Deceptive 'camouflage' signaling among leaders

In my last article I introduced the idea of signaling which involves one party communicating to another, in a way that reveals some kind of underlying quality about the signaler.

I argued in the article that leaders can use signaling when trying to increase others’ receptivity to pursuing a challenging goal. In essence, signaling can be used to reveal underlying intent, or valuable information, which may convince others to take on the discomfort associated with working towards a stretch goal.

In this article, I'd like to extend the previous piece by exploring how signals can sometimes be honest or false, and focus in particular on one deceptive variant in the latter category which is relevant for leaders, called 'camouflage signaling.'

Refresh on signaling

To remind you, signaling includes the following components:

1. Signal observability: The signal needs to be detectable by the receiver.
2. Reveals underlying quality: The signal reveals some underlying characteristic of the signaler, usually in the form of the signaler’s ‘quality’ (i.e., whether they are a high vs low quality job applicant, leader, firm, etc.) or ‘intent’ (i.e., what the signaler plans to do in the future).
3. Information asymmetry: The signal involves sharing information that reduces information asymmetry between two parties.
4. Signal cost: There is some cost to sending the signal, incurred either before or after the signal is sent
5. Beneficial to the receiver: There is an underlying assumption that the receiver will benefit from obtaining the information contained in the signal.

Signals can be either honest or false

The signaling I described in my previous article assumed some ‘good faith’ or honesty among both parties involved. But in fact, signaling can be honest or false.

An honest signal is one where the signaler actually has the underlying quality or characteristic they’re communicating in the signal. By contrast, a false signal suggests the presence of some underlying quality or characteristic in the signaler, but it’s a mirage, and that quality isn’t really there.

An organizational example of this is when companies indicate intent to repurchase stock, which if done, drives up the value of the company’s shares. If a company gives guidance that they will repurchase shares, and then follows through on that underlying intent, then that’s an honest signal. Their signal and underlying intent match. However, if they signal intent to repurchase but don’t follow through, that would be a false signal, since they misrepresented their intentions.

Let’s look at a leadership example illustrating honest and false signals, using a situation I discussed in my previous article – a leader trying to challenge, push, or pull a team to achieve a difficult goal. Let’s say Susan is a leader who wants to challenge her team to reach for a higher standard. She decides to signal the intent underlying the challenge she’s issuing, to reassure the team that the goal is worth pursuing. Her intent is to achieve a goal that will strengthen the collective (i.e., it’s not some vanity project that will only benefit her). Susan thinks that sharing this will help the team interpret the challenge in a positive light, accept it, and feel motivated by it. So she says “I’m asking you to do something hard, I know it’s hard, and it will no doubt involve some discomfort. But I want you to know that my intent in challenging you to do this, the reason I’m asking you to do this, is to facilitate us achieving something that will make our team stronger. We’ll be a better team if we reach this goal. This isn’t about me, it’s about us.” If Susan actually possesses this ‘collective’ intent, then this is an honest signal.

However, what if our hypothetical leader wasn’t so straightforward? What if a different leader named Andy also signaled his ‘collective’ intent, and reassured his team that their efforts in working towards a hard goal would translate into an outsized positive impact for the entire team. In this case, however, what if the goal really was a personal vanity project that benefits only Andy? In this case Andy’s underlying characteristic (i.e., selfish intent) is different than what’s portrayed in the signal (i.e., collective intent), so this would be a false signal.

Deceptive signals are a kind of false signal

In the above example, Andy issues a false signal, but we don’t have any information about whether he intentionally misled others about his intent. Perhaps when he issued the signal, he was honest in expressing his collective intent, but as the project unfolded, the benefits to the team eroded, while the personal benefits accruing to him grew.

However, some false signals may in fact be deceptive, and designed to confuse, distract, or mislead others. In my last article, I stopped short of exploring deceptive signaling, but here I would like to examine this topic by explaining the concept of ‘camouflage signaling.’ I’d also like to give an example of how leaders might encounter it in their work.

What is camouflage signaling?

Camouflage signaling is a signal intended to disguise and divert attention away from a potential liability.

To illustrate, here are two organizational examples of camouflage signaling (I’ll provide an example relevant to individual leaders in a moment).

A first is when a firm expands internationally and may be subject to some kind of penalty for being perceived as a ‘foreigner’ operating in a new market. As a result, the newly arrived firm creates strategic alliances with other local firms in that fresh market, to shift attention away from that perceived liability and to signal their legitimacy. So here the liability is ‘foreignness,’ and the firm uses local strategic alliances with other companies as the distraction.

Another organizational example of camouflage signaling is when companies appoint diverse Board members to divert attention away from their underlying cultural challenges. For example, one study examined how organizations tend to appoint female Board members in the two years after being the target of a gender discrimination lawsuit, perhaps to redirect attention away from negative publicity. So here the liability is the perception of having a culture hostile to women, and the distraction is the appointment of female Board members.

A example of camouflage signaling among leaders

How might camouflage signaling play out in a leadership context?

A few months ago I spoke with an executive who shared with me a great case example that I think illustrates camouflage signaling among leaders.

Here’s the situation they described:

They were giving a presentation to a group of peers. One of their peers started challenging in an aggressive but non-constructive way, by a) confronting the presenter before they could communicate their core ideas (i.e., they didn’t listen before challenging), b) interrupting repeatedly, c) challenging every detail, including minor or irrelevant ones, and d) not offering any new ideas.

Another indicator that these were non-constructive challenges was that they resulted in zero productive actions taken.

Then the executive said something provocative: they had a hunch that those who tend to challenge in this way haven’t actually prepared for the meeting (e.g., by completing the pre-read in advance). The implication was the aggressive questioner didn’t understand the subject matter they were asking about, and were trying to use their forceful interrogation to distract from that lack of preparedness. I thought “if true, that’s pretty bold.”

This suggestion got me thinking about camouflage signaling, and the next time we talked I proposed to the executive that perhaps the aggressive audience member tried to distract from their lack of preparedness by sending a ‘camouflage signal’ in the form of forceful challenges and questions, designed to make them look like an effective leader.

One reason this idea occurred to me is that at this company, the culture embraced debate, challenge, and directness. Therefore employees tended to believe that effective leadership involved displaying forceful and assertive ‘challenging’ behaviours. Maybe this isn’t the case in all organizations, but for them, forceful challenging was on their leadership ‘scorecard.’ It was their prototype, or template for great leadership. Furthermore, perhaps this fact made aggressiveness a kind of preferred ‘signal of choice,’ and one that might offer the best camouflage.

Let’s imagine for a moment the internal dialogue from the perspective of the aggressive executive in the audience: “Shoot, I haven’t done the pre-read. Will anyone notice? If anyone finds out I’m going to look bad. Maybe if I challenge the hell out of this presenter, interrupt them, try to look strong and forceful – show all the leadership qualities we say we care about in this company - people won’t notice how unprepared I am, and instead they’ll just think ‘whoa this is a great leader!’” If true the audience member was engaging in an elaborate impression management exercise, trying to tick a few key boxes in the company’s ‘scorecard’ for effective leadership, hoping others wouldn’t notice what was behind the veneer.

(I should note that I never determined whether the audience member in the executive’s story actually did their homework. So we couldn’t truly validate our theory.)

By the way, how does this executive whom I spoke with typically handle this type of situation when presenting? They politely confront the audience member. “Thanks for your questions. Can I just interject and ask, have you read the pre-read?” “No.” “Well your question is answered on page 16…” This simple ‘prep check’ helps the presenter regain control of the room in the face of aggressive or non-constructive questioning.

(As an aside, I also learned from this example that when leaders try to prove how effective they are by signaling culturally endorsed leadership behaviours, this may have a contagious effect that threatens group dynamics. The executive I spoke with said they noticed that when one leader tries to signal their leadership ‘bona fides’ with these aggressive behaviours, other leaders in the room may feel ‘peer pressure’ to do the same. Before long, this insecurity grows like a wild brush fire, pushing many in the room to adopt the same rough and tumble behaviour pattern. But, if too many leaders begin signaling how great a leader they are using forceful, dominant, or challenging behaviours, the environment may become caustic and productive dialogue disappears.)

Practical application

I won’t bore you with platitudes about how leaders should never use camouflage signaling, because it’s misleading and wrong. First – although I can find no research on the intersection of this phenomenon with leadership – I suspect it happens all the time both in executive roles and large organizations. Also, there could be adaptive uses of it. Earlier I mentioned the example of an organization moving into a foreign market, and then partnering with a local firm to distract from their ‘foreignness.’ Is that wrong? No, that’s good business. I can also imagine leaders using camouflage signaling in adaptive ways, like associating themselves with a network of influential people, to distract from their lack of skill, experience or ability. To me that seems smart not ‘wrong.’ I think the risk in using this form of signaling lies in the marginal zone between ‘distracting’ and ‘misleading.’ The former is probably seen as skillful and adaptive, the latter as deceptive. I also wonder if a leader’s multiple attempts to ‘distract’ might cause team members to conclude they are ‘misleading’ and therefore to doubt their credibility and honesty. Perhaps there are situations where the risk of using camouflage signaling is worth taking for a leader. But lurking behind that risk is the possibility of credibility loss, and relationship damage, both of which will only make the leader’s job harder and more painful. Based on this, in my opinion, leaders should engage in sober consider before using camouflage signaling, if they use it at all.  

One practical application I can suggest is to use a ‘prep check’ when faced with hostile questioning from presenters. This should help leaders determine if the audience member is engaging in camouflage signaling, or some other non-constructive behaviour.  

Finally, if you sense that too many people in a meeting are trying to signal their leadership effectiveness, to the point that dialogue is breaking down, call it out.  Say “I think we’re all spending too much time trying to signal what great leaders we are, and it’s causing the group dynamics to disintegrate. We’re posturing, but not listening to each other.”

Conclusion

We (in the leadership practitioner community, myself included) often talk about authenticity, yet it’s a hard-to-define construct. A related theme that’s perhaps more concrete, with more potential practical application, is ‘sincerity.’ “I mean what I say.” “I’m being straightforward, there’s no deception here.” For signaling to function well, it seems to require ‘good faith’ participants to share valuable information, in sincere, honest, and transparent ways, for the purpose of reducing misunderstanding. While impression management and deception are realities of organizational life, they are not certainties. Perhaps as leaders we can choose to reach for higher communication standards – just as we demand more or better from others – and signal in honest ways that produce rich, productive, and rewarding interactions.

Tim Jackson Ph.D. is the President of Jackson Leadership, Inc. and a leadership assessment and coaching expert with 17 years of experience. He has assessed and coached leaders across a variety of sectors including agriculture, chemicals, consumer products, finance, logistics, manufacturing, media, not-for-profit, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, and utilities and power generation, including multiple private-equity-owned businesses. He's also worked with leaders across numerous functional areas, including sales, marketing, supply chain, finance, information technology, operations, sustainability, charitable, general management, health and safety, quality control, and across hierarchical levels from individual contributors to CEOs. In addition Tim has worked with leaders across several geographical regions, including Canada, the US, Western Europe, and China. He has published his ideas on leadership in both popular media, and peer-reviewed journals. Tim has a Ph.D. in organizational psychology, and is based in Toronto.

Email: tjackson@jacksonleadership.com

Web: www.jacksonleadership.com

Newsletter: www.timjacksonphd.com