It's Lonely and Drafty at the Top

The de-deification of leadership

This is not rarified space for CEO’s, Royalty, Heads of State, Generals and Emperor’s. It persists as one of the problems that hamstring leaders at every level. As leaders we are all “naked” at some point. Without brutally honest feedback from those around us, how will we ever know? No matter how good we may think we are there will always be someone are rolling their eyes--just like our kids during their teenage years. Power, or perceived power, seems to warp perceptions and honest discourse at every level.  

Before I go off throwing stones in a glass house let  me make a few confessions. I have been, at some point or another, guilty of everything I will detail, both as a leader and as a follower. There have been some very hard lessons learned working without true feedback, giving and receiving. There needs to be a de-deification of our leaders in order to work best with them. When looking up it can be very hard to see the horizon. If you think the boss is omnipotent, then how will they ever learn that they aren’t?  To quote Bill Murray in Groundhogs Day,” I am not the god, but a god.” Dangerous turf.  

The view from the throne is always down

It’s never "their" fault as it is always the fault of some team member.  It starts simply: anger at results in meetings or singling out people or departments. Ask your team members if they are afraid to share bad news and you will be stunned by the answers. This creates an environment where the team becomes reticent to bring up bad news and holds back on vital information in real time. This starts at the lowest levels and the information gets “filtered” as it goes up the chain. By the time it reaches senior leadership, the information resembles something out of the “telephone game. 

After many years of conscious and unconscious intimidation, giving and receiving, I derived a new approach. Every problem relayed to me became an “us” problem, not the problem of the messenger. Those that delayed the information to think about how to break the bad news were still acting out of intimidation. This is not as simple as flipping a switch and will take a dedicated effort to enact change.

Data only communications

Too many levels, too many gatekeepers, and a completely data-driven dashboard communications structure perpetually fail to keep management accurately informed. Looks great on spreadsheets and fancy decks, but this is only the table stakes for decisions. This is perpetuated by the keeper of the report, leaders that solely look at the numbers and managers that frown upon their team members speaking directly to the company’s senior executives. Behind every dashboard report lies the details surrounding the trends and issues that allow a team to create an action plan based on facts. 

Conducting meetings with multiple levels of management on a regular basis, if coupled with the “never shoot the messenger”  approach to listening and the problems are team vs individual issues, is a great place to start and is even more important on an on-going basis. Spending the entire meeting reviewing the numbers is not the way to plot a path forward. Many years ago I learned a discipline that helped out greatly. Everyone involved in a group has access to all numbers prior to the meeting.  Each function is required to submit a summary of the key trends and issues.   The last step, which is the detailing of the action plan, becomes the focus of a group exercise. The time is better spent focusing on path forward work in a multi-leveled and multi-disciplined manner, just like well-run organizations should.

Friends of X

Nobody likes the teacher’s pet or the boss’s favorites, friends or family members.  It’s a fact and one that nobody outside of this group wants to tell the boss. It creates a two-class company of insiders and outsiders. The insiders often don’t want to leave their safe cocoon of business protection and those on the outside want to be a part of the insider’s group.  The chance that either group wants to tell the boss him/her/their new clothes have left completely naked.  Too much positive feedback from a team is often a sign of problem vs an indication that the boss is perfect.

Force yourself to spend time with those you don’t know or interact with. Information will not be free flowing from the first discussion, but an investment here can yield breakthrough thoughts. Be very cautious about favoritism to those in the inner circle, to others it feels as though they are less important. Favoriting sycophants, friends, brown-nosers and posers is no way to run any organization. Good people leave, free-sharing of information is restricted and decisions are not based on real fact. It’s lonely and drafty at the top. 

The view from the crowd is most accurate

Whether it’s the afternoon walk around, the discipline of inclusive and open meetings and communications or simply trying to learn something about everyone on your team by making the effort to do so, it will all serve to make you a part of your team vs the leader.  Team members can feel more comfortable sharing good ideas and relaying time sensitive data.   They can feel assured that problems are addressed as a team, and as a leader you build a way not to feel alone in your decisions.  Perhaps you will achieve less time naked and be faced with less eye-rolling. You might even have a more successful organization.