Repairing Long-term Damage Caused by Poor Leadership

Leadership is the core foundation and the backbone of any successful business. If you look at any high-performance organisation their results haven’t just been generated by incredible ideas and visions, but instead, they have been led by great leaders! However, a slight shift in your leadership team - whether it’s someone leaving, or new processes being embodied, can cause a ripple effect within your business and start to create damage which can be difficult to repair.

The term “poor leadership” can be interpreted in many ways, depending on the business size as well as an individual’s perception of what makes a leader good or bad. In our view, five key elements make a great leader (or a great leadership team):

Communication

Communication is the foundation of everything, whether that’s a personal relationship or one at work. Great leaders can clearly communicate their needs and can ensure that their messaging can transcend across teams and have the desired response, even when delivering difficult information. 

Great leaders can also actively listen to how their team/employees are communicating with them, creating a flat hierarchical structure that encourages healthy communication across all levels, rather than simply assigning the leader to “give orders”.

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence is possessed by any great leader and enables them to effectively read their team and understand the complexities of each person. With emotional intelligence, leaders (for the most part) can effectively manage their emotions, looking at situations objectively whilst also possessing the ability to put themselves in others’ shoes. 

Accountability

Accountability is an incredibly powerful skill. It’s where a leader can identify their wrongdoings, clarify them (without trying to hide them) and also provide a solution. Accountability can be difficult to master, as nobody wants to admit that they’ve potentially made a mistake or done something wrong. 

However, accountability from leaders shows team members that it’s ok to make mistakes, and it also enables leaders to be humanised - creating better bonds across a business and ultimately creating less of a divide between leaders and their teams. 

Decision-making

This is a more obvious trait and skill that a leader should be able to possess, but decision-making is crucial to ensure teams and businesses can move forward. Great leaders aren’t hesitant or slow with their decision-making, instead, they are great at analysing situations as well as people to try and generate the best outcome for all.

Integrity

Integrity and accountability go hand in hand and show that you’re a leader who is human as well as an honest leader. Integrity and being able to show this to others demonstrates your morals as an individual and will enable you to model good behaviours to those within your team. 

The Pandemic and how it affected today’s leaders

Although the pandemic feels like a distant memory, it has affected our workforce (and will continue to affect it) for years to come. We are now dealing with the inevitable ripple effect that has run through the infrastructure of many organisations, especially those who lost a lot of their leaders during the pandemic as well as post-pandemic in early 2021. 

A lot of individuals who were in the early stages of management in 2020 are now considered the “senior leaders” of today. The pandemic was a transitionary phase where they would have been learning the ropes and complexities of people management, but instead, they were forced into circumstances such as completely remote working, which would have been a priority alongside people management.

Post-pandemic in 2021 was a sweeter period for all, with many businesses having record-breaking quarters, and 2022 also followed suit. However, now that we are in a global economic downtown, the result of this is organisations changing once more how they run. A huge part of this change is no longer embracing remote or hybrid working, and instead wanting employees to return to an in-office model. 

This meant that leaders who once managed remote teams had to learn in-person management tools quickly to keep up with the demands of the businesses that they were in, as well as equally navigate a difficult economic period. Some argue that our pandemic leaders are the “crème de la crème” as they dealt with the most challenging professional circumstances in their lifetime. But, on the other side of the coin, we are now in a new era of challenges, and the pandemic was unique - meaning that the skills acquired aren’t necessarily applicable right now. 

Additionally, leaders who have only experienced pandemic relationships at work may have flourished in a remote-only model, but are now faced with considerable challenges due to the stark differences that come with managing teams in person. Although the qualities that you need within leaders should ultimately be the same, communication and accountability are notably more difficult to measure when running a hybrid or remote model because communications are largely reliant on technology. 

There were also many reports of a “mass exodus” (also known as The Great Resignation) of many senior leaders post-pandemic, who struggled to cope with the demands and wanted “out” of their organisations. 

In essence, we are only now seeing the results of poor leadership because a lot of businesses didn’t realise that their leaders weren’t equipped. 

For these businesses, there was a huge skills gap that needed to be filled - and the pool to choose from was less experienced “pandemic leaders”. This isn’t to say that all leaders that were developed during the pandemic were bad, but a lot of leaders weren’t equipped with the best tools that they needed to succeed in a post-pandemic world, which is where we are now.

But, we can’t blame it all on the pandemic.

The pandemic was a huge contributing factor to poor leadership, but this can’t be the only thing that we consider. Ineffective leadership is devastating and doesn’t just affect your top and middle layer of management - it also bleeds through to every other layer of your business. 

An article by Forbes highlighted the effects of poor leadership, stating:

“Organizations are finding it increasingly more difficult to attract and retain high-performing leaders who inspire others. This problem becomes more complex when we consider the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the four generations currently in the workforce: baby boomers, Generation X, millennials and Generation Z.

Many of us, across generations, are seeking more harmony in our work and personal commitments. Millennials and Generation Z employees have highlighted the need for meaning and balance in their lives. They are more selective about the work they choose and how it aligns with their personal values. In addition, their willingness to leave a job that causes excessive stress has been well-documented.”

Attracting and retaining good leaders, unfortunately, leaves a lot of businesses with sub-par talent, and it can be argued that the disconnect between “old school” leaders and the new generation of juniors and mid-level talent who want balance and different leadership techniques aren’t afraid to quit if they’re unhappy. 

There are a million reasons why poor leadership occurs - but our knowledge of the market as well as the current economic situation we’re in globally has led us to conclude that the pandemic coupled with work demands changing has caused so many industries to suffer when it comes to attracting and retaining talent, especially at leadership level.

How can you repair long-term damage?

Ensuring accountability without disheartening

Accountability is crucial - especially when it comes to empowering and gaining the trust of a team. However, if you are dealing with leaders who already feel out of their depth and already feel disheartened, you must tread lightly and ensure that accountability doesn’t fall into the realm of consistently pointing out all the things that a leader is doing wrong. 

Poor leadership is the product of poor leadership - so if you have great leaders in your business, work with them to model the right behaviours but equally ensure that morale is positive and individuals feel uplifted.

Patience

It sounds incredibly simple, but patience will be the most powerful tool that you can instil in yourself as well as your current and future leaders. There are times when poor leadership can be incredibly frustrating - whether it’s the lower layers of your business that are struggling or it becomes an upwards battle. As long as you’re equipping your leaders with the tools that they need to be successful, you must understand that often they are only doing their best. 

“Leaders create communities and tribes and make us feel like we belong and make us feel like we matter” - Simon Sinek

Understanding where your leaders have come from

As already mentioned, a lot of today’s leaders are coming from pandemic circumstances, and many are navigating new territories. Understanding the backgrounds of your leaders as well as being mindful of their own anxieties and pain points can enable you to repair the long-term effects that have been caused by the pandemic, and ultimately create a team that is fuelled with strong, confident leaders. 

Spending enough time hiring your leaders

Hiring anybody into your organisation shouldn’t be a knee-jerk decision, but particularly, when hiring leaders, you need to ensure that you have invested plenty of time into screening and looking at the market to find the best fit for your organisation. You don’t want a revolving door at any layer of your business - but especially not at a leadership level. It’s harder now than ever before to find incredible, inspiring, and motivating leaders - so cutting corners during your talent acquisition process isn’t the right mindset to have.

Instead, invest time in building relationships and speaking to people, and ensure that your talent partner(s) are briefed well and can put together a cohesive and compelling go-to-market strategy to find the best leadership talent for you.