<< Back To Leadership Unlimited Archive

September 2008
Senior Leaders Shouldn't Resist Solutions

Here's what I told a Chief Operations Officer recently, when he resisted involving the senior leadership team in an effort to improve the organization's culture: If you're part of the problem, you must be part of the solution.

It's also what I told the COO when he asked why I wanted to interview senior leaders in trying to assess what needed to be done in the organization. "Why not," asked the COO, "just interview frontline managers and employees?"

My answer was, "If you're part of the problem, you'd better be part of the solution. And in this case, the senior leadership team is part of the problem."

This is because organizational culture flows from the top of the organization. So if something's wrong with the culture, senior leadership involvement is absolutely essential for fixing the culture.

I often run into resistance from senior leaders who just don't see the need for their involvement in efforts to change the culture, or to improve morale or teamwork.

The senior team wants a problem fixed, but somehow they've convinced themselves that they're not part of the problem. It's as if they're saying, "It's the other managers and employees who have the problem, so that's where the focus should be."

This view is shortsighted, because problems with organizational culture, or morale, or productivity, are rarely the fault of one person or group.

The organization, like the human body, is very dynamic and complex. And in the human body, severe health problems usually result from complex combinations of organs, systems, and functions.

In the same way, an organization is complex and dynamic, with multiple systems, people, and processes that make the organization unique, and its problems very complicated.

To diagnose and then fix these problems that affect the entire organization, you need to look at all the major systems: Management, including the senior leadership, and employees.

This principle also applies to solving problems with a
particular individual. If a department head has poor
leadership skills, this problem affects other managers and employees in the department.

In this case, people usually want to isolate the department head as "the problem," and focus exclusively on that one person. They suggest that the department head needs coaching. And they're right.

But the other managers and employees, who may have been affected by this individual's problem for years, also need to be part of the solution.

The problem is not just that the department head displays poor leadership. It's that the department head's poor leadership is dragging down the department's performance. Improving the department's performance requires the department's involvement,
not just the manager's.

In this case, coaching for the department head, together with work on teambuilding or leadership development with the rest of the department, will be more effective than coaching alone.

Solving complex problems requires time. And yet senior leaders often say they're just too busy to "waste" time working on these issues, whether they're teambuilding, or leadership development, or strategic issues such as the organization's purpose, vision, and values.

This tells the rest of the organization that senior leadership is blind to the reality of the situation, blind to the fact that they are part of the problem.

This attitude makes solving the problem impossible. If other managers and employees see that the senior leadership isn't involved (read interested), then other managers and employees will see the whole effort as being a futile exercise in "going through the motions."

In sports, the cliché is that you win as a team, and you lose as a team. It's also true in business, and in solving complex business problems. Senior leaders are part of the team, and part of the problem. They must be part of the solution.

How well do you recognize your responsibility in being part of the problem? How committed are you to being part of the solution?

Until next edition, keep leading the way!

Copyright (C) 2008 by Terry Wall

<< Back To Leadership Unlimited Archive