April 12, 2021 • 29 mins
We discuss the perception of the leadership “Ivory tower,” exploring why employees develop the perception of the ‘distant and disconnected’ leadership team and why it is important for executives to be present, available, and accessible.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. D. (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the realm. I'm Dr. D, I bring the
strategy.
Dr. K (00:04):
And I'm Dr. Kay, I bring the psychology, we are business
psychologists and your guides tothe executive realm, where we
bring strategy and psychologytogether
Dr. D. (00:14):
so you can bring your best your C suite, your teams
and your customers. Today we'retalking about the perception of
leadership being in an ivorytower, we'll be exploring why
employees develop the perceptionof the distance in disconnected
leadership team, and why it'simportant for executives to make
sure they are available andaccessible. So let's get to
(00:35):
work. Dr. K, what is the ivorytower when it comes to employees
perceptions,
Dr. K (00:42):
the ivory tower is the perception of employees not
being able to reach theirleaders, they seem unreachable,
as if they don't care, they arejust so high up and so far away,
that they are in this tower,even if they are three offices
down.
Dr. D. (01:00):
One of the phrases that I've heard the decisions they
come down from quote unquote, onhigh, they don't really
understand what we deal with ona day to day basis, there's a
wide gap in distance, bothmetaphorically And literally, in
many cases, between employeesand the leadership team, that
probably contributes to thisidea that employees think that
(01:24):
leaders just kind of sit aroundand don't really do very much
when I hear the ivory tower,that's the perception I have is
that team members are going oh,well, they're just living it up
in the ivory tower in the lap ofluxury. I think frontline
employees also don't understandhow difficult and demanding and
complex leaders responsibilitiesare and how time consuming.
(01:46):
those responsibilities are.
Dr. K (01:48):
Yes, leaders have a lot they respond to C suite, they
have to respond to managers thatare above them. However, from an
employee perspective, leadersthat are in that ivory tower,
they don't understand the gruntwork the employees are putting
forth. And that's where thativory tower, that distance
(02:09):
between employees and leadersbecomes very prominent, and very
detrimental and has possibilityof being very detrimental to
production to employeeengagement.
Dr. D. (02:23):
When you bridge that gap between leadership and the
frontline employees, you end upwith a better process and a more
profitable business, frankly.
Dr. K (02:32):
absolutely. As much as I want to say, Oh, the employees
and they're the ones that arehaving more issues with this, we
have to remember that theleaders get lost in their world
to they're not purposely tryingto ignore us, or purposely
trying to make things moredifficult. They get lost in
their own world.
Dr. D. (02:52):
If the president and CEO of a company has 100 employees,
it's really easy to get to knowall of those employees. If the
CEO of a company with 10,000, or100,000 employees, employees are
almost a statistic to thatperson, it's impossible for them
to get to know every facet ofthe organization in detail. And
(03:15):
that's where a well organizedand engaged leadership team
comes in. It's difficult forlarge organizations in
particular, with many levels ofleadership to really have their
pulse on every part of theorganization. But it's important
that a CEO make the attempt. Andthe C suite. In general, because
(03:38):
the C suite is a special unit,each leader is over an
individual functional area. Butthe C suite is responsible for
the entire organization. So theHuman Resources officer thinks
about the health of the entireorganization, all of the
employees, not just those in HR,the CFO thinks of the health of
the organization, not just thosein the finance team, the CIO
(04:03):
thinks of the health of theorganization from an IT
infrastructure perspective. Butstill, they think of the health
of the entire organization andor every C suite position. That
is the case. The CEO, of courseis accountable and responsible
for the C suite and the entireorganization. And they have to
think about the board the levelof responsibility and
(04:25):
complexity, the weight of thedecisions that are made at that
level, our make or break for anorganization. If a customer
service employee loses a singlecustomer that probably doesn't
raise to the level of the CEO,but the CEO needs to be thinking
about how many customers are welosing and why are we losing
(04:47):
them? And what can we do toenable those at the front line
to be able to engage withcustomers in the right way so
that we don't lose them. And acustomer is a statistic to a
large organization.
Unfortunately, but organizationsneed to be mission oriented
around the customers. And Ithink that brings an interesting
perspective, when the leadershipteam is making decisions that
(05:09):
the frontline employees don'tunderstand. They feel like
they're coming down from onhigh, or the leadership team
seems so disconnected fromemployees to leaders. That's
because there is a problem. Theproblem is the employees don't
understand what's motivating theleaders. And sometimes the
leaders don't understand what'smotivating the employees. And
(05:30):
this gets down to a common themein many of our discussions is
mission orientation. Ifemployees understand that
leaders are mission orientedtowards serving their customers
in this way, or serving theircommunity in this way, and
serving their employees, and ina certain way, and employees
understand that and leadersactually lift to that, then that
(05:50):
demystifies a lot of thedecision making leaders can say,
we're making this change,because we think it better
aligns with our mission. Noteverybody is going to agree with
this direction. And we want totalk about where those areas of
disagreement are, so that we canrefine and adjust and make sure
that their perspective isbrought into that decision. So
(06:13):
that as you're making changes toan organization, you're aligning
to the mission, and everyoneunderstands what that mission
is. frontline employees,understand my voice was included
in that decision, because myvoice is advocating for the
customer, because that's mymission. And I can see how this
decision relates to improvingthat experience that mission.
(06:36):
And it is a useful tool foraligning the organization.
Dr. K (06:43):
I would absolutely agree.
Where my concern comes in is theivory tower people. That's what
I'm going to refer to themtoday. A lot of times, they're
going to look at the thenumbers, they are going to look
at very the tangible informationand go this is what's wrong, fix
it, this is what I think. Andthat's where part of the problem
(07:06):
is and that's wheredisengagement of employees comes
in. That's where employees willfeel, oh, they don't care about
us. They don't hear what we haveto say, why do we care? Because
instead of going, Okay, I seethere's a problem with these
numbers. This looks okay, thisis starting to decline. Let me
go talk to these groups. Or letme talk to maybe the middle
(07:30):
manager. And they can go downand talk a little bit more to
find out what's going on.
Because numbers aren't words,when you talk to the people that
are making those numbers happen.
Those are the people that weneed to talk to. It's not just
about the numbers. You can'ttell everything from some data
(07:50):
sheets.
Dr. D. (07:53):
I think that is a common misconception that leaders only
make decisions by looking at thenumbers. And that's never the
case, large organizations, thereis a lot of I'll say,
bureaucracy or politics, thereis a lot of getting other people
on board. If a CEO recognizesfrom numbers that profits are
(08:15):
trailing in a particular area isan example. That is a number
driven observation. But neverwill somebody say we're going to
make this change just because ofthat. There are often dozens,
hundreds of man hours at leastput into each of those
decisions. And well seasonedprofessional executives will ask
(08:39):
for a lot of perceptions. Now.
They'll ask their comfortconvenience, the CEO will say
ask the C suite. Where do youthink this is in the C suite
will then go out and canvasstheir VPS and maybe they're
directors, but their directorsmay not say AI is a leader
talked about this decision andprovided some input on your
(09:00):
behalf, because I'm close enoughto you guys know what you're
facing every day. It feels likefrom a frontline employee, that
their voice is not included inthe decision. But they may have
been represented in thatdecision from other leaders.
It's never just look at this setof data. And we're going to act
(09:21):
based on that set of data. Thereare often many considerations
and many voices that contributeto a decision beyond just the
numbers. But it is an importantperspective because I think many
people, particularly frontlineemployees, believe that leaders
will Canvas a spreadsheet andsay draw a line and say okay,
(09:41):
this below this line, those areall gone, you know, like
magically but it takes anorganization in many
conversations with many leadersin order to enact a decision and
make sure that it comes tofruition and I think this is an
important lesson for leadersleaders need To communicate
particularly largeorganizational decisions, they
(10:02):
have to talk through the processwith the team. We observe the
numbers, we're doing this, wetalked to X number of people,
your leaders represented yourperspectives in this decision.
We couldn't talk about thisdecision in advance because, or
at least broadly because ofmarket conditions. Or if you're
(10:24):
a publicly traded company,there's a lot of restrictions on
why you might not openlycommunicate a decision. But you
have to explain that after thefact, we made this decision,
because and here's how yourvoices are represented. A well
crafted communication strategycan eliminate that perception,
the decision is coming down fromon high.
Dr. K (10:47):
No, you said just now that there are certain companies
that can't talk because they'republicly traded, and all of
that. And you said also, tocommunicate after the decision
is made as why it wasn't talkedabout, maybe that needs to be
something that is known, maybethere will be employees that
don't know that their companycan only say certain things
(11:09):
because of the position thatthey're in. And these are
decisions that we can alwaysdiscuss, does not mean that we
are not listening to you. Butthey may be decisions that
cannot be discussed, due to ourorganization, especially if
you're not seeing them, youthink that they don't care about
what you're doing down in thetrenches. When we don't see
(11:32):
them. We don't think they care.
And then when we see them onthere, and I'm taking this from
pure experience, we don't seethem, we don't think they care.
We don't think they understandwhat we're doing. And then when
you see them randomly, we getnervous, we get scared, you
know, we get very all all tenseand anxious. That's not creating
a healthy environment. That isdefinitely strengthening that
(11:57):
ivory tower syndrome.
Dr. D. (12:01):
Yeah. And what that really comes down to is trust
does a frontline employee trustleadership to make the right
decision and does leadershiptrust in the employee to support
the mission and decisions thatare being made? One of the
points that you brought up, thatleaders just show up randomly,
and that creates anxiousness andfear. But it's also a drop
(12:24):
everything mentality, when theleader shows up, and they need
to do something or they'reasking for something. Employees
often say, Well, you know, thisVP or this director, or this B,
or the CEO, asked me to dosomething or asked us to do
something, I need to dropeverything right now and go do
that. But that creates a lot ofstress around. There's this
(12:47):
power dynamic involved inleaders, I've heard more than
one, Vice President level personsay, I don't want people to drop
everything, because I'm a VP.
But I do kind of expect peopleto drop everything, because I'm
a VP. And they get frustratedwhen people don't. leaders want
to be authentic, they want to behumble. The best leaders display
(13:12):
a lot of emotional intelligence,some humility. They're
accessible. They don't lead withthat power dynamic. But power
dynamics are often built intothe role. And it's important for
a leader to recognize that whenthey walk into the room, they
bring with them all these otherfeelings of other people they
(13:34):
might not even be aware of. Soit's important to utilize
emotional intelligence andrecognize what your presence as
a leader, particularly a seniorleader, might drive on an
organization, a component of theorganization that you haven't
been to before. I, as a leader,walk into a place that I hadn't
been before, or a team that Ihaven't seen in a while. I want
(13:57):
to be there and be available.
I'm there not to create fear.
I'm there to help answerquestions and maybe help solve
problems or gain newperspective. But frontline
employees might not see that ifI haven't developed trust or if
the culture of the organizationhasn't developed that trust.
It's important for a leader toactively say, when they walk
(14:17):
into a new place, or if theyshow up sporadically see gold
leadership where they swoop in,leave mess all over the place,
and then fly away without reallyrecognizing what it is that
they've left behind or theemotional weight that they've
left behind them. It's importantto say, Look, I don't make it
out here very often. I'd love tobe out here more frequently.
(14:40):
Unfortunately, my scheduledoesn't permit that as
frequently as I want to be outhere. Some of you might be
nervous, there's no reason to benervous. I'm just here to
understand what you're goingthrough and how I can help. We
also have this other problemthat we need to solve here. We
need to work together to solveproblem. And that changes the
dynamic instantly. And this ideathat drop everything because I'm
(15:05):
a leader is such a dangerous,even unintended consequence,
it's important that when yousay, Hey, I'm working on this
thing, I could really use yourhelp you and your team's help on
solving this problem. I want toconsciously recognize that I
want you to freak out aboutthis, that you have this on top
of everything else that you havegoing on. So I should say, what
(15:27):
other priorities Do you haveright now that this might
squeeze into? I don't want youto have to drop everything, I
have a deadline of x to be ableto deliver this because I have
to report back to the board orwhatever my constituencies are.
So that we can then collaborateon when can you do this, I don't
(15:47):
want this to disrupt everythingelse that you have going on. I
always think about this ideathat if I were to see a leader
in the grocery store, justshopping, and they walked up to
me and asked me to do somethingin the way that they're asking
me to do it at work, what wouldI what would my reaction be? You
have avocados, I want thoseavocados? Can you give them to
(16:10):
me by Thursday, you'd be likewhat the hell is wrong with you,
you have to approach everysituation, like you have no
power and no authority. And inturn, that leaves you with a lot
of power and a lot of authority.
But it leaves you with trustthat's developed in underpinning
(16:34):
that authority and that powerthat you have with your team,
you have a team that will thenknow that you're in it for them,
not just in it for yourself andyour needs.
Dr. K (16:45):
Absolutely, there are different leadership styles,
there's the transformationaltransactional laws a fair or
passive avoidance, and the thetransformational leaders.
Everyone knows, they're theleaders. They know, they know
that they are the ones, let'ssay with more authority with the
(17:07):
last word, and have the abilityto direct which way, you know,
certain situations are going.
However, with a transformationalleader, they also the employees
feel them being present, theyfeel that there is a open door
policy, they feel that they'reable to say they're able to put
(17:30):
their words out there, and theleader is going to go, let's
take a look at that, becausemaybe you're right, or we looked
at that, thank you for yourinput. It didn't fit in with
what we're trying to do. But ifsomething else comes about, let
us know, you know, there'salways those little pictures of
the different leaders, and thetransformational leader is the
(17:51):
one that's helping to pull thewagon, you know, with
transactional leaders, you knowthat that changes every day.
It's very different than passiveavoidance. But it's tends to
have a little bit more negativeconsequences. Now,
unfortunately, everybody feelsthat transactional leaders, not
everybody, but a majority peoplefeel that transactional leaders
(18:12):
have a negative is all negativethat's bringing to the table.
And that's not exactly true,because transactional leaders
have the ability to be very,this is what we need done. Now,
how are we going to do it?
They're not you know, at they'rea little bit more direct, a
(18:33):
little bit more assertive, andthat's not always a negative
thing. However, if you have atransactional leader, that
employees feel are up in theivory tower, and their presence
is, as you call it, the seagull,would you call it seagull?
Dr. D. (18:47):
Yep. a seagull leader yeah
Dr. K (18:49):
seagull leader, you know, they come in, swoop down, and
they leave that mess, which is agreat metaphor, that doesn't
create a place of enjoyment,that doesn't create a sense of
engagement to produce what isneeded to be produced. And I
(19:09):
think having a blend of the twoleaders would be beneficial,
especially if you are a leaderof a company that is 5000 10,000
100,000 finding a way to blend,you may not know everybody on
the front line. But if you haveother leaders below you, that
(19:31):
are a little bit closer to them,you know, it builds you can find
out what you need to know fromthe exact person and that at
least will make that thedistance of the ivory tower. A
little bit shorter.
Dr. D. (19:49):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, leadership is often
shrouded in mystery to frontlineemployees, particularly folks
earlier in their career. leadershave to demystify leadership.
People often aspire to beleaders without really
understanding what that is theySome people think it comes with
power. Some people think it onlycomes with money. Some people
think it comes with the ability,just kind of sit back and let
(20:11):
other people do the do the gruntwork, there myths in leadership,
every person brings their ownleadership style. You talked
about the categorization ofleadership with transactional
and laissez faire and passiveavoidance and transformational.
Those are leadership styles. Aleader has a natural approach to
(20:31):
their leadership style, but theyneed to be able to flex and
recognize if I'm a transactionalleader. And I'm thinking, I
don't want to bother people, Ijust want to get in, tell them
what they need to do, and getout because I don't want to be
disruptive, that could beperceived as really disruptive.
It's important for atransactional leader, for every
(20:54):
interaction, they need to flex,they need to walk into the room,
ask questions, be open, laissezfaire, how are you doing,
understand who you are, whatyou're working on, just absorb,
then you need to get into thetransactional component of your
presentation, which is, here'swhat we are, here's what we're
(21:14):
doing. Here's why we're doingit. Here's what we need, then
you need to flex totransformational and say, Okay,
what do you need for me? How canwe all pull together? How can we
get there at the end of the day,and you need to trust your team,
so maybe you can flex to passiveavoidance and say, I'm going to
step away, let them do theirthing, and I'll come back and
check on them in a little bit.
Dr. K (21:35):
I would agree, I think flexibility, communication being
present are huge ways to makethat ivory tower again, seem
smaller, or maybe non existent.
And I can't say that everyperson in a company would if
they saw a leader, being a partof the team would think, you
know, oh, my God, look at thatleader. They're amazing. There
(21:57):
might be people that are justlike, Oh, please get this person
out of here. I feel so muchbetter without them. However,
majority of people seen someonein the trenches asking
questions, at least sayinghello. And they're, they're less
of a number or a statistic or anemployee in their person. I'm
going to do more for you.
(22:18):
Because I appreciate how youmade me feel. I appreciate that
you care about what's going on?
Absolutely. I don't care if it's10,000 employees, either. Yeah,
the company needs to make a makethe or helped create a sense of
humanity.
Dr. D. (22:36):
Yeah. And I think what it really comes down to is
approachability. And one of thethings you talked about was
having an open door policy. Andthere's a dilemma to this open
door policy idea. Because anopen door policy says whenever
my door is open, you are welcometo come in and see me. Now, the
I think the intention behindthat is when I'm not in a
meeting, I'm available to you.
But people don't say that theysay I have an open door policy,
(22:58):
which when you say policy, yousay that is my policy, and it's
subject to change at any time.
The right thing to do is to sayI am available to you, you don't
have to say I have an open doorpolicy. It's if you need me, I
will be here that is the rightway as a leader to present
(23:20):
themselves. But it's veryimpractical. As a leader to say,
I am available to you all thetime because you have
responsibilities and meetingsand decisions and constituencies
that you have to support. One ofthe brilliant ideas out of
academia is this idea of officehours, the idea that I will be
(23:41):
available to anyone who needsme, I will reserve this time to
have conversations with anyoneat any time about any topic from
these hours, you are mypriority. And I want to make
sure you know when I'm going tobe available. So you can come to
me at any time. Anybody in the Csuite any VP, any director, any
manager who says to their team,yes, I'm going to be available
(24:06):
to you. And you can come to me,I'm always going to reserve
these blocks of time, once aweek, once a month, whatever
that might be a day a month foryou to come and see me. You can
just walk in, you don't need anappointment, you can be about
any topic, you can come as anindividual, you can come as a
group, and you will have my fullattention during that period.
(24:28):
That changes the dynamic. Now,not a lot of people will take a
senior senior leader on thatoffer. There are people who will
and they will frequently and youhave to be patient with those
that overuse that invitation sothat you don't discolor the
intention behind that. But ifyou're available to somebody and
(24:49):
you say I will be available toanyone at any time and you're
welcome to come and talk aboutanything, then you have
eliminated that gap. directlybetween leadership and not,
Dr. K (25:04):
I would agree, and you brought up, I have a office hour
times, or if I'm not in ameeting, you know that I'm
available to you, I think it'simportant for leaders to
understand that too. Ifsomeone's under if an employee's
under a deadline to crunchnumbers, or get this marketing
idea out, and you come more onand into their office or into
(25:26):
their space, and you're like, Ineed this now. That's that just
may not be possible. And to, youknow, like you said, the drop
everything mentality, that cancreate a sense of confusion, a
sense of anxiety, again, thativory tower syndrome, where the
leaders just don't understandwhat's going down below. So as
(25:47):
you brought up earlier, hey,this is really important.
However, do you have time to putthis in their? In what you're
doing right now? Oh, no, you'reunder a deadline that is by five
o'clock today. Okay, let me Whoshould I direct this to? Or
where can I go to make thishappen? If it is as important,
just because someone is a anemployee, does not mean that
(26:12):
what they are currently workingon at that moment, isn't just as
important to the company aswhatever the leader comes
running in all frantic about. Soit's important that leaders also
understand and communicate withthe employee, hey, what do you
have going on? This isimportant. Let's go from there.
Dr. D. (26:34):
And as senior leader who might talk to a frontline
employee, and who has amarketing deadline or something
coming up, they may say, hey,how can I help you? Can I buy
you a little extra time withyour boss, let me go talk to
your manager and see if I canbuy you a little extra time
since you're helping me out onthis thing. Or if it can't,
don't worry about it, I'llfigure out another way. When you
(26:57):
run into the room and say, dropeverything do this, what you're
really saying is, you're notimportant, I am more important,
my needs are more important thanyour needs, your priority might
be higher than what they'reworking on. But if that's the
case, then that's an easysolution. Talk about it. This is
(27:18):
my priority. This is what I'mtrying to get it done. I know
you're working on this thing, orwhat are you working on? Okay,
you're working on that? Whythat's pretty important, too.
Can you come see me when it'sdone? And maybe you can work on
it then? Or, hey, let's see ifwe can buy some other time on
this because this really is thehigher priority, not because I'm
asking, but because the needs ofthe business demand that it's
(27:39):
more important. Soprioritization, and shared
reprioritization can reallybring people around in alignment
on what really needs to befocused on next.
Dr. K (27:51):
Absolutely. So Dr. D, how can leaders prepare to change
this ivory tower syndrome?
Dr. D. (28:00):
It starts with expanding on the idea that we're all on
the same mission. When employeesunderstand that they and leaders
are on the same fundamentalmission, it decreases the
perceived gap between leaders inthe team on what they're trying
to accomplish and what decisionsneed to be made. Create an open
office hours time dedicated toallowing anyone or a group of
(28:20):
people to bring issues of theirchoice in a safe environment,
and be available and consistentto them. They are the priority.
Remove the because I'm a leaderprioritization expectation as a
leader take as much care andexplaining how your requests for
the broader mission and whenrequesting ask the person how
(28:40):
this request relates to otherpriorities and be empathetic
about what your presence bringsto an environment. If you are
somewhere in frequent. Peoplemight be perceiving that as a
stressful situation. So do whatyou can to diffuse that. So Dr.
K, what's on tap for next week?
Dr. K (28:58):
All right, so next week, we will be talking about
corporate social responsibility,a favorite topic of mine, the
influence business can have onthe community it serves, and the
way it benefits employees,customers and profit.
Dr. D. (29:13):
That's an exciting topic. I know you're really well
educated in that area. And toall of you joining us on this
journey to the realm Thank youso much. I'm Dr. D.
Dr. K (29:24):
And I'm Dr. k. And we are always looking forward to your
next visit to the ExecutiveRealm.
Hello and welcome to the realm. I'm Dr. D, I bring the
strategy.
Dr. K (00:04):
And I'm Dr. Kay, I bring the psychology, we are business
psychologists and your guides tothe executive realm, where we
bring strategy and psychologytogether
Dr. D. (00:14):
so you can bring your best your C suite, your teams
and your customers. Today we'retalking about the perception of
leadership being in an ivorytower, we'll be exploring why
employees develop the perceptionof the distance in disconnected
leadership team, and why it'simportant for executives to make
sure they are available andaccessible. So let's get to
(00:35):
work. Dr. K, what is the ivorytower when it comes to employees
perceptions,
Dr. K (00:42):
the ivory tower is the perception of employees not
being able to reach theirleaders, they seem unreachable,
as if they don't care, they arejust so high up and so far away,
that they are in this tower,even if they are three offices
down.
Dr. D. (01:00):
One of the phrases that I've heard the decisions they
come down from quote unquote, onhigh, they don't really
understand what we deal with ona day to day basis, there's a
wide gap in distance, bothmetaphorically And literally, in
many cases, between employeesand the leadership team, that
probably contributes to thisidea that employees think that
(01:24):
leaders just kind of sit aroundand don't really do very much
when I hear the ivory tower,that's the perception I have is
that team members are going oh,well, they're just living it up
in the ivory tower in the lap ofluxury. I think frontline
employees also don't understandhow difficult and demanding and
complex leaders responsibilitiesare and how time consuming.
(01:46):
those responsibilities are.
Dr. K (01:48):
Yes, leaders have a lot they respond to C suite, they
have to respond to managers thatare above them. However, from an
employee perspective, leadersthat are in that ivory tower,
they don't understand the gruntwork the employees are putting
forth. And that's where thativory tower, that distance
(02:09):
between employees and leadersbecomes very prominent, and very
detrimental and has possibilityof being very detrimental to
production to employeeengagement.
Dr. D. (02:23):
When you bridge that gap between leadership and the
frontline employees, you end upwith a better process and a more
profitable business, frankly.
Dr. K (02:32):
absolutely. As much as I want to say, Oh, the employees
and they're the ones that arehaving more issues with this, we
have to remember that theleaders get lost in their world
to they're not purposely tryingto ignore us, or purposely
trying to make things moredifficult. They get lost in
their own world.
Dr. D. (02:52):
If the president and CEO of a company has 100 employees,
it's really easy to get to knowall of those employees. If the
CEO of a company with 10,000, or100,000 employees, employees are
almost a statistic to thatperson, it's impossible for them
to get to know every facet ofthe organization in detail. And
(03:15):
that's where a well organizedand engaged leadership team
comes in. It's difficult forlarge organizations in
particular, with many levels ofleadership to really have their
pulse on every part of theorganization. But it's important
that a CEO make the attempt. Andthe C suite. In general, because
(03:38):
the C suite is a special unit,each leader is over an
individual functional area. Butthe C suite is responsible for
the entire organization. So theHuman Resources officer thinks
about the health of the entireorganization, all of the
employees, not just those in HR,the CFO thinks of the health of
the organization, not just thosein the finance team, the CIO
(04:03):
thinks of the health of theorganization from an IT
infrastructure perspective. Butstill, they think of the health
of the entire organization andor every C suite position. That
is the case. The CEO, of courseis accountable and responsible
for the C suite and the entireorganization. And they have to
think about the board the levelof responsibility and
(04:25):
complexity, the weight of thedecisions that are made at that
level, our make or break for anorganization. If a customer
service employee loses a singlecustomer that probably doesn't
raise to the level of the CEO,but the CEO needs to be thinking
about how many customers are welosing and why are we losing
(04:47):
them? And what can we do toenable those at the front line
to be able to engage withcustomers in the right way so
that we don't lose them. And acustomer is a statistic to a
large organization.
Unfortunately, but organizationsneed to be mission oriented
around the customers. And Ithink that brings an interesting
perspective, when the leadershipteam is making decisions that
(05:09):
the frontline employees don'tunderstand. They feel like
they're coming down from onhigh, or the leadership team
seems so disconnected fromemployees to leaders. That's
because there is a problem. Theproblem is the employees don't
understand what's motivating theleaders. And sometimes the
leaders don't understand what'smotivating the employees. And
(05:30):
this gets down to a common themein many of our discussions is
mission orientation. Ifemployees understand that
leaders are mission orientedtowards serving their customers
in this way, or serving theircommunity in this way, and
serving their employees, and ina certain way, and employees
understand that and leadersactually lift to that, then that
(05:50):
demystifies a lot of thedecision making leaders can say,
we're making this change,because we think it better
aligns with our mission. Noteverybody is going to agree with
this direction. And we want totalk about where those areas of
disagreement are, so that we canrefine and adjust and make sure
that their perspective isbrought into that decision. So
(06:13):
that as you're making changes toan organization, you're aligning
to the mission, and everyoneunderstands what that mission
is. frontline employees,understand my voice was included
in that decision, because myvoice is advocating for the
customer, because that's mymission. And I can see how this
decision relates to improvingthat experience that mission.
(06:36):
And it is a useful tool foraligning the organization.
Dr. K (06:43):
I would absolutely agree.
Where my concern comes in is theivory tower people. That's what
I'm going to refer to themtoday. A lot of times, they're
going to look at the thenumbers, they are going to look
at very the tangible informationand go this is what's wrong, fix
it, this is what I think. Andthat's where part of the problem
(07:06):
is and that's wheredisengagement of employees comes
in. That's where employees willfeel, oh, they don't care about
us. They don't hear what we haveto say, why do we care? Because
instead of going, Okay, I seethere's a problem with these
numbers. This looks okay, thisis starting to decline. Let me
go talk to these groups. Or letme talk to maybe the middle
(07:30):
manager. And they can go downand talk a little bit more to
find out what's going on.
Because numbers aren't words,when you talk to the people that
are making those numbers happen.
Those are the people that weneed to talk to. It's not just
about the numbers. You can'ttell everything from some data
(07:50):
sheets.
Dr. D. (07:53):
I think that is a common misconception that leaders only
make decisions by looking at thenumbers. And that's never the
case, large organizations, thereis a lot of I'll say,
bureaucracy or politics, thereis a lot of getting other people
on board. If a CEO recognizesfrom numbers that profits are
(08:15):
trailing in a particular area isan example. That is a number
driven observation. But neverwill somebody say we're going to
make this change just because ofthat. There are often dozens,
hundreds of man hours at leastput into each of those
decisions. And well seasonedprofessional executives will ask
(08:39):
for a lot of perceptions. Now.
They'll ask their comfortconvenience, the CEO will say
ask the C suite. Where do youthink this is in the C suite
will then go out and canvasstheir VPS and maybe they're
directors, but their directorsmay not say AI is a leader
talked about this decision andprovided some input on your
(09:00):
behalf, because I'm close enoughto you guys know what you're
facing every day. It feels likefrom a frontline employee, that
their voice is not included inthe decision. But they may have
been represented in thatdecision from other leaders.
It's never just look at this setof data. And we're going to act
(09:21):
based on that set of data. Thereare often many considerations
and many voices that contributeto a decision beyond just the
numbers. But it is an importantperspective because I think many
people, particularly frontlineemployees, believe that leaders
will Canvas a spreadsheet andsay draw a line and say okay,
(09:41):
this below this line, those areall gone, you know, like
magically but it takes anorganization in many
conversations with many leadersin order to enact a decision and
make sure that it comes tofruition and I think this is an
important lesson for leadersleaders need To communicate
particularly largeorganizational decisions, they
(10:02):
have to talk through the processwith the team. We observe the
numbers, we're doing this, wetalked to X number of people,
your leaders represented yourperspectives in this decision.
We couldn't talk about thisdecision in advance because, or
at least broadly because ofmarket conditions. Or if you're
(10:24):
a publicly traded company,there's a lot of restrictions on
why you might not openlycommunicate a decision. But you
have to explain that after thefact, we made this decision,
because and here's how yourvoices are represented. A well
crafted communication strategycan eliminate that perception,
the decision is coming down fromon high.
Dr. K (10:47):
No, you said just now that there are certain companies
that can't talk because they'republicly traded, and all of
that. And you said also, tocommunicate after the decision
is made as why it wasn't talkedabout, maybe that needs to be
something that is known, maybethere will be employees that
don't know that their companycan only say certain things
(11:09):
because of the position thatthey're in. And these are
decisions that we can alwaysdiscuss, does not mean that we
are not listening to you. Butthey may be decisions that
cannot be discussed, due to ourorganization, especially if
you're not seeing them, youthink that they don't care about
what you're doing down in thetrenches. When we don't see
(11:32):
them. We don't think they care.
And then when we see them onthere, and I'm taking this from
pure experience, we don't seethem, we don't think they care.
We don't think they understandwhat we're doing. And then when
you see them randomly, we getnervous, we get scared, you
know, we get very all all tenseand anxious. That's not creating
a healthy environment. That isdefinitely strengthening that
(11:57):
ivory tower syndrome.
Dr. D. (12:01):
Yeah. And what that really comes down to is trust
does a frontline employee trustleadership to make the right
decision and does leadershiptrust in the employee to support
the mission and decisions thatare being made? One of the
points that you brought up, thatleaders just show up randomly,
and that creates anxiousness andfear. But it's also a drop
(12:24):
everything mentality, when theleader shows up, and they need
to do something or they'reasking for something. Employees
often say, Well, you know, thisVP or this director, or this B,
or the CEO, asked me to dosomething or asked us to do
something, I need to dropeverything right now and go do
that. But that creates a lot ofstress around. There's this
(12:47):
power dynamic involved inleaders, I've heard more than
one, Vice President level personsay, I don't want people to drop
everything, because I'm a VP.
But I do kind of expect peopleto drop everything, because I'm
a VP. And they get frustratedwhen people don't. leaders want
to be authentic, they want to behumble. The best leaders display
(13:12):
a lot of emotional intelligence,some humility. They're
accessible. They don't lead withthat power dynamic. But power
dynamics are often built intothe role. And it's important for
a leader to recognize that whenthey walk into the room, they
bring with them all these otherfeelings of other people they
(13:34):
might not even be aware of. Soit's important to utilize
emotional intelligence andrecognize what your presence as
a leader, particularly a seniorleader, might drive on an
organization, a component of theorganization that you haven't
been to before. I, as a leader,walk into a place that I hadn't
been before, or a team that Ihaven't seen in a while. I want
(13:57):
to be there and be available.
I'm there not to create fear.
I'm there to help answerquestions and maybe help solve
problems or gain newperspective. But frontline
employees might not see that ifI haven't developed trust or if
the culture of the organizationhasn't developed that trust.
It's important for a leader toactively say, when they walk
(14:17):
into a new place, or if theyshow up sporadically see gold
leadership where they swoop in,leave mess all over the place,
and then fly away without reallyrecognizing what it is that
they've left behind or theemotional weight that they've
left behind them. It's importantto say, Look, I don't make it
out here very often. I'd love tobe out here more frequently.
(14:40):
Unfortunately, my scheduledoesn't permit that as
frequently as I want to be outhere. Some of you might be
nervous, there's no reason to benervous. I'm just here to
understand what you're goingthrough and how I can help. We
also have this other problemthat we need to solve here. We
need to work together to solveproblem. And that changes the
dynamic instantly. And this ideathat drop everything because I'm
(15:05):
a leader is such a dangerous,even unintended consequence,
it's important that when yousay, Hey, I'm working on this
thing, I could really use yourhelp you and your team's help on
solving this problem. I want toconsciously recognize that I
want you to freak out aboutthis, that you have this on top
of everything else that you havegoing on. So I should say, what
(15:27):
other priorities Do you haveright now that this might
squeeze into? I don't want youto have to drop everything, I
have a deadline of x to be ableto deliver this because I have
to report back to the board orwhatever my constituencies are.
So that we can then collaborateon when can you do this, I don't
(15:47):
want this to disrupt everythingelse that you have going on. I
always think about this ideathat if I were to see a leader
in the grocery store, justshopping, and they walked up to
me and asked me to do somethingin the way that they're asking
me to do it at work, what wouldI what would my reaction be? You
have avocados, I want thoseavocados? Can you give them to
(16:10):
me by Thursday, you'd be likewhat the hell is wrong with you,
you have to approach everysituation, like you have no
power and no authority. And inturn, that leaves you with a lot
of power and a lot of authority.
But it leaves you with trustthat's developed in underpinning
(16:34):
that authority and that powerthat you have with your team,
you have a team that will thenknow that you're in it for them,
not just in it for yourself andyour needs.
Dr. K (16:45):
Absolutely, there are different leadership styles,
there's the transformationaltransactional laws a fair or
passive avoidance, and the thetransformational leaders.
Everyone knows, they're theleaders. They know, they know
that they are the ones, let'ssay with more authority with the
(17:07):
last word, and have the abilityto direct which way, you know,
certain situations are going.
However, with a transformationalleader, they also the employees
feel them being present, theyfeel that there is a open door
policy, they feel that they'reable to say they're able to put
(17:30):
their words out there, and theleader is going to go, let's
take a look at that, becausemaybe you're right, or we looked
at that, thank you for yourinput. It didn't fit in with
what we're trying to do. But ifsomething else comes about, let
us know, you know, there'salways those little pictures of
the different leaders, and thetransformational leader is the
(17:51):
one that's helping to pull thewagon, you know, with
transactional leaders, you knowthat that changes every day.
It's very different than passiveavoidance. But it's tends to
have a little bit more negativeconsequences. Now,
unfortunately, everybody feelsthat transactional leaders, not
everybody, but a majority peoplefeel that transactional leaders
(18:12):
have a negative is all negativethat's bringing to the table.
And that's not exactly true,because transactional leaders
have the ability to be very,this is what we need done. Now,
how are we going to do it?
They're not you know, at they'rea little bit more direct, a
(18:33):
little bit more assertive, andthat's not always a negative
thing. However, if you have atransactional leader, that
employees feel are up in theivory tower, and their presence
is, as you call it, the seagull,would you call it seagull?
Dr. D. (18:47):
Yep. a seagull leader yeah
Dr. K (18:49):
seagull leader, you know, they come in, swoop down, and
they leave that mess, which is agreat metaphor, that doesn't
create a place of enjoyment,that doesn't create a sense of
engagement to produce what isneeded to be produced. And I
(19:09):
think having a blend of the twoleaders would be beneficial,
especially if you are a leaderof a company that is 5000 10,000
100,000 finding a way to blend,you may not know everybody on
the front line. But if you haveother leaders below you, that
(19:31):
are a little bit closer to them,you know, it builds you can find
out what you need to know fromthe exact person and that at
least will make that thedistance of the ivory tower. A
little bit shorter.
Dr. D. (19:49):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, leadership is often
shrouded in mystery to frontlineemployees, particularly folks
earlier in their career. leadershave to demystify leadership.
People often aspire to beleaders without really
understanding what that is theySome people think it comes with
power. Some people think it onlycomes with money. Some people
think it comes with the ability,just kind of sit back and let
(20:11):
other people do the do the gruntwork, there myths in leadership,
every person brings their ownleadership style. You talked
about the categorization ofleadership with transactional
and laissez faire and passiveavoidance and transformational.
Those are leadership styles. Aleader has a natural approach to
(20:31):
their leadership style, but theyneed to be able to flex and
recognize if I'm a transactionalleader. And I'm thinking, I
don't want to bother people, Ijust want to get in, tell them
what they need to do, and getout because I don't want to be
disruptive, that could beperceived as really disruptive.
It's important for atransactional leader, for every
(20:54):
interaction, they need to flex,they need to walk into the room,
ask questions, be open, laissezfaire, how are you doing,
understand who you are, whatyou're working on, just absorb,
then you need to get into thetransactional component of your
presentation, which is, here'swhat we are, here's what we're
(21:14):
doing. Here's why we're doingit. Here's what we need, then
you need to flex totransformational and say, Okay,
what do you need for me? How canwe all pull together? How can we
get there at the end of the day,and you need to trust your team,
so maybe you can flex to passiveavoidance and say, I'm going to
step away, let them do theirthing, and I'll come back and
check on them in a little bit.
Dr. K (21:35):
I would agree, I think flexibility, communication being
present are huge ways to makethat ivory tower again, seem
smaller, or maybe non existent.
And I can't say that everyperson in a company would if
they saw a leader, being a partof the team would think, you
know, oh, my God, look at thatleader. They're amazing. There
(21:57):
might be people that are justlike, Oh, please get this person
out of here. I feel so muchbetter without them. However,
majority of people seen someonein the trenches asking
questions, at least sayinghello. And they're, they're less
of a number or a statistic or anemployee in their person. I'm
going to do more for you.
(22:18):
Because I appreciate how youmade me feel. I appreciate that
you care about what's going on?
Absolutely. I don't care if it's10,000 employees, either. Yeah,
the company needs to make a makethe or helped create a sense of
humanity.
Dr. D. (22:36):
Yeah. And I think what it really comes down to is
approachability. And one of thethings you talked about was
having an open door policy. Andthere's a dilemma to this open
door policy idea. Because anopen door policy says whenever
my door is open, you are welcometo come in and see me. Now, the
I think the intention behindthat is when I'm not in a
meeting, I'm available to you.
But people don't say that theysay I have an open door policy,
(22:58):
which when you say policy, yousay that is my policy, and it's
subject to change at any time.
The right thing to do is to sayI am available to you, you don't
have to say I have an open doorpolicy. It's if you need me, I
will be here that is the rightway as a leader to present
(23:20):
themselves. But it's veryimpractical. As a leader to say,
I am available to you all thetime because you have
responsibilities and meetingsand decisions and constituencies
that you have to support. One ofthe brilliant ideas out of
academia is this idea of officehours, the idea that I will be
(23:41):
available to anyone who needsme, I will reserve this time to
have conversations with anyoneat any time about any topic from
these hours, you are mypriority. And I want to make
sure you know when I'm going tobe available. So you can come to
me at any time. Anybody in the Csuite any VP, any director, any
manager who says to their team,yes, I'm going to be available
(24:06):
to you. And you can come to me,I'm always going to reserve
these blocks of time, once aweek, once a month, whatever
that might be a day a month foryou to come and see me. You can
just walk in, you don't need anappointment, you can be about
any topic, you can come as anindividual, you can come as a
group, and you will have my fullattention during that period.
(24:28):
That changes the dynamic. Now,not a lot of people will take a
senior senior leader on thatoffer. There are people who will
and they will frequently and youhave to be patient with those
that overuse that invitation sothat you don't discolor the
intention behind that. But ifyou're available to somebody and
(24:49):
you say I will be available toanyone at any time and you're
welcome to come and talk aboutanything, then you have
eliminated that gap. directlybetween leadership and not,
Dr. K (25:04):
I would agree, and you brought up, I have a office hour
times, or if I'm not in ameeting, you know that I'm
available to you, I think it'simportant for leaders to
understand that too. Ifsomeone's under if an employee's
under a deadline to crunchnumbers, or get this marketing
idea out, and you come more onand into their office or into
(25:26):
their space, and you're like, Ineed this now. That's that just
may not be possible. And to, youknow, like you said, the drop
everything mentality, that cancreate a sense of confusion, a
sense of anxiety, again, thativory tower syndrome, where the
leaders just don't understandwhat's going down below. So as
(25:47):
you brought up earlier, hey,this is really important.
However, do you have time to putthis in their? In what you're
doing right now? Oh, no, you'reunder a deadline that is by five
o'clock today. Okay, let me Whoshould I direct this to? Or
where can I go to make thishappen? If it is as important,
just because someone is a anemployee, does not mean that
(26:12):
what they are currently workingon at that moment, isn't just as
important to the company aswhatever the leader comes
running in all frantic about. Soit's important that leaders also
understand and communicate withthe employee, hey, what do you
have going on? This isimportant. Let's go from there.
Dr. D. (26:34):
And as senior leader who might talk to a frontline
employee, and who has amarketing deadline or something
coming up, they may say, hey,how can I help you? Can I buy
you a little extra time withyour boss, let me go talk to
your manager and see if I canbuy you a little extra time
since you're helping me out onthis thing. Or if it can't,
don't worry about it, I'llfigure out another way. When you
(26:57):
run into the room and say, dropeverything do this, what you're
really saying is, you're notimportant, I am more important,
my needs are more important thanyour needs, your priority might
be higher than what they'reworking on. But if that's the
case, then that's an easysolution. Talk about it. This is
(27:18):
my priority. This is what I'mtrying to get it done. I know
you're working on this thing, orwhat are you working on? Okay,
you're working on that? Whythat's pretty important, too.
Can you come see me when it'sdone? And maybe you can work on
it then? Or, hey, let's see ifwe can buy some other time on
this because this really is thehigher priority, not because I'm
asking, but because the needs ofthe business demand that it's
(27:39):
more important. Soprioritization, and shared
reprioritization can reallybring people around in alignment
on what really needs to befocused on next.
Dr. K (27:51):
Absolutely. So Dr. D, how can leaders prepare to change
this ivory tower syndrome?
Dr. D. (28:00):
It starts with expanding on the idea that we're all on
the same mission. When employeesunderstand that they and leaders
are on the same fundamentalmission, it decreases the
perceived gap between leaders inthe team on what they're trying
to accomplish and what decisionsneed to be made. Create an open
office hours time dedicated toallowing anyone or a group of
(28:20):
people to bring issues of theirchoice in a safe environment,
and be available and consistentto them. They are the priority.
Remove the because I'm a leaderprioritization expectation as a
leader take as much care andexplaining how your requests for
the broader mission and whenrequesting ask the person how
(28:40):
this request relates to otherpriorities and be empathetic
about what your presence bringsto an environment. If you are
somewhere in frequent. Peoplemight be perceiving that as a
stressful situation. So do whatyou can to diffuse that. So Dr.
K, what's on tap for next week?
Dr. K (28:58):
All right, so next week, we will be talking about
corporate social responsibility,a favorite topic of mine, the
influence business can have onthe community it serves, and the
way it benefits employees,customers and profit.
Dr. D. (29:13):
That's an exciting topic. I know you're really well
educated in that area. And toall of you joining us on this
journey to the realm Thank youso much. I'm Dr. D.
Dr. K (29:24):
And I'm Dr. k. And we are always looking forward to your
next visit to the ExecutiveRealm.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!