TRUTH OF WEAK LEADERSHIP

Question : I am the CEO of a company. I am distressed with the results of an organisational survey we did with our staff. Sixty-five per cent of them viewed my leadership as weak. This is surprising considering how I have steered the company out of the many crises over the last 20 years. What is a possible explanation for the survey results?

Answer : Weak leadership as a feedback on your performance could mean a number of things. On the surface, this is not true; after all, you have kept everyone’s jobs through your determination and hard work to see them and the company through good and bad times. But on a deeper level, your staff probably expects you to be more “human” and to care for them as people rather than “units of production”. Assuming this is the case, your staff ’s expectations can be very simple. They probably expect you to go down the line, acknowledge or briefly talk with them along the corridors or in the lifts from time to time.

Like business conversations with business partners which are important, ordinary conversations with staff can bring so much out of them, all because you treat them as humans.

You may want to ‘humanise’ your leadership style from now on and see whether their perception of you will change for the better after this.

POWERFUL QUESTIONS

What is your current perception of your staff? What is your current behaviour towards them? What do you like to see happening in the way your staff perceive you?

Apart from talking about work, do you ask about their wellbeing?