Steve Raucci: A Case Study In Power

In the summer of 2010, former Schenectady, NY City School District employee Steven Raucci was sentenced to 23 years to life in prison. Why? Well the story is a little ludicrous and reads more like a movie plot than something that happened in real life. Raucci's story is a tale of how he took over the school district's maintenance department and "ran it like an evil dictator for decades."

The Setting

A recent episode of This American Life narrates Raucci's evil genius, following the man as he climbed the ranks of the department over 30 years, all the while menacing his employees, manipulating the school board, seizing control of the worker's union, and committing all manner of awful crimes against his employees and enemies.  Raucci maintained control through a culture of fear, essentially commanding an army of compliant foot soldiers. He had power. A lot of it. 

A teacher at the Schenectady school district recalls a telling account about Steve Raucci's antics. The story goes that Richard Agnelo walked into the school one day just as a maintenance worker was sneaking out of his classroom with none other than a space heater under his arm. The worker walked quickly with his head down. Richard had been using the space heater to keep the temperature above 60 in his classroom. It's actually absurd that Agnelo would need a space heater at all. So as the man was walking away Richard yelled, "Hey that's my heater." The worker profusely apologized and explained he was just following orders and that if Richard wanted the heater back, he would have to talk to his boss.

That boss? None other than Steve Raucci himself. To understand this story you first have to know that Raucci wasn't always in charge of controlling energy use at the buildings in the Schenectady School District. That job had belonged to another man who was eventually fired for his poor work performance. You may guess that that poor work performance was not actually the energy coordinator's fault. One day Raucci decided that he wanted the energy coordinator's job. So what did he do? He sabotaged the energy coordinator at every turn, going so far as to insist that the coordinator would not be able to adjust the building temperatures and that the maintenance workers would handle it. And the maintenance department did handle it, just not in the way the energy coordinator would have liked. Raucci in fact directed his employees to turn up the heat in the buildings. In the most bizarre example Raucci claimed the football field lights needed replaced and so had them turned on for an entire day while an employee pretended to fix them. 

This behavior continued until the energy coordinator was ultimately fired and Raucci demanded his job. He claimed he would cut costs and that he did. And when Raucci obtained this job he didn't give up his job, he just added the energy coordinator salary on top of his own salary. At his prime Raucci was drawing a salary  of over $100,000 a year in a school district where the superintendent didn't make substantially more than that. And Raucci maintained this job because he was good at it. His energy cutting methods saved the school district vast sums of money. Mostly through shutting off air conditioning and heating and tasking his employees with cutting the cords of contraband toasters and coffee makers with scissors. And if teachers or administrators complained he threatened them. 

Power

Raucci's astounding behaivor didn't stop there. "He played subordinates against each other, sexually harassed secretaries, vandalized the homes of his enemies, and even planted bombs to terrorize his victims." Complaints about him were ignored and most people were too scared of what he may do to them if they said anything. 

So how did Raucci get away this? Power. The man was able to utilize an effective blend of legitimate, reward, and coercive power. The legitimate power came from his expert navigation of the the Schenectady bureaucracy and ultimate placement in a position as not only head of the maintenance department, but energy czar and local union president. 

Raucci expertly employed reward power to manipulate board members into backing him. During school board elections he would force his workers as a part of their normal job duties to work on board members campaigns, canvassing the streets for the candidates that Raucci promised to get elected. Of course when these board members were elected they wouldn't mind throwing Steve a bone or two...or three. 

Raucci didn't ever balk at flexing his coercive power. Actually coercive power was Steve's strongest tool. Any time a worker complained or upset Raucci, they were given the worst jobs in the district, no matter how senior they were. When a senior plumber crossed him he decided that the worker needed to be fired. However, according to policy he couldn't fire a senior employee if there was any employee with less seniority in that department. So Steve attempted to convince the junior plumber to transfer to another department. The junior worker refused, deciding to stand alongside his coworker in solidarity. That was no matter to Steve and they both were axed. The firings were explained away at the next board meeting as a cost cutting measure and that the school didn't need any dedicated plumbers on staff. A few months later Steve replaced the fired plumbers, no questions asked.

The Fall

Steve Raucci's story is perfect case study in leadership and power. Steve drew power from as many sources as he could find and he exploited that power to gain even more power. Sure Raucci is an example of bad leadership, of corrupt leadership, but of power and leadership nonetheless. 

As time progressed Raucci's actions got dangerous. When a complaint was filed against him he believed that it was lodged by the wife of one of his workers. In the night he spray painted the word RAT on every single surface of the family's home. When one of Steve's favored employees got dumped, he tagged the girlfriend's home with cheater and planted a bomb. 

Eventually Steve's behavior drew the attention of the local authorities. An undercover cop, who was a former friend of Steve's, approached him one day claiming he had lost a job and needed help. In the meeting that followed Steve essentially confessed to all of his crimes. Steve said that he would do anything for his workers but they were all so unappreciative. He said he didn't have any real friends at work and ironically that the undercover cop was one of his only real friends. When the cop asked Steve if he could get him access to explosives Steve explained that he could get him explosives immediately. When Steve was arrested authorities found an unused bomb in his office on school grounds within close proximity of kids in classrooms. 

Leadership is Everyone's Business

As I write this Steve Raucci still has over two decades left on his prison sentence. Even from jail his legacy has a funny way of living on. Despite his numerous crimes, Steve was never actually fired from Schenectady School District and still draws a pension of $80,000 a year.  

So what is the takeaway from this story? Some may argue that Raucci's story is an excellent example of how power can be abused. While that is true, I would say something else. This story is a failure of leadership, but certainly not on Steve's part. 

You see leadership is everyone's business. And what happened in this case is a failure to lead by everyone other than Mr. Raucci. Where were the school board members in this? They stood idly. Where were the administrators? They stood idly by. Where was the rest of the union leadership? They stood idly by. But I would say that the biggest failure to lead comes from the very people abused by Mr. Raucci. His employees took his abuses, and actually they encouraged him. They carried out all of his bidding and did nothing to stop it. They were compliant. Some complained privately but no person would stand up to him. They lacked ethical courage. They fueled the fire and helped to feed Steve Raucci's sources of power. They failed to take leadership into their own hands. 

Leadership isn't just the business of those with authority. We all have a stake in leadership because we are impacted by leadership, good or bad. It's our choice to accept the status quo or to fight for great leadership. The ball is in our court.  

As for Steve Raucci? I would like to imagine that somewhere in a NY prison Steve Raucci has managed to find a way to take control of a laundry room. And hey, I wouldn't doubt if the man was running the prison from the inside within the decade.