When clients call me it’s often because there’s some sort of mismanagement. Here’s a snapshot of what I’m told.
“I just want my team to own their role.”
” Managers aren’t holding their teams accountable.”
“There’s a lot of miscommunication.”
Here’s what’s interesting: The worst mismanagement may seem like it’s at the front line or middle level, however the biggest mismanagement is unresolved conflict at the top.
The Hard Truth
When senior leaders can’t align, the entire culture is at risk. When the C-Suite Battles, the Whole Organization Suffers. The biggest risk is trying to fix a problem you don’t fully see or understand.
As Dr. Phil says, “You can’t fix what you don’t acknowledge.” So here’s a quick snapshot to see if you recognize any of the red flags!
- Talking about culture as if it belongs solely to the HR and OD team.
- A change agent is hired but not supported once the inevitable pushback happens.
- There’s a new C-suite leader who has too many blind spots and very little self development.
- Executives gossipping about each other to build alliances.
- Senior leaders keeping information from each other.
- Managers afraid to tell their directors about their problems.
- There’s been a recent executive blindside.
- There’s an EEOC complaint or litigation in play.
There’s another pet peeve of mine and I just have to say it here. The problem is usually identified as a “communication problem.”To tell you the unvarnished truth: That is WAY too general and doesn’t get to the root cause.
Nonetheless, the very next step that happens is that one of the internal coaches, trainers, HR staff, or OD professionals are told to fix the problem.
Here’s some other red flags that almost guarantee disappointment
- The HR team finds a book and they decide to create an internal training program off of the book.
- A facilitator or “certified trainer” is hired to do an off the shelf workshop.
- There’s no budget set aside to fix the problem, so a local generalist is hired to do a few workshops.
- Internal coaches attempt to teach “communication skills” to the leaders.
- Top level leaders don’t know how to coach their own leadership team.
If any of these issues resonate and you’re tired of being on the hamster wheel of unresolved conflict, reach out for an introductory call to let me share the new offerings for 2025 to increase leadership competency and create cultures of accountability.
To your success,
Marlene Chism
