Professional Documents
Culture Documents
During a recent dinner with friends, the conversation turned to the difficulty of
working in an organization that lacks strong leadership. One of my friends was
particularly engaged and exasperated by the conversation. He remarked that
only one individual had been honest with him about the critical lack of senior
leadership in his current organization while he was hiring into the firm. This got
me thinking about the definitive signs of weak leadership and how one might
spot them during an interview. So here it is, 5 warning signs of critically weak
leadership.
3) Poor communication
The inability to communicate is often cited as one of the biggest impediments
to organizational success. Successfully sharing ideas, information and
inspiration within an organization is increasingly a mark of even middle of the
pack leadership. Leaders must not only be effective communicators in their
own right, but they must also create an environment that values frictionless
communication. Ask your interviewers to describe communication in
the organization. Is information shared freely from the top down? Do people
say that they often know what they need to know, in a timely fashion? Do they
both understand and trust the messages they are getting from leadership? If the
answer is no, then perhaps there is a problem.