Many North American leadership teams are out of touch with their employees, mainly due to poor internal communications.
That’s according to a new survey by AMA Enterprise, a division of the American Management Association.
One-third of the executives and managers surveyed reported that their organization’s senior team operates in a leadership bubble most of the time. Half of the respondents indicated that this happens at least occasionally.
Only 18% of respondents said their leadership has not, to some degree, lost touch with the organization.
The top cause of the problem—cited by 32% of survey participants—was poor internal communications. The other reasons for losing touch were the corporate culture (28%), the presence of too many “yes” people advising the CEO (23%) and the personality of the CEO (16%).
“A key dimension of the leadership bubble metaphor is not so much that employees don’t think top management knows what’s going on. It’s that the leadership doesn’t even realize it has lost touch,” says Sam Davis, vice-president for AMA Enterprise.
Davis says the main problem with a leadership bubble—whether real or perceived—is that it makes employees feel the senior team hasn’t paid attention to their concerns or to what’s really going on.
“And when leaders appear cut off from the everyday reality of the workplace, their plans and edicts won’t be taken seriously,” Davis warns.
Conducted earlier this year, the survey polled more than 300 senior-level professionals in North America.
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