What Happens When Leadership and Environment Are Out of Sync

Today is my daughter’s first day of school.

Everywhere I look, we’re pretending it’s fall. My children’s schools are decorated with apples and hay bales. Our church held a fall kickoff event last weekend to mark the end of summer.

It’s also expected to hit 103 degrees today. The kids can’t even go outside for recess because of the heat.

A similar mismatch plays out inside organizations.

Leaders can be ready to move in one direction while the environment around them is operating on a completely different set of assumptions, priorities, or timelines.

Here are a few ways this can play out:

• A well-intentioned executive joins a company expecting to drive growth or change, only to find a revolving door of C-suite turnover. Each new leader brings a different idea of what growth should look like, where the focus should be, and how quickly change should happen.

• Company-wide budget cuts lead to a freeze on hiring, promotions, professional development, and learning efforts. Months later, executives are frustrated by underperforming mid-level managers while those managers are burned out, stretched thin, and resentful of senior leadership.

• As part of a push to become an industry leader, a board and CEO pressure the CTO to become more visible. They want social media posts, media interviews, conference appearances, and stronger thought leadership. When the CTO starts talking publicly about the company’s work and progress, the board and CEO ask her to tone it down out of concern for analyst scrutiny or tipping off competitors.

In each case, the organization says it wants an outcome while creating conditions that make that outcome harder to achieve.

Leadership is not a solo venture, but a team sport. Even highly capable leaders are affected by the systems, relationships, resources, and decisions around them.

I’ve written before about the responsibility leaders have to influence others while also being thoughtful about what influences them. There is another part of that equation: recognizing when the environment itself is making effective leadership harder than it should be.

That requires some honest diagnosis.

Ask yourself:

1. Do I have the information and resources I need to do my job well?
2. Do I share a common vision with the top leaders of my organization?
3. Do my peers operate as my first team, working toward common goals and strengthening one another’s effectiveness?
4. Is the mid-level leadership layer in my organization equipped with the mindset, skills, knowledge, and access needed to do their jobs well?
5. Does the organization actually support the outcome it says it wants?

If you answered no to any of these questions, stop banging your head against a wall and get practical.

Consider the cost of the breakdown. Then get specific.

From there, ask:

• What is broken?

• What would need to change for the stated goal to become realistic?

• Who needs to be involved?

• What can I influence directly?

• What happens if nothing changes?

The gap between the calendar and the weather is easy enough to live with. We can accept that we live in a climate that may stay hot until November and still embrace all things related to the new season.

Pretending it’s fall while it’s 103 degrees outside is harmless.

Asking a leader to deliver growth, change, innovation, or stronger performance while the organization works against those outcomes has much higher stakes.

Where are you trying to lead forward while your environment is pulling in another direction?