The Gregg Wallace controversy has a lot to teach us

Recent allegations made against Gregg Wallace, the MasterChef host, are eerily similar to those levelled against other celebrities and politicians in recent years. There’s almost a sense that having power or influence brings out the worst in people. Nik Kinley examines what we can learn.

The Instagram video where Wallace dismissed his accusers, calling them “middle class women of a certain ages”, was perhaps the most telling moment in the coverage. This man’s sheer misjudgment in publicly saying this revealed that he had no understanding of the audience, his perception, or his words.

Many people will have watched and wondered how anyone could be so out of touch. From a psychological standpoint, the video was not that shocking. The video shows how prestige, power, and influence can affect people. This is a common occurrence.

They are present in almost every workplace. Although they don’t end in such a public or bad way, they do exist and are a constant risk. It is important to learn from these situations.

Psychological distance

This is a fundamental problem, because everyone in a position to influence or have power becomes psychologically distant from those around them. This can be beneficial for leaders as it allows them to have a more helicopter-like view of the world and think more abstractly. This distance can also make them more likely than others to stereotype and generalize, to objectify others and to have a harder time seeing things from the perspective of others. As a result, it can be difficult for them to understand others.

This is made worse by the fact that others stop being as open with them. All of us treat our bosses slightly differently. All of us say things a little more carefully, and we all try to tailor our words. If we want to keep someone happy or like them, we will also see the good in their actions and may even ignore criticism. Not only do those with power and influence take a psychological backward step from their surroundings, but so do the people who are around them.

It doesn’t really matter if you’re a TV celebrity, a CEO, or a supervisor on the floor of a factory: anyone in a position of power or influence will have some psychological gap. This can make it difficult to understand the people they interact with, their perception, and how they impact others.

The degree to which that is the case depends on many factors. Most notably, the personality of an individual and the workplace culture. It is normal for anyone in a leadership or influence position to lose touch with their audience.

Processes that underlie the processes

While some public reactions have been completely understandable, they may not be helpful for us to learn from these events and prevent them in the future. It has become a trend to portray the allegations as incredibly shocking and look for the bad actors, whether they are the individuals involved or the organisations that they worked for. This is to a certain extent appropriate. After all, bad behavior should never be normalised. These reactions are not useful for those who watch and hope to learn.

We can’t learn if we see them as something different than what we experience every day in the workplace or as sexism and inappropriate behavior. It is true that inappropriate behavior appears to be involved. The opportunity is not just to focus on how one type of inappropriate behavior can be prevented in one organization, but to stop the processes that lead to all kinds of leadership mistakes and toxic behaviours in all organisations.

It might be distasteful for us to suggest that the current events could be connected with more innocuous moral things. For example, a leader may have accidentally left an employee feeling neglected or discouraged someone from sharing a good idea. The underlying mechanisms – misunderstandings and misjudgment caused by psychological distance – are the same. From a psychological standpoint, that misjudgement in the Instagram video is so telling. It revealed a man who was fundamentally disconnected from his audience. It was a powerful example of the damage that distance and influence can cause.

We as an organisation must help our leaders understand the impact of their roles on them if we truly wish to help them learn from these experiences. Sometimes, bringing out their best qualities; sometimes not. The perils of being in a position of power are not unique, and they can cause organisations to make poor decisions or to have toxic cultures. They may also exhibit grossly inappropriate behavior. All of these outcomes are based on the psychological disconnect that is inherent to all influence roles.

We must then start talking about the power of influence and how it affects people. This will help us better prepare our students for this and ensure they are not as disconnected from what’s going on around them as Wallace appeared to be.

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