The After Work Transformation Club had a great start in Stuttgart this week. We were hosted by Vitalzentrum Glotz.
We had a substantial discussion about how culture effects the leadership of second-row-leaders so called middle management. Even though competing with enjoying a very lovely sunny evening sitting outside with a glass of wine...
In one of the cases we discussed it was a long term experience that the owner of a company used to hesitate on delicate HR decisions for so long that everybody got used to live at work with colleagues that nobody wanted, nobody got along with but still remained in a lose-lose-situation for everybody – the managers who had to find a work place for the „unwanted“ and the „unwanted“ who never received a clear feedback upon their situation and lack of perspective to make up a profound decision on their own.
Above this it had a very negative effect on the whole workforce because everybody saw that even if somebody is of (almost) no benefit for the company by lack of engagement or competence there are no consequences. This also led to a „culture of it does not matter if you are productive or stay with common agreements“ because there will be no feedback either way. Pretty much „laissez faire“ which made leading extremely ineffective.
The middle management realised in the discussion for themselves how much they colluded with the owners behaviour because of a sense of hierarchy and (unhelpful) respect, even if they suffered from this constellation. So there emerged a sense of not just going with the hierarchical mindset, lean back and complain but to find a way to set up an alternative way to proactively assist the owner in these situations by demanding strong decisions in a reasonable time frame in a joint consequent approach to make very clear that continuing like before is not an option for them.
This might appear like a small step. But whilst developing beyond hierarchy it was the first step to frankly and honestly realise how much everybody contributed to the situation and had to liberate one´s mind from unreflected conforming with destructive patterns only because they come from „above“.
What a satisfying outcome of our first Club evening! Thanks to everybody! #newwork #leadership #change #hierarchy #sha