Leaders ignore internal comms advice during recession

By James Bennett, Managing Online Editor, Melcrum

We all know we’re in the middle of allegedly the worst global recession for 60 years (despite hundreds of bankers still driving around in Ferrari Diablos) and that times are tough at the majority of businesses across the world, but what are we as communicators doing about it?

I know for one that the internal communications industry is doing its utmost to engage disenchanted employees and re-engage those that have only just managed to cling on to their jobs following another round of layoffs. If you haven't already, make sure you read Aniko Czinege's three-step strategy to improving employee morale on the Internal Comms Hub.

And I know full well how tough it is for thousands of communicators across the globe who are working on some of the largest change and restructuring programs the function has ever witnessed due to the massive amount of enforced consolidation we’ve seen in the past 18 months. But close to the top of the priority list, and in many cases number one for internal communicators during the fallout from the recession is the need to train their leaders to become better communicators. At a time of increasing executive distrust, and severely dented corporate reputations it is key that we as communicators re-inject faith in the leaders that drive our businesses or public sector organizations. It seems, however that in Britain all is not well and that many directors and managers have simply not learned from their mistakes.

A survey of more than 1,600 workers out today by the Keep Britain Working campaign, whose mission it is to promote innovative ways to preserve and create jobs, found that more than half (52%) of all UK bosses have become worse at motivating their employees since the recession began.

Some of the results were startling with one in three bosses found to have increased their criticism and blame of others, nearly a third have hidden themselves away, more than one in four have simply become indifferent, a quarter have pretended that nothing's happening, while 17% have started shouting and raging. Only one in six bosses have done more to motivate staff since the recession began, the survey said.

It also cited some astonishing examples of a number of clearly unstable bosses who had blatantly ignored every single piece of communications advice ever given to them. These included:

• A charity boss who brought in his hunting rifle and pretended to fire it at staff to make them work harder.
• A boss who made staff clean toilets because she had sacked the cleaners to save money.
• A boss who cut staff hours and pay while boasting about using his bonus to re-decorate his house.
• A public sector boss who advised a worker that people were queuing up for her job.
• A telecoms boss who chanted, “hit this target, keep your job...hit this target, keep your job”.

Internal communicators know more than most that if a team leader is indifferent, snaps and shouts at staff or blames other team members rather than taking responsibility for his division or organisation’s performance, the higher the probability of a company failure. The 1,600 respondents agreed, with more than half of all workers saying that executives failing to motivate staff lowers productivity, while more than a third said it makes company failure more likely.

If you have any examples of bad leadership or would like to share with us a case study or story of best practice leadership communication, please get in touch either by email: james.bennett@melcrum.com, by phone on 020 8600 4670 or on Twitter via direct message @Geskey.