Bad Leadership is Becoming an Epidemic

It might be me, but the more I look around, the more I am finding bad leadership. Specifically leadership apathy and leaders that lack accountability. “It’s good enough” leaders and leaders who are “just getting by.”

“Why are we seeing this,” I ask myself?

Bad leaders hire and promote bad people. Bad Leadership isn’t just destroying corporate America, but they are doing it at a record pace and doing it way into the future.

These leadership charlatans are building armies of apathy to follow in their footsteps. If you are someone that gets things done, you are kept in a position to get things done because bad leaders don’t want you–you threaten them.

No wonder more than 70% of employees are disengaged at work. Who wouldn’t be with such a sorry leadership outlook.

Often, we talk about the qualities and actions of good leadership, but I think it is important that we learn to spot bad leadership. Here are the top ten results of bad leadership:

1. The realm under the leader has little if no strategy or plan to inspire and drive people. Literally there is no vision, the purpose of the business is primarily focused on making money, becoming bigger, and taking care of itself. Any goals are developed to ensure each subordinate leader can justify their position in the strategic plan and do little to overcome barriers to a future vision. Any vision and goals are such low targets that they in most cases have already been attained.

2.  Program accountability is slowly eroding and nothing is done about it (i.e., deadlines are missed, people not qualified are in positions, reports are misleading, etc.). Expectation barely exists in the organization because targets, rules, and requirements are ignored. Organizations like audit, risk, and compliance are seen as the enemy and kept away from the organization. When there is a finding from one of these organizations, the leaders spends all resources to make it go away and cover it up, but does little to nothing to solve the root causes that created the issue in the first place.

3.  There is a complete lack of organizational performance and process management and accountability. No one knows deeper than monthly what they are doing from a measurement perspective and there is a complete lack of process focus. Everyone simply does their own thing and what little process documentation is lodged tightly in the heads of the employees and passed down like tribal knowledge. Knowledge systems are busting at the seems with senseless information without any organization. Variance across processes run rampant and unchecked.

4.  There is a significant lack of communication both internally and externally. What communication that is occuring lacks any direction or strategic intent. The leadership doesn’t even know who their stakeholders are to communicate to. The term customer is used, but they are a faceless entity that nothing is really known about. Specifications for work are all internally created and bear no resemblance to competition or what customers actually want. In some cases, the customer is seen and portrayed as the enemy.

5.  The organizational structure looks like a Christmas tree and is broken into functional and operational departments that are so siloed that the company looks like an island chain. There is little communication and less cooperation across departments. Each silo is only focused on what they do for themselves, they see everyone else as a competitor for money and manpower, and they simply throw work over the wall versus work in an end-to-end process.

6.  Education and training opportunities might exist, but there is no plan or strategy to develop employees and leaders. The activity, if it happens at all, is chaotic and clearly broken. Employees mainly spend resources to gain skill through training so they can leave the company.

7.  Operational effectiveness, based in things like defect counting, process timing, first pass yield, on time delivery, customer satisfaction, etc. is barely looked at (if at all) and nothing of substance is done about it.

8.  Leaders across the organization focus on tactical operations, ignore problems, lack methodical problem solving, micromanage work, and have little vision at work.

9.  Good, hard working employees are consistently overlooked for promotion opportunities and are kept “getting the work done.”  The great employees have either turned apathetic in the workplace, are looking for other opportunities, or have already left.

10.  Almost all the leadership and management below a bad leader looks the same. The problems above spread to every corner what that leader controls. Bad leaders conspire with other bad leaders to corrupt the entire organization because this eliminates the need for accountability. Soon, the disease has spread to the highest level executives and even possibly the president or CEO. The leadership ranks become bloated with high-paid executives who do little and hold no one accountable to organizational values.

These companies are like the undead. The disease has corrupted the body so badly that it doesn’t even realize it’s dead. It just keeps operating and destroying everything in its path. This mindless company lumber on making money in spite of itself and it decays and starts to collapse. Yet, the bad leadership are so unaware of the situation that they can’t even fathom there is a problem.

Bad leadership is running rampant in corporate America and the undead companies are lumbering across the landscape. Is there nothing that can be done?