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Complaining About the Leadership
I was doing some research on a company recently and found the typical complaints about management. It struck me that, in this case, the complaints were very specific and quite similar. Was there a seething discontent among the employees of a successful company? One particular complaint really hit home. The discontented employee said that the boss ought to show up once in a while to see what was really going on.
Let’s be clear. People are going to complain. It’s human nature. In today’s world, a simple case of a worker with an axe to grind can quickly become an internet sensation. I’m not suggesting you should react to every comment written about you or the organization. But, when there are multiple complaints that all seem to point in the same direction, there are probably grounds to at least take a look. Conversely, and perhaps counter-intuitively, if you never hear any complaints, that may also signal a problem. In the course of leading, it’s impossible to please all the people all the time.
So how do you know? You’re right not to believe everything you might read on-line. Of course you should be visible in the organization, but it is true that some will not tell you their true thoughts. Try this. Occasionally, ask someone to take a poll of the workers. Give them specific questions to ask but also tell them to be open to other comments. To get a better response, this person should be someone who is not associated with the particular hierarchy. Have them collect all the data, but scrub it to ensure there is no identifying information. Anonymity is important to getting the best results.
There’s a rule of thumb that I’ve always found to be true.
If everyone likes a leader and has nothing negative to say, that leader is probably not doing the job. No one will ever like everything you do.
If no one likes a leader and has nothing positive to say, that leader is probably a tyrannical dictator and would be better off in another job. There are very few people so bad that they will tick off an entire organization.
Ideally, the majority of the organization will have a good feeling about their leaders with only a small minority who really dislike them.
Where do you fall on this continuum? More importantly, what about your managers and supervisors? Do you know?
