I work in an educational publishing company and like a lot of other people, I am frustrated at the slow pace of change in companies like mine.
Your leadership ideas would hit my managers like news from outer space. They don’t tell us “Great job!” and congratulate employees on a job well done. It’s all about the metrics at my job, all day and every day.
Nobody is inspired here, but what’s worse is that I’ve never heard anyone express the opinion that employees need to be inspired.
I had a great manager in my last job. I didn’t realize how great a manager Gretchen was until I left that job. I took this job because it paid quite a bit more than my previous job and I have more responsibility now.
I have more responsibility on paper — not in reality! I have to get approval to do anything in my current job. There’s a grade-school aspect to the culture that is incredibly annoying. I am not used to being treated like a child at work.
The worst part is that in this company, they promote from within. They promote the most sycophantic, “Whatever you say, boss” people into management roles.
I’ve been in the company for three years and I’ve seen four people get promoted. I don’t want to be a manager so I’m not jealous of these people. It’s just that in all four cases, the person who got the management job was the person least likely to tell the truth about anything going on in the department. They promoted the four most insecure people to be supervisors. What’s the point of that?
As for me, this job falls into the category “It will look good on your resume” so I’m planning to stay here for another year and then move on.
My question to you is “Why do companies promote the least-qualified person into a management job — a fearful, non-independent-thinking person with almost no communication skills, no finesse and no leadership qualities?”
Dear Joshua,
You could think about corporate culture as a dial, like the speedometer on your car.
On one side of the dial is the word Trust. On the other side of the dial is the word Fear. Every corporate culture veers between fear and trust. Some of them stay mostly in the Trust Zone. Others, sadly, never climb out of the Fear Zone. Their organizations run on fear, even if their leaders don’t know it.
How could the leaders in a fearful organization notice the fear around them? They can’t see it — because they are fearful, too! You may influence them to build the trust level before you take off, or you may decide to keep your head down and serve out the remaining year of your sentence in silence.
If you want to move the dial while you have the job, the best way to do that is not by leaving the company (since people who leave are immediately discounted as malcontents that the company won’t miss much, anyway — that’s how fear works!) but to test your muscles during your final year in the job. You may decide to speak your truth more often.
You will find when you do it that your muscles get bigger right away, even if your managers don’t like what you have to say. You will see that you have powerful selling abilities you didn’t know you had.
Of course, I understand why you might decide to keep your mouth shut and bolt at the earliest opportunity.
No one appointed you the person responsible for reforming your employee’s culture on your way out. I only mention the idea of speaking your truth at work because the more you speak up about what you see, the more good you will do and the stronger you will become.
The reason some organizations promote people who don’t want to listen to employees is that those organizations, unfortunately, are stuck in fear. They will either tell themselves that they do listen to their employees (when they don’t) or they will convince themselves that it’s not necessary to listen to their teammates.
Only massive, voluntary turnover will convince them otherwise — and even that might work. Mother Nature might just decide to let them slide into oblivion. She is a wise teacher!
When you pay attention to fear and trust in any workplace, you will gain altitude on your culture and on yourself. You can start by paying attention to the fearful-vs-trusting things your co-workers and leaders say.
If fearful people who dare not question the company line are consistently being promoted to management jobs, that tells you that your leadership team is incapable of trusting itself to promote more self-confident people.
The more self-confident your supervisors are, the more truth you will hear as a leader. If you can’t stand to hear the truth and would rather see the company tank than open up to the messages streaming from the Reality Channel, then you will promote weak supervisors and pat them on the head for keeping quiet about everything happening outside your office walls.
Fearful leaders cannot promote people who might speak up about something that needs attention, whether it’s a policy change, an employee situation or problems with customers. Fearful people will not speak up, so they make wonderful supervisors in a fear-fueled organization.
That’s okay. Life is all about learning. You are learning a tremendous amount about human behavior in this job. That knowledge will serve you well throughout your life!
The assignment you’ve given yourself is to use the next twelve months to accumulate not only powerful resume fodder but also an honorary degree in fear and trust in the workplace. Get a journal and write in it — that will intensify your learning!
All the best,
Liz Ryan, Forbes Contributor
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