Does the big boss have a lousy personality? Actually, that's OK, as long as she or he communicates well with the troops.
This is the implication of a survey conducted by AMA Enterprise, a division of the American Management Association. Interviews with 316 senior-level business, human resources, management professionals and employees found that failure to communicate well with workers is far more damaging to the corporate mission than having a CEO with a personality from hell.
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The AMA referred to this communications block as a "leadership bubble." Of those surveyed, half said this bubble bubbles up with negative results at least on occasion at their workplace. "Three-quarters of respondents said they had worked at an organization where the leadership team seemed to carry on as though it was stuck in a bubble," the study said.
Here's the breakdown of responses when those surveyed were asked what causes senior management to lose touch with employees:
- Failure of internal communications: 32 percent
- The corporate culture: 28 percent
- Too many "yes" men and women advising the CEO: 23 percent
- Personality of the CEO: 16 percent
"Interestingly, most respondents did not use the survey to blame the CEO," observed Sam Davis, vice president for AMA Enterprise. "The survey found a consensus that the challenge is more systemic and the bubble won't necessarily go away just because there's a change of leadership. A key dimension of the 'leadership bubble' metaphor is not so much that employees don't think top management knows what's going on. It's that the leadership doesn't even realize it has lost touch. Indeed, asked if they've experienced out of touch leadership, 90 percent of respondents said the leadership team was usually or sometimes not even aware of the problem."
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
