Stronger Culture. Better Performance.

March 13, 2013 in Leadership 4 Comments

We Shouldn’t Coddle Our Leaders

coddledLeaders are an interesting bunch. And by “leaders,” in this case, I’m referring to the people at the top of the organizational chart. The C-suite folks. Generally speaking they’re impressive people. They’ve done a lot to move up the ranks to their position. They’re smart and sharp. They’re adept at making the right moves in complex systems.

So how do we reward them? We stop telling them the truth. We refuse to share news with them if it’s bad. We pat ourselves on the back when we guess correctly about what they want or need (but we don’t think twice about guessing, rather than asking). We spare them the details.

We mean well, of course. They are busy and they don’t have time for all that. I get it. But it’s a slippery slope. It starts with sparing them the details, and it ends up with the emperor having no clothes and no one telling him about it.

And leaders are not about to stand up and change this system. While they don’t like it when people don’t tell them the truth, I think they do like being above all the details. It’s the reward for all those years in the trenches. But that’s a mistake. Because by the time you get to the top, the trenches that other people are now working in are quite different than the trenches you knew. So to some extent you can’t be spared the details, at least not entirely.

It shouldn’t be a rule that when you get to the leader position, every one else takes care of you. That’s not leadership, and it generates some unhealthy patterns.

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4 Comments

  1. Christina Smith
    13.03.2013 at 3:42 pm

    Nice one, Jamie (as usual).

    C-Fear is a great silencer of many employees but the opposite can happen as well. When employees have been micro-managed and not lead, it is difficult to transition out of that. Some leaders find themselves in the opposite conundrum. Instead of being kept in the dark, they are apprised of every detail; the “what should we do now syndrome?” takes over.

    I hate to think there are true leaders who want to be kept in the dark.

  2. Susan Scrupski
    14.03.2013 at 11:46 am

    Hi Jamie. This is one of the key reasons why working socially (transparently, authentically, etc.) is critical to the 21st Century organization. It diffuses the politics that keep leaders in a “fugue” state regarding how well the organization is performing and what matters to customers and the workforce.

    I’ve found, in my experience, it’s also the reason why leaders ultimately make very bad, sometimes unethical decisions. By the time they’ve discovered something that is really wrong, there is no time to change it. They find themselves forced into compromising their principles just to survive.