An
overview of standards developed by the National Network for Social Work Managers. Administration in Social
Work, 28(1), 45–56. doi:10.1300/J147v28n01_04
Winerman, L. (2011). Suppressing the “white bears.” Monitor on Psychology, 42(9), 44. Retrieved from http://www.apa.
org/monitor/2011/10/unwanted-thoughts.aspx
Yoon, I. (2012). Debt burdens among MSW graduates: A national cross-sectional study. Journal of Social Work
Education, 48(1), 105–125. doi:10.5175/JSWE.2012.201000058