Lose the Men, Lose the Organization: Success is Built on Trust

Organizations don’t exist without members, just like leaders are not without followers. One of my favorite quotes, “ A leader with no followers is just taking a walk”. We as leaders must understand that organizations only work when the organization are built on trust. When trust fades, members lose faith, hope, and motivation. When there is no vision, there is nothing to be excited about. Members lose focus and purpose. This causes a toxic work climate which if not corrected, impacts the working environment and culture. The consequences are enormous to include a decrease in work performance, productivity, workplace behaviors, among a slew of others.

Organizations and leadership needs to be built on trust. Trust is safety and leadership is influence, but we cannot influence if we lack trust, therefore we cannot lead. If you have an organization with trust issues, you will quickly find a dysfunctional organization.

When you lose the men or women of the organization, you are fighting an uphill battle. When you reach this point you will know. You will witness the symptoms throughout the organization. If everything that happens seems like a fight, you are experiencing the results of a lack trust within the organization. When the attitude becomes us vs them, on either side, this is a telltale sign of a dysfunctional organization.

How do we identify a growing negative environment and how do we begin to mend the relationships?

This is not an easy task and will take time but we, as leaders, need to be vigilant of the behaviors, actions, and climate of the membership. If we can quickly diagnose the issues early on, we can prevent these from becoming larger issues. Being in tune with the membership is critical. We cannot ignore the crews and we need to be imbedded into the current happenings of the department.

Members Leave

First telling sign is when people begin to leave the organization. Its normal to lose people, but when people leave in droves, this is concerning. When senior men are leaving to take lower paying jobs or lateral transfers, the red flags must be raised. When senior men leave, it should be for career advancement and this shouldn’t be a common issue. Members leaving should be the blaring sign of issues within the organization. Hopefully you began to improve the relationships and can diagnose sooner than this step. This step means people are done trying to improve the organization or they can no longer wait for the organization to change/ wait people out.

As the boss of the organization, it’s important to look towards your middle and lower management to gauge the climate. These are the people who have the greatest pulse on the moods and attitudes of the people. Having frequent talks with them, addressing concerns, and asking for input is critical. When the boss is around, everyone typically shuts their mouth and counts the second until they leave. This is unless you have a strong relationship and high trusting environment.

Engagement Declines

Look for engagement to fall. When engagement begins to decrease, something is causing the employees to not want to come to work or go the extra mile. This needs to be investigated. It could be because of a supervisor they don’t like, policies, or the stress of the job. Extra events don’t get covered and open holes in the schedule are signs of a growing problem. People can lose their interest within the organization when the climate is no longer mutually beneficial. This can even begin to show with members violating policies or dress code/ appearance. It can be the smallest clues to indicate a growing issue.

Rumors and Drama is an Indicator of Negative Environment and Culture

When rumors and gossip are the main focus of the organization, there are several issues at play here. Number one, the leadership has not created an a vision for people to get excited about. When the vision and future is uncertain, people they begin to criticize or scrutinize the leaders ability to plan. The vision of the organization needs to be well known, expressed, and reenforced when ever possible. This creates a positive climate, gives the members hope and something to be excited about. This also informs the membership of what is to be expected and how their contribution now will advance the organization forward into the future. Rumors are a sign o

Lack of Core Values

Core values are something that we must understand and be the guiding beacon for everyone in the organization. These are the principles that guides are decisions, our behaviors and actions. When the core values of the organization is no longer being followed, serious problems are brewing, even more serious when they are not being followed by the leadership of the organization. Not having core values is unacceptable but having them and not following them is shameful. These are suppose to be the essence of the organization. When you start to ignore the core values, especially as the leader, you are ignoring the identify of the organization and shaking the fundamental beliefs of the organization. When this happens members are going to then ignore any and all other rules, policies, and standards. If we cannot hold ourselves to our core values, why does anything else matter? If those are not sacred and people held accountable, from top down, then why should the line guys be any different?

Avoidance of Individuals

When people avoid one another, we need to make note of this serious symptoms. When we see or hear about employees and colleagues that avoid each other, this needs to raise concern for middle and senior leadership. This is a sign of a dysfunctional work relationship and possibly environment. These issues need to be addressed by their supervisors. When relationships are stressed in organizations, it can impact the entire organization and the culture. This can have significant impact to the morale and attitudes in the environment. These issues need to be addressed quickly to avoid the cascading affects which these lack of relationships and hostility cause.

If you know or witness employees that avoid each other, deeper investigation needs to take place. Sometimes, employees may avoid each other because they don’t share commonalities or interest, but when it begins to impact the environment and work performance, it needs to take precedence. These individuals need to be sat down together with a mediator and work through the issues, not superficially but depth of conversations about their relationship and past issues.

When the entire teams is on the same page with the same vision, working towards a share goal without egos; ultimate success will ensue. Conflict and lack of relationship which are not addressed, causes the culture within the organization to deteriorate and productivity to halt. Build a strong organization by building relationships.

Adherence of Information/ Lack of Communication

For nay good team and organization to succeed, communication plays one of the most significant factors. When we fail to withhold information or fail to have constructive dialogue with the members, there is a lack of perspective on both sides. Employees don’t know what’s happening and why decisions are being made and the the leadership doesn’t understand what the personnel needs to be successful.

Leadership is about connection and that starts with communication. Not just talking but having real conversations about the wants and needs of the organization. Leaders need to share information and share the vision with the members. When the team is all on the same page, they will progress forward as single unit with a congruent objective. Not similar, but the same with the same path forward. This starts with basic communication and building connections with the staff.

Micromanagement

Micromanagement is the epitome of lack of trust within an organization. When you find micromanagement, it is due to the individuals lack of trust and empowerment of the employees. If we have to tell our people how to do everything, we are stifling innovation, creativity, and diversity. We need to give our people the objective and rough parameters and allow them to excel with projects, assignments, or ideas. Poor leaders micromanage because they lack trust, fail to empower and devalue their members. Our job as leaders is to trust our members and guide them to success, not blaze the trail.

Development of a lot of rules

When the environment is suffering and the symptoms are starting to cause issues, management doesn’t understand what’s happening and are trying to correct he symptoms with surface level polices to get the result they want. This begins the downward spiral. When this occurs, it suggests that management is not capable of see these are superficial symptoms of a much larger problem. Their answer is to revert to management principles and begin to develop systems to correct the surface issues. The correct path is to lead by setting the expectations and following through. Rules without relationships equal rebellion. Rules don’t fix organizational behavior problems, leaders do. When things are not going right, we need to diagnose the actual problem, not the superficial symptoms.

As a leader, try to diagnose the issue in depth. Do rely on rules to correct behavioral issues within the department. Don’t create rules to correct issues, create relationships!

Our actions have significant consequences and how we react as leaders has a cascading affect on the organization and our people. We need to ensure we are building a strong team and organization is all starts with trust. Trust is the avenue to ultimate organizational success. Organizations live and die on these principles of trust. Without trust, communication, and relationships, leaders will witness a decline in the organizational behaviors and work performance. The people are the foundation every organization and when we neglect them, our organization will follow suit. This means productivity declines, the working environment becomes hostile or negative. This drives worsening culture until the organization is in dire straights. At this point, it is too late for most leaders to regain relationships and begin an organizational turnaround. This is not a quick process and will take hard work and time to right the wrongs of poor leadership.

Remember, your people are the organization, without them, you have nothing. When you lose the men, you lose the organization, but when you foster trust and build relationship, your organization will thrive to new heights.