TL;DR: Employees will behave how senior leaders show them to behave, not what they say.
I don’t know how many times I’ve heard senior leaders promote the “ground-up” approach to culture.
“It all starts with you,” they say, trying to empower their troops while paying little to no attention to their own behavior.
Sometimes it’s a slip of the tongue, sometimes it’s not taking the time to get to know their staff.
Or sometimes – as I encountered about ten years ago – it’s a situation that would have fit right into a 1980s sitcom.
A New Organization, Doomed from the Start
The project was to stand up a brand new government organization and get it ready for steady state operations. It was a tiny organization with a very focused mandate, and right from the get-go it was beset with problems.
The timelines for standing up the organization were almost immediate, which put massive pressure on everyone. The startup funding was based on a whim, which meant they had to figure out what their operations should look like and how much it would cost – while they were spending it.
To top it all off, the very mandate of the new organization was being challenged in the courts.
This could have created an inspirational little bubble for them.
It could have been “us against the world!”
Instead, it became, “us against each other.”
When Good Intentions Create Toxic Dynamics
Sometimes senior management will unwillingly create a toxic atmosphere through good intentions.
A sales company might want to increase revenue by giving bonuses to the top performers – and then watch their employees compete with and fight against each other for customers.
We try to outline good guidance, but then it’s up to us to actually “live” the guidance. So if our sales policy, for example, creates unintended consequences, it’s up to senior management to correct either the guidance or set a better model for behavior.
All makes sense in theory.
But what happens when the CEO and the CFO publicly fight against each other?
The CEO and CFO Were at War — Publicly
This wasn’t your classic undermining while the other was out of the room. Subtle little jabs that could be interpreted but never proven.
No, this was – an mentioned earlier – the stuff of sitcoms.
The CEO would make an announcement, and the CFO would tell everyone to ignore it afterwards.
The CFO would make a declaration, and the CEO would tell everyone that the information is wrong.
Things got so acrimonious that the CFO told the auditors – no, bragged to the auditors – that there are records that could show how incompetent the CEO was.
And these records were stored in boxes in a home garage.
The Spotlight Always Shines on the Top
How can any organization succeed when their senior leaders are openly undermining each other, and when they’re storing secrets to bring the whole thing down?
Obviously, they can’t.
Whether we like it or not, senior leaders have the spotlight on them, and whatever they do will inevitably be more visible.
What they say will be heard.
What they do will be observed.
This works well for us when the project succeeds. After all, the senior leader can talk about how it was a “team effort,” but whose face is plastered on the announcement? The leader invariably gets the lion’s share of the credit, even if it’s not intended.
Culture Is What They Do, Not What They Say
The flip side of that spotlight is the responsibility that comes with it. It’s not just the blame for when goes wrong.
It’s that the senior’s actions become the face of the organization – the face that the entire team or organization sees as the representation for the “body.”
Now, while this is an extreme example, it again highlights just how important behavior is over words and policies.
Senior leaders can use all of the leadership “best practices” of the day and make lots of speeches about how everyone needs to “live” the culture to make it real.
And that’s true.
But it can also be completely undermined by those at the top.
Lesson: Employees will behave how senior leaders show them, not what they say.
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