Claire Chandler, Executive Leadership Advisor at Talent Boost. Growth on Purpose: I examine how leadership shapes the world.
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There’s a tendency among C-level executives to make certain faulty (albeit understandable) assumptions about their senior leadership teams. Chief among those: the belief that everyone trusts each other.
It makes sense that they would fall victim to this fallacy. The typical executive thinks, I hired adults. Adults are going to figure out how to work together and manage their differences of opinion or ideology, even if no one is looking over their shoulders. They’re here to do a job and work together, and I shouldn’t have to play referee. But unfortunately, office culture is kind of like the ocean: Turn your back on it, and you might get knocked over by a wave.
A culture of mistrust isn’t merely unpleasant. Research supports a direct correlation between strong, fit cultures and business success; everything from financial gains to competitive edge connects back to culture. So when your company’s culture isn’t built on trust and employees aren’t aligned with your shared mission and values, these foundational cracks will severely undermine your long-term success.
How To Determine If You Have A Problem
You might wonder how to detect these fissures in your organization’s foundation. After all, most employees have been conditioned not to speak up and say there’s a problem, and in the era of hybrid and remote workplaces, there are fewer water cooler conversations on which to eavesdrop. But in a sense, that’s exactly what senior-level leaders need to do: They must listen intently to what people are saying, and crucially, what they’re not saying.
You can start by paying closer attention to exit interviews. If your people are only candid about workplace culture on their way out, that’s a red flag. One particularly critical review may just be an outlier. But it’s important to look at these interviews on the macro level and ask the difficult questions: What are those exit interview responses telling you about the culture you’re perpetuating? Are people being radically transparent only as they're heading out the door? And, are they only willing to talk about their supervisors when those leaders are exiting? These questions may reveal an underlying toxicity that you need to address.
Another thing to watch for: bad news. People hate delivering bad news. However, in strong workplace cultures, there is no bad news. How is this possible? Because nothing is news, period. Strong workplace cultures don’t have dirty secrets or sweep problems under the rug. Rather, they discuss everything openly and work together to engage with and solve problems. When performance or behavior does not meet expectations, people call out and root out issues transparently so that everyone can move forward together. Bluntly, these practices keep workplace issues from rotting and turning the entire environment toxic.
If you know that issues in your company have been simply swept out of view, you can be fairly certain that your workplace culture needs closer attention.
What To Do When Something Is Off
There’s a management mantra I find particularly relevant here: Listen first, act second. Back when I worked in corporate America, my company brought in a new CEO. Prior to his arrival, the company experienced a period of sustained underperformance. This CEO was very experienced; he could easily have waltzed in and said, “Based on my decades of experience, I can already see what's wrong. I'm going to start removing people and changing things.” And he probably would have been correct.
Instead, he spent the first 90 days of his tenure traveling around the country on a “listening tour.” He did not just listen to folks at the senior level; he listened to groups of employees throughout the company, at every level: executive leaders, middle management, frontline supervisors, and the “boots on the ground” individual contributors.
Moreover, he didn't get defensive when employees told him flat out what was wrong with the company, even as it pertained to the C Suite. He listened carefully and thoughtfully, and asked questions—and this, in turn, enabled people to give him unvarnished feedback without hesitation or fear of reprisals.
Ultimately, when his listening tour was over, the changes he made were grounded in employee feedback and backed by those same individuals; by listening to people at all levels, he had successfully gained their buy-in and their confidence. He was able to re-establish a culture of trust and transparency within the company, and over time, the underperformance issues were resolved.
The Importance Of Honest Reflection
When trust has been broken, or was never there in the first place, it’s time for leaders to look inward. Ask yourself, “When was the last time my team's input changed my mind?”
A lot of leaders say they’re open-minded to their team's input. If they're doing the right things and hiring good people, then that includes some individuals who balance out the leader’s more extreme tendencies or help compensate for areas where they struggle. That means hiring people who are smarter than they are in certain areas and who will at some point present a “better idea.”
If you're really being honest with yourself as a leader, you need to acknowledge that you may have never allowed your employees to have that “better idea,” to change your mind or your perspective. If that’s the case, then you are manifesting a lack of trust, which then becomes part of the company culture because you're not really open to others’ ideas.
It can be terrifying and vulnerable to view yourself this way, but ultimately, it is a pivotal step toward dismantling a toxic workplace culture and rebuilding it with one based on honesty and transparency. Nothing can change when people feel they are constantly wearing a mask; the onus falls on leaders first to remove that mask and face the future with openness and authenticity. Demonstrate the behavior you want to see repeated. A strong, fit, high-performance culture starts at the top.
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