The Reckoning Of Lazy Leadership

2023 will see a continued rise in individual/employee empowerment and tumultuous cultural shifts

Any organization that has touted a great culture can point to intentionality in creating it. Not all organizations are intentional about culture creation, and many struggle to build or keep it. Let’s start with the misalignment around the definition of culture. Some people think it’s snacks and ping pong tables – which were all washed away in 2020, making culture building harder for those organizations that didn’t understand what most HR practitioners know about the culture, which is that it’s the way we work, the way work gets done, the way people work together. Culture still exists in a hybrid, remote, or distributed environment. It’s just a little more elusive at times.
 

New terms have been coined in the last few years, including the Great Resignation in 2022, Quiet Quitting in 2022, and Quiet Hiring in 2023. The concepts of quiet quitting and quit hiring are just new monikers for the previously experienced phenomena. But, there’s a reason new terms are coined and widely discussed. Despite the likes of Twitter, Salesforce, and Amazon making headlines about layoffs, we’ll continue to see individuals and employees disengage with their employers as executive leaders continue to be out of touch with the world.

Imagine it, January 2023 and there are headlines everywhere like: “Salesforce to cut 10% of its staff”, “Amazon making deeper staff cuts” (probably not too hard to envision). Next to them, we see headlines like “Weekly jobless claims fall to lowest level since September”, “US Hiring Solid….”, “December unemployment rate at historic low of 3.5%”. Does this seem like we’re living in some alternate universe? How can these two narratives coincide?

Now look, I don’t think this is that moment where I’m standing on the end of the Titanic hundreds of feet in the air denying the fact the ship is sinking because I’m so high up. I think that the turn of the decade catapulted us into unchartered territory regarding how people work, engage with their employers, and find meaning and purpose in their lives. That’s why the two narratives above can coexist.

I recall the period between 2008-2010, and the narrative was that you should be happy to have a job. So many in various sectors lost their jobs in 2008/2009, myself included – that to be gainfully employed was a privilege. I think that beginning in 2020 and extending into 2023, some executives have hoped for that previous narrative to return. I heard a story of a CEO at a large organization speaking at an all-hands meeting. When asked about how their organization planned to fill the many vacancies on their website, this CEO said that with the coming recession (this was in the fall of 2022), there would soon be a ton of talent on the market, and they’d soon have their pick of the best talent. Gross! I say gross because this CEO didn’t mention attracting talent for having a great workplace, just that they’d have their pick of talent because people wouldn’t have options.

I pose that over the past few years, many well-respected businesses have lost their way. And when I talk about well-respected businesses, I’m referring to the leaders that helm the ship at those businesses. I hate when someone says something like: “the company [insert complaint here]”. The company isn’t a singular entity; it’s made up of multiple individuals who make decisions and others deal with the outcomes of those decisions; positive, negative, or indifferent. Take a look at Southwest. For years, it has been a beacon for creating a great culture. And, while someone wasn’t paying attention, the technology running their business became dated and led to the most significant holiday travel disruption we have seen. I saw someone post an org chart image of the CEO and his direct reports – pointing out that there was no CTO – and that a company’s values can be clearly seen in the positions they promote. To me, that’s the simplest way to describe what happened at Southwest. They didn’t view themselves as a technology company, didn’t put a focus on it, and holiday travelers dealt with the brunt of their technological incompetence.

I pose that 2023 will be defined by the reckoning of lazy leadership – with individuals continuing to focus on what’s important for them in their lives – while out-of-touch executives scratch their heads that no one is kissing their feet. Individuals won’t just be grateful to have a job. They will focus on how they can integrate their work passions with their life passions and ensure a symbiotic relationship between the two. Lazy leaders will see their businesses continue to fall apart, and executives who lead with intentionality will helm thriving businesses.

What is Lazy Leadership?

1. Leaders who fail to identify, follow, and refresh strategy

The companies that over-hired and now need to scale back staff to keep profits in line likely needed to pay more attention to strategy. In a recent Josh Bersin podcast, (author and global industry analyst) says “Shame on tech CEOs for over-hiring, being overly optimistic about the future, and frankly just not being very good business people. No company grows forever, and if you’re not prepared for a downturn, you’re not running your company in a very responsible way.” The decisions organizations make as leaders impact the lives of others, and not being responsible for running your business also means you’re irresponsible with others’ lives.

Strategy is what drives business decisions. Anyone who’s worked in an organization with a shoddy or non-existent plan has felt a need for more alignment and experienced challenges in decision-making. But when a business has a clear and well-communicated strategy, everyone is on the same page with how decisions are made. Strategy becomes the north star for how the business is run, and responsible decisions are made in regard to hiring and growth.

2. Assuming that in order to get productivity, we need to do the things we did pre-pandemic

Despite research to the contrary, some business leaders think that everyone needs to return to an office to be productive. Twitter, Apple, and Disney are making wide-sweeping moves to get people back into offices. I’ll admit that some types of work benefit from co-location. I’ve been facilitating learning for most of my career, and out of all modes, I’d much rather be in-person for a workshop than delivering via zoom. Other types of collaborative work benefit co-location, where the speed of communication and iteration can be high. However, if you’re an accountant or data analyst, your job probably doesn’t benefit much from co-location; in fact, it probably gets slowed down by various interruptions throughout the day. What’s more frustrating than being forced to report to an office, where you sit and do your work alone – or communicate via video conference for most of your meetings and then return home? What a waste of time on your commute.

I know of another organization that had gone through a considerable acquisition recently. The new organization was struggling to completely reorganize and align work for its staff, yet out of the blue demanded that everyone begin reporting to an office four days a week. And to be clear, these people didn’t know their new job titles, in some cases didn’t know who their boss was, and therefore didn’t clearly know what was expected of them – yet they needed to do whatever that was in a designated office. Needless to say, attrition is through the roof.

Rather than making broad, sweeping generalizations about how people are most productive, why don't we let people and teams determine how they're most productive. I know several people who spend most of their days in an office for one reason or another and by choice. Yet others want or need to work from their home office to be productive and balance their professional responsibilities with personal responsibilities. Let’s also remember to mention the access to talent that remote work affords us, including wider access to more diverse talent pools. Let’s stop making wide-sweeping generalizations about how people work best and let them tell us, as long as we’re all clear about what productivity looks like and what needs to be achieved.
 

3. Failing to listen, failing to seek different perspectives, and believing “I’ve got it”.

“Southwest Airlines meltdown highlights insular management team”. A far cry from the types of headlines Southwest was making less than a decade ago, “Company Culture Soars at Southwest Airlines”. Lazy leaders rest on their laurels. They assume once successful, always successful. Marshall Goldsmith talks about this concept in his book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. Instead, leaders need to challenge themselves, assume there are things they don’t know and seek out new perspectives.

4. Ignoring meaning & purpose

McKinsey found that “Nearly two-thirds of US-based employees we surveyed said that Covid-19 has caused them to reflect on their purpose in life. And nearly half said that they are reconsidering the kind of work they do because of the pandemic.” The other day I spoke with a former colleague who had moved back to London after spending several years in the United States. He and his wife left because they found they didn’t have much attachment to the city they were living in and wanted to be closer to family. I’ve heard so many similar stories, where people have made significant changes in their lives as a reflection of meaning and purpose.

Here’s the implication at work. Let’s say you’ve let all your employees work remotely, and now you’re calling them back to an office. Are you now asking those who have moved away to move back? You’re likely to lose them, and if so, were they contributing to your business otherwise? Some people find meaning and purpose directly at work, and others have jobs that enable them to find meaning and purpose in other ways. While McKinsey identified that 70% of employees find a sense of purpose largely through work, they also illustrate how there needs to be a balance in the way we derive fulfillment from our work and how it balances with our personal lives. Failing to recognize this alignment leads to disengagement and potential attrition.

2023 will be the reckoning of lazy leadership. Some organizations will thrive because they avoid the pitfalls of lazy leadership, and others will see further struggle as they find comfort in their laziness.

Recommended Resources:
●    Help your employees find purpose—or watch them leave
●    Are remote workers lazy? Experts weigh in on Elon Musk and Marc Benioff’s productivity problem

Author Bio

Justin Reinert is a Talent Leader with 20 years of talent development experience. He holds an MA in Educating Adults from DePaul University, along with the CPTD, SPHR, and SHRM-SCP. He has led learning at organizations as large as HSBC and Oracle and built award-winning learning teams at small to mid-size high-growth firms. He’s currently the Principal and Founder of Performance Accelerated Learning and recently published his first book, Creating Belonging, in the spring of 2022. Connect Justin Reinert