Two things are bad for the heart—running uphill and running down people.
—Bernard Gimbel
Have you noticed how a lot of managers (and even senior leaders) go out of their way to distance themselves from the tough decisions that their superiors (the company) have made.
I see this often with HR leaders, especially when it comes to negative decisions related to salaries, promotions and company restructuring.
Maybe you respond in this way to win favour and in the hope of creating bonding at the victim level with the team.
Whatever it is, STOP IT!
It wont work.
On the contrary, your actions will eventually damage the confidence of the team.
When you criticize the decisions of upper management , you are ultimately sending three very morale and motivation damaging messages to your team.
- This organization can’t be trusted.
- Our own management is against us.
- Yours truly, your own team leader, is weak and powerless in the organization.
Sure this may lead to bonding with your team – but its an unpleasant kind of bonding. And more importantly it causes deep trust problems, and erodes the integrity of the business.
Running down upper management doesn’t have to be done overtly. When you roll your eyes at the mention of the CFO’s name, you are negatively impacting the company’s ability to perform optimally.
Usually though, running down upper management is done overtly as in : “Oh, I don’t know why the VP of HR did not approve your salary increase. No one ever consults with me on these issues, probably because they know I’d disagree.”
This extremely damaging behaviour is further deepened by the repeated use of the word they.
(“They want us to start.…” “I don’t know whythey are having us do it this way.…” “They don’t understand what you guys are going through here.…”“They, they, they…!”).
The word they used in excess soon becomes a near-obscenity and solidifies the impression that employees are isolated, misunderstood victims, and that the leaders and by extension the company are evil dictators who are only worried about the bottom line.
A true leader ALWAYS says we.