Out of Touch

Over the past 25 years I have had the opportunity to work with leaders in a wide variety of organizational settings. One of my key observations is that all too often leaders are out of touch with the reality facing their organization and its people.

Some of this occurs because information tends to get filtered as it moves up the organization. This phenomena is exacerbated by leaders who set up a palace guard to keep out the information they don’t want to hear.

Leaders must constantly and intentionally work against these tendencies. One way is to practice the technique advocated almost 30 years ago in the best-selling book, In Search of Excellence: MBWA – Managing by Wandering Around.

I have consulted (formally and informally) with leaders who like to talk about their “open door policy.” That sound good, but in reality it is passive and reactive. And it doesn’t provide the leader with access to the real stuff that’s going on in the organization. People who don’t report directly to the leader are intimidated to go to the leader. Even if they were willing to go, their own direct supervisor would be intimidated by them going. So, the leader must be proactive and go to the people. Perhaps the best historical example of this can be found in Abraham Lincoln who managed and lead by wandering around before there was an acronym for it.

Another factor that works against leaders staying in touch is a misunderstood emphasis on loyalty. Leaders who demand loyalty from their team often end up with people who are afraid of telling the truth because they don’t want to seem disloyal. The result is the creation of bogus loyalty.

Loyalty is not letting you run off into the deep weeds. Loyalty is not avoiding difficult conversations about mistakes you see your leader making. True loyalty cares (I would even say, loves) enough to tell the truth even when its uncomfortable.

We all need people in our lives who love and care enough about us to tell us when we’re off-base, when we’re headed into the deep weeds, or when we are just plain wrong about a perspective or a decision. That is authentic loyalty.

As leaders, we should cultivate people who will tell us the truth and make boldly make us aware of our blindspots.It may make us uncomfortable to hear it – it might even make us mad for a minute. But when we realize that the feedback was given out of concern and love, we will come to appreciate the authentic loyalty that it represents.

Get out of the office. Cultivate authentic loyalty.

Get in touch!