Seth Dobbs (he/him): Do you feel that your team or organization is losing sight of its standards? Do you find yourself accepting things that you once wouldn’t have and wondering how you got there? Are you unsure how to maintain a high bar for you and your team and your organization? Hi, I’m Seth Dobbs, and this is the Principle Driven Leadership Podcast, where I share principles of leadership along with examples of how to apply them to help make you be the best leader you can be. These principles are based on my years of experience as an executive leader, in building organizations and in coaching others to become leaders themselves. And I believe that not only can anyone develop leadership skills, but that everyone can and should develop leadership skills.

I think they’re essential for helping you achieve your best in whatever way you might be trying to make an impact. And that’s because leadership skills help you better influence others to effectively create durable results. And leadership is a journey. The step we’re taking a day involves taking a look at a counterexample, an organization that started fracturing and fighting a retreating battle and reversing motion. A friend of mine worked in the IT department for a small aftermarket auto parts manufacturer that for years was well-known for its excellence and its commitment to quality. And for decades, in fact, they’d been the shining example of what could be achieved when visionary leadership and dedicated teams work together in harmony. Their products were revered and had a loyal following that preferred them to the big national and international manufacturers. And their employees were really proud of this and they all felt their future just seemed limitless. The heart of this organization was a leader named Aaron. He was a visionary and known for his ability to unite teams, inspire creativity and set a clear and compelling vision for the organization. And for years he had led with this unwavering sense of purpose and always reinforcing what the company’s goals were whenever he had the chance. But also allowed for creativity and autonomy in terms of how teams got to his goals. But as happens in all great stories, time caught up with Aaron and he retired after nearly 15 years at the helm. Unfortunately, his departure marked the beginning of a tumultuous era for this organization. Now in his place, a new leader named Mitchell, joined the company, excited for the future. They had an impressive resume, with experience in multiple industries, but actually lacked the deep connection to the company’s culture that had really defined Aaron’s tenure. Mitchell arrived with ambitious plans, but didn’t want to rock the boat too much, at least not initially.

And so their vision actually came across as vague and their communication style left much to be desired. It seems they were trying to remain true to “the way things work around here”, at least in some ways. But also wanted to put their own stamp on the company and its direction. And the result was inconsistent and uncompelling. Mitchell introduced some changes in direction without adequately explaining the purpose. They often delivered this piecemeal rather than as a singular vision. And they felt that they could best fix things by setting narrow goals for individual teams. Now, my friend that worked there felt that Mitchell just didn’t understand the company as kind of a single holistic entity, as one sort of collaborative organization. And so, because of all that, this once tightly-knit organization began to see cracks. As employees retreated into their silos,

each department focused more and more on their own objectives instead of some kind of collective effort. For example, the engineering team once celebrated for its groundbreaking products started working on projects that didn’t have a clear tie into existing product lines. And they were unsure of how their work fit into the broader picture.

More broadly speaking, communication broke down, collaboration dwindled, and the once clear vision of excellence, became a distant memory. Now some leaders tried to take advantage of this and bring their own ideas to the front and kind of take some control. This unfortunately created deeper fractures as several competing ideas not only came forth through this process, but were individually pursued and created more organizational swirl and chaos. And of course, a few leaders left and were replaced. These new product leaders, seemed to think this chaos was a permanent state; had always existed in spite of the decades of success. And that being the new product manager, they needed to come in and tell the others what to do and how to improve everything. And so further chaos ensued. And as the organization’s internal divisions and crosstalk grew even deeper, so did it’s external problems. Customers noticed the decline in quality. And the reputation that had taken decades to build began to erode. Sales declined and profits plummeted.

And the organization was no longer this niche leader it had once been. It really started becoming a shadow of its former self.

Now Mitchell failed to recognize the damage their leadership style had caused. They clung to their vague vision, believing that time would eventually prove them right. But time only confirmed what many employees already knew: that the organization was sinking. And desperation set in to a certain extent as employees watched the organization they loved, crumble before their eyes. Ultimately the organization’s downfall was a cautionary tale of how a lack of clarity and leadership can fracture even the most successful organization. It’s a reminder that excellence and quality are not static achievements, but require a shared sense of vision and purpose.

So there’s an important shift in behavior to understand that happened in this story. Over time, the leadership team not only changed in structure, but they changed in nature and culture and how they interacted. And they started looking more to their own self-interest and centered more on their own team success as opposed to the entire organization. Some of them even appear to have seen the lack of clarity as an opportunity to step in show their strength, build their domains, and that led to more chaos. The organization itself throughout the team still had a lot of energy and passion, but it was no longer rallied around a broad vision and a collective vision. Instead energy was being consumed by infighting, by politicking. My friend felt like her team was just fighting a retreating battle, just trying to hold onto key parts of the culture, of the quality of the work and the team and the work that they did, that she felt made them great. Hoping that when the storm passed, they’d be able to rebuild and get things to a better place.

Unfortunately when so much energy and passion becomes unfocused, it creates a certain amount of chaos, and teams and their leaders lose sight of the collective aspirations and devolve into focusing only on what they feel they can control. And this typically happens as a slippery slope. There usually isn’t a single moment where you can say, “Aha! We’re falling down”. Because when it becomes that obvious, you’re already deep into the problem. So the main preventive approach, is to continually clarify and talk about your vision, the collective outcomes that makes your organization more than just the sum of the teams, the sum of the parts, but rather a holistic effort towards something more. You can look for feedback from your team. Listen to how they speak to each other, how they speak to their teams. Look for signs of siloing. Because siloing can happen in many different ways.

It can be physical, but in this case you need to look at the mental silos as well. The shifts in the way people were speaking amongst each other from “we” to “they” from “ours” to “mine” or “their”.

It starts indicating that people are losing that collective sense. And that individual aspiration, sometimes dressed as collective, but it’s individual aspiration can come at the cost of organizational need.

Don’t get me wrong. We should all have our individual aspirations, our career goals. But as a leader, you need to keep your team’s aspirations well aligned with the good of your organization and moving everything forward. When healthy conflict is increasingly replaced by friction, you’re headed down this path. So not all leadership stories have happy endings. My friend left the organization shortly before they were bought up by a much larger corporation and has little insight into what happened next.

But vision when properly formed and communicated drives alignment. Organizations seldom just stay in a steady state. There’s always a push and pull from various factors. There’s external market and competition type factors, departures from the team, new hires, individual growth and change and aspiration. Equilibrium doesn’t really happen.

And in fact, a desire for equilibrium in a growing business is somewhat contrary to driving forward motion. So without clarity and reinforcement of vision, instead of having a thousand people focused on the same journey, you have a thousand journeys unfolding each based on each individual’s own perception of what is the right direction. And when that happens, you’ll see the organization start to unravel.

So I want you to think about. Do you feel your team works collectively? Or do you see signs of friction rather than conflict of unhealthy differences? How does your team refer to each other and to other teams? As a collective unit, or do they use words to distance each other?

Thanks so much for joining me, please comment, subscribe, share with a friend

if you liked it. And send thoughts and questions to contact@pdlpodcast.com. We’ll address a few towards the end of this season. Join me next time where I’ll talk a little bit more about what forward motion looks like.