Anatomy of an Organizational Train Wreck: A Failed Leadership Paradigm

Abstract

This chapter describes, both from a personal and historical perspective, the ascendancy and incumbency of Leroy D. Baca as sheriff of Los Angeles County, comparing and contrasting his leadership, ensconced in new age terminology, with that of his predecessors, Sherman Block and Peter J. Pitchess. Of immediate concern were his personal decisions, in particular the appointment of Paul Tanaka to be his undersheriff after many years serving as his campaign treasurer. What was considered a marginally functional merit-based promotional system was transformed into a political patronage model, with the attendant loss of organizational legitimacy and tarnished public reputation. The chapter will compare and contrast life within the “car,” as the term is commonly used within the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, and life outside the car, through first-hand accounts, testimony from the Citizen’s Commission on Jail Violence, depositions, and published reports. Using the concept of representative bureaucracy, I will track organizational diversity as a performance measure, using the relative inclusion of all employee groups in the rank structure of the department and how each group fared under the Baca/Tanaka administration. In conclusion, this chapter will present different coping mechanisms utilized by employees confronting serious corruption issues that impacted them directly, and indirectly through the organization.

Citation

Villanueva, A. (2016), "Anatomy of an Organizational Train Wreck: A Failed Leadership Paradigm", The Dark Side of Leadership: Identifying and Overcoming Unethical Practice in Organizations (Advances in Educational Administration, Vol. 26), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 19-34. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-366020160000026002