How employees perceive things often depends on their leader.
I often speak to organizations that are undergoing a merger or consolidation. (This is happening a lot right now.) In my presentation to the group, I will usually talk about the many benefits of joining a larger system. For example, it gives them access to capital and technology. It lets them leverage their size to save money on supply chain purchases. It helps them standardize things, grab best practices, and create a lot of consistency in the care they provide.
Sometimes people aren’t positive about a consolidation. They are anxious about the changes. What we find is that when frontline supervisors can effectively narrate the process and the benefits, employees tend to be more positive. If leaders aren’t narrating it, it could be that they weren’t trained how to narrate it. Or maybe they don’t like change either, and the employees are picking up on the negativity. Regardless of the reason, I always think it would create so much more buy-in and reduce anxiety if the leader helped the workforce feel good about being part of the new organization. People trust and believe their frontline supervisors.
This is just one example of a leader’s impact on employee perception. Here’s another one: how a leader talks about their job influences how employees feel about leadership in general. If what they say makes it look stressful and hard, who is going to be in a hurry to put their name in to be a leader? This can harm the organization’s ability to build a strong bench.
Also, as I’ve written about before, trust in senior leaders is very dependent on the middle. When a mid-level leader gives employees bad news, they might say it comes from corporate. This is known as we/they. It might sound like, “I fought for you,” or, “I gave it my best shot,” or, “That’s above my pay grade.” When a leader keeps the yeses and gives away the noes, it is deeply destructive to cultures. Leaders are in a very unique position to impact the way the front line feels about senior leaders.
Leaders can even influence how people feel about their coworkers. That matters because coworker relationships are an important part of creating trust and belonging. It is not that leaders say negative things to employees about a coworker. It might be a facial expression. It might be body language. It might even be what the leader doesn’t say.
My point is that being a leader carries great responsibility. Employees are always watching. We have an outsized impact on how they view their job, their team, their company, and their customers—more so than we probably ever realize.
The good news is that most of the time, the leader who creates negative perceptions in employees is not aware of what they’re doing. It’s just that they haven’t been trained on how not to do it. Provide the training. When leaders know better, they do better.
