Elon Musk recently demanded that all Tesla staff return to the office full-time, according to an email sent to executive staff and leaked on social media. Musk said those who don’t want to come to office should “pretend to work somewhere else.”

This authoritarian, top-down approach rooted in mistrust and false assumptions goes against best practices. It speaks to an illusion of control that will undermine employee productivity, engagement, innovation, retention, and recruitment at Tesla.

One of Musk’s false assumptions involves the idea that employees “pretend” to work from home. In fact, research using both surveys and behavior tracking from the early days of the pandemic has shown that remote work resulted in higher productivity. More recently, academics demonstrated a further increase in productivity in remote work, from 5 percent in the summer of 2020 to 9 percent in May 2022. That’s because companies and employees grew better at working from home. 

Yet despite this easily-available evidence, Musk wrote in another leaked email that those who work remotely are “phoning it in.” He highlights the importance of being visible and cites his own notoriously long working hours as an example.

Such a focus on visibility in the office speaks to a highly traditionalist leadership mindset underpinned by the illusion of control. This cognitive bias describes our mind’s tendency to overestimate the extent to which we control external events. 

It’s especially prevalent in authoritarian executives who want to control their employees. They believe that having employees present in the office guarantees productivity.

In reality, research shows that in-office employees work much less than the full eight-hour day. They actually spend anywhere from 36 to 39 percent of their time working. The rest, according to these studies, is spent on other activities: checking social media, reading news websites, chit-chatting with colleagues about non-work topics, making non-work calls, and even looking for other jobs.

Musk’s desire for control is not simply emphatically unrealistic. It also goes directly against what we know is critical for productivity, engagement, and innovation for office-based workers: the desire for autonomy.

Studies show that we do our best work through intrinsic motivation, which involves autonomy and control over our work as a fundamental driver of effectiveness. Employees are most engaged, happy, and productive when they have autonomy. A key component of autonomy in the post-pandemic environment involves giving workers flexibility and self-control of where and when they work, rather than trying to shoehorn them into the pre-pandemic “normal.” And though Musk claims that forcing employees to come to the office under the threat of firing will help Tesla develop and make “the most exciting and meaningful products of any company on Earth,” a study of 307 companies finds that greater worker autonomy results in more innovation.

Musk’s obvious lack of trust in his employees contrasts with the much more flexible work policies of other organizations. That includes manufacturing and tech companies where Tesla’s employees might go. Consider the manufacturing company 3M’s approach, which the company explicitly calls “trust-based.” The company allows employees to “create a schedule that helps them work when and where they can most effectively.”

As another example of a potential place to work for Tesla staff, Applied Materials, a high-tech manufacturer, developed an “Excellence from Anywhere” modality. Rather than a top-down approach, Applied has a team-led model, where team leaders work with team members to figure out what works best for each team and employee. Applied is adopting best practices to facilitate innovation in remote and hybrid work such as virtual asynchronous brainstormingto sustain a competitive advantage.

Tesla’s research and development staff might also consider working in more research-focused tech environments, such as the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California. By adopting research-driven approaches, ISI put itself in “a leadership position in terms of figuring out how to do hybrid work” through maximizing flexibility and autonomy for its staff.

Study after study after study shows that anywhere from 40 to 60% of employees would look for another job if forced to come to work against their wishes. And I would gladly eat my hat if we don’t see increased quit rates at Tesla as a consequence of a forced office return. After all, there’s a reason why a member of the executive staff leakedMusk’s emails on returning to the office.

Indeed, we immediately witnessed pushback against Musk’s demands for an office return by employee representatives in Germany, which has the first worker’s union across the whole of Tesla. Those without union representation will vote with their feet. My information indicates that recruiters are already using Musk’s words to target desirable Tesla employees. Musk’s illusion of control and false assumptions will result in serious losses to Tesla and a gain for companies that are innovating about the future of work.

Every so often, I try and share a broad perspective about what I’m seeing across my CEO advisory landscape to make a comparison with other CEOs or recognize similar challenges that CEOs are facing to yours.

My hope is that it a) gives you a sense that you are not alone, and b) gives you some ideas or inspiration to push on.

‘Pushing on’ matters because it’s linked to ambition, and ambition is a marker of sorts: about your level of vitality as well as a measure of your clarity of purpose.

Being on the cusp is probably a familiar position to find yourself in as a CEO. There’s a constant barrage of stimuli coming at you which can either function as an inspiration or a threat. Knowing this is one thing, but acting on it is another — and these actions require courage. Maybe some encouragement or prompting might push you over the rise and get you going on a more profound path.

Here’s what I’m seeing:

• The CEO’s choice to take on the new ways of operating that are now on offer, given the maturing understanding of what a relevant and modern business is.
• The decision to embrace leadership as a performance-enhancing lever and to invest generously in building good leaders around the CEO.
• The choice to interrogate the base viability of your business to ensure its future competitiveness and to be brave about revealing the blind spots that are so prevalent in business strategies and which keep businesses stuck in 2nd gear.
• The willingness to embrace the fact that the CEO position is a complex, nuanced position that requires deep attention being paid to the quality of the CEO’s development. A CEO’s character in particular.
• To embrace the fact that most CEOs are, in fact, struggling, and to do what it takes to change their reality from dis-ease to ease.
• To accept the fact that budgeting, as a practice, is a poor investment of time and energy and move to a more flexible, responsive way of allocating capital.
• To bravely accept when a business model has lost its edge and to come up with a new and better formula for success in order to reinvigorate a business.
• The common denominator is ‘will’. The will to change or elevate. There are plenty of reasons not to, given that remaining as-is offers the (false) specter of safety.

That’s a form of being ‘on the cusp’: teetering, wondering, hoping, waiting. If that’s where you feel you are, then push on. Take the leap.

Fortune favours the brave in this new world of work

We see examples of the misuse of power and poor leadership in the news on a daily basis, whether on the political, corporate, or world stages. But recently we have been seeing a refreshing leadership style by Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky. What is it about him that has us all so enamored?

We are bearing witness to a leader who is using courage and compassion to lead his people. Indeed, Zelensky’s heart-based leadership has captured the hearts of his people and those around the world. Zelensky is rewriting history by embodying the power of the heart in his leadership.

What Is Heart-Based Leadership? In action, it is when leaders fully utilize their skills and humanness to guide their communication, choices, and relationships with others.

Men aspiring to be allies and leaders typically ask the question, “What do I do?” The reality is that this is more a question about our states of being and we should ask ourselves how to achieve our highest state.

If we all need to aspire to be in our best state, then most certainly our leaders need to be in theirs — to connect with us, to empower us, to lead from their hearts.

Men in power and position need to be in their hearts and model a different relationship with their own sense of masculinity. As a playbook for leaders, the power of the heart has five cornerstones to guide leadership:

Emotional Literacy
Emotional literacy requires that we have a conscious relationship with our emotions so we can experience them instead of ignore them and allow them to build unchecked. More importantly, we can respond instead of reacting. No doubt Zelensky feels unimaginable depths of fear, anger and sadness, yet he remains grounded and taps into the strength of his heart to maintain composure and lead his people.

Vulnerability
Vulnerability gets a bad rap and is unfortunately often seen as a sign of weakness as opposed to a sign of strength. True power comes from one’s willingness to be vulnerable — and this is especially true for leaders, as vulnerability fosters trust and respect from others. We can measure how brave you are by how vulnerable you’re willing to be. President Zelensky, perhaps thanks to his training as an actor, models his emotions for all to see, and allows vulnerability to be one of his strengths. Further, his vulnerability serves to demonstrate the deep empathy he has for his people.

Authenticity
Instead of portraying the image of what you think others need to see, which is persona-driven, authenticity is all about character … as in yours. People see through the performative tactics of inauthentic leadership. Zelensky recognizes the world stage he finds himself on and rather than performing, he shows us who he really is. The result? Both his people and the international community want to follow and support him. His authenticity is quickly earning him trust and respect.

Inclusivity
Those who lead from the heart possess the power to make everyone feel included. When people feel like they belong, they make more positive contributions. A culture of inclusion is imperative for good performance in business as in life. The solidarity Zelensky has inspired amongst Ukrainians and the international community at large is a testament to his inclusive leadership.

Love
There is true love in seeing, listening to, respecting, and valuing others for who they are and what they contribute. When Zelinsky recognizes the men, women, and children around him who have been through horrific experiences, when he listens to their stories, respects them, and values their contributions, he is demonstrating love.

There is true power in leading with heart. It takes copious amounts of courage and compassion — for oneself as well as for others. Those who lead with heart are authentic and demonstrate vulnerability. While they are not fearless, they are willing to face their own emotions and grow from their experiences. They center others, encourage others, and don’t let their egos run the show. They know life is not a dress rehearsal, and ergo, they work indefatigably to achieve their highest state of being. Heart-based leaders galvanize the strength of those they lead and inspire them to rise to their highest states — where just about anything is possible.

Female ‘techpreneurs’ are taking their place in Africa’s male-dominated fintech boom, but gender bias makes it harder for them to access finance and grow their businesses.

When financial analyst Oluwatosin Olaseinde moved back home to Nigeria in 2013 after a decade studying and working abroad, she decided it was time to tackle her own finances, so started reading up on stocks and mutual funds.

Shocked at how little guidance was available for young professionals like herself, Olaseinde began sharing her learnings in fun, bite-sized tutorials on Instagram, and much to her surprise, her posts went viral.

“I had no idea my page would just blow up,” said the 34-year-old by phone from Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos.

“Just like me, there were young people who wanted to know how to manage their finances, but needed information in an easy-to-understand way.”

Almost four years on, Olaseinde heads MoneyAfrica, an online financial literacy portal providing courses from budgeting and currency risk to inflation and treasury bills, and more recently also founded Ladda, an app-based one-stop investment platform.

Collectively, the platforms have a 300,000-strong social media community and more than 15,000 active users. MoneyAfrica is projected to earn $1 million in revenue this year, said Olaseinde, and Ladda has $700,000 in assets under management.

From digital payments, loans and insurance to share trading and cryptocurrency, Olaseinde is among a growing number of female entrepreneurs in nations such as South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Egypt taking a lead in Africa’s fintech revolution.

Since pioneering mobile money services in the late 2000s, Africa has become a hotbed for fintech – financial technology – innovation with an explosion of startups vying to tap the region’s unbanked millions.

Last year, fintech companies attracted more than 60% of the nearly $5 billion in investments to African startups, according to market intelligence and research firm Briter Bridges.

For female entrepreneurs, however, getting their innovations off the ground is often hampered by gender biases that stifle their ability to access finance, gain exposure and grow their businesses, industry experts and women founders said.

From 2013 to 2021, less than 5% of the total $12.6 billion in funding to Africa’s tech startups went to all-female founding teams compared with 82% to all male-ones, data shared by Briter Bridges showed.

BREAKING INTO THE ‘BOYS’ CLUB’

But while the sector is very much a “boys’ club”, research shows Africa’s fintech sector fares better than other regions when it comes to women at the top.

Around 3.2% of fintech firms in Africa are founded solely by women – double the global average of 1.6%, according to Findexable, a market research company that tracks gender diversity.

The continent’s fintechs also have more female board members compared with other regions, Findexable’s 2021 data shows.

Trailblazers include Kenya’s Jihan Abass who founded Nairobi-based Lami Technologies in 2018, aiming to boost almost non-existent insurance coverage among Africans.

“I became interested in insurance after having a conversation with a waiter who told me how he didn’t have medical insurance,” said Abass, 28, a former commodity futures trader at a London trading house.

Lami’s application programming interface, or API, enables businesses to offer flexible digital insurance products such as vehicle and health insurance to customers.

Through its API, users can get a quotation for motor, medical, or other insurance products in seconds, then customize the benefits and adjust the premium to suit their needs and get their policy documents instantly.

Since inception, Lami has raised more than $1.8 million in seed funding and partnered with companies including Kenya Commercial Bank and e-commerce platform Jumia to sell more than 72,000 policies.

Lami now operates in Malawi and the Democratic Republic of Congo as well as Kenya, and also runs Griffin, a car insurance app fully built on the startup’s API.

Another female-led API fintech company is Lagos-based Okra, co-founded by Fara Ashiru Jituboh.

Launched in 2020, Okra aims to digitise financial services for Africa. Okra has built an open finance platform that enables developers and businesses to build personalised digital services and fintech products for customers.

“Essentially, we play the ‘middleman’ by enabling individuals and businesses to connect their bank accounts directly with third-party applications in real-time,” said Jituboh, 33, a former software engineer.

In less than two years, the startup has drawn more than 400 clients, including more than 20 banks in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa, and has raised $4.5 million in venture capital.

But despite such success stories, many female fintech entrepreneurs struggle to attract investment.

Funding Gap

The stark funding gap between male- and female-led startups in the sector is often attributed to the shortage of female “techpreneurs”, but some industry experts disputed this.

“It’s nonsense for investors to claim that there aren’t any women entrepreneurs in fintech to invest in,” said Martha Mghendi-Fisher, founder of African Women in Fintech and Payments, a non-profit with a network of thousands of members.

“Investors are simply not looking hard enough.”

Female fintech founders said that even when they do have the opportunity to pitch to venture capital (VC) firms, gender biases mean they often raise less and receive lower valuations.

“I don’t think it helps that the majority of VC panels tend to be men who are white and much older,” said Faith Mokgalaka, founder of Johannesburg-based Puno, a digital platform enabling farmers to sell shares, or a portion of their next harvest.

“They aren’t openly sexist, but you do feel there is more scrutiny on you compared to men. More questions are asked, additional documentation and due diligence is required,” added 22-year-old Mokgalaka.

A recent study cited by Findexable estimates that white men control 93% of venture capital dollars.

An increasing number of accelerators – which provide early-stage companies with training, mentorship and financing – and venture capital firms are now shifting focus to women-led businesses.

The Catalyst Fund, an accelerator working with inclusive tech innovators, has supported 61 companies – more than one-third of them founded by women.

Maelis Carraro, the fund’s managing director, said investors need to rethink how they interact with female entrepreneurs.

“The whole setup in the VC space such as the Q&A, the aggressive pitching, the need to demonstrate over-confidence has to change,” said Carraro. “We need to make the whole conversation more inclusive.”

More diverse VC boards, programmes to encourage girls to pursue STEM careers and initiatives celebrating successful women founders would inspire others and foster a more supportive environment, entrepreneurs said.

“It’s a ‘tech bro’ environment, for sure,” said Delila Kidanu, 26, co-founder of Koa, an app-based savings and investment platform in Nairobi.

“It would be important to have some training on gender biases so that people can realize how their actions and decisions can adversely affect women entrepreneurs.”

By Nita Bhalla, Editing by Helen Popper.

I’ve been a loyal Starbucks customer for 20+ years, mainly because of their service and product consistency. However, one of the locations close to me has become a true test of patience: Horrible attitude towards customers, lack of consistency in drinks, and, worst of all, employees backbiting about each other, superiors, and the company to customers. You know, the typical characteristics of a highly dysfunctional team. 

Most of us experience dysfunctional teams first-hand daily. And even great organizations can have their share of dysfunctional teams (although not too many since group dysfunctionality is usually a reflection of an organization’s overall culture). 

For the record, I still love Starbucks and still go there daily. Just not to that location. 

So, leaders, before you lose customers, try the following five that have proven timeless for me in creating and sustaining elite teams: 

1. Instill a collective sense of purpose 

By definition, a team is a group of individuals being led by a purpose. When that purpose is not clear to them, they become confused about their roles and the group’s overall direction. Naturally, people start to think more of their own interests and agendas and form factions. It’s the leaders’ job to clarify group strategy (embedded within the organization’s strategy, derived from the company’s mission and values) and then consistently communicate it to the group. As a result, the group becomes clear of their positive mission that unites the members, each member having total clarity of their respective role in successfully executing that mission. 

2. Assemble the right team of lieutenants

The bigger the organization, the more important this is. Lieutenants derived from a dysfunctional team result in a perpetually dysfunctional team – and the entire organization soon after that. Some essential yet crucial standards when cultivating a team of right lieutenants are: 

a. Hire the most competent person for the job. Don’t base your selection on people’s charm, and don’t just hire your friends. 

b. Be diligent in vetting their character. 

c. Ensure they’re imbued with the organization’s spirit and the collective sense of purpose. 

3. Let information and ideas flow freely

Don’t isolate yourself by making yourself hard to reach or choosing to receive all relevant information solely from your lieutenants (or another singular source). Walk the floor, talk to individuals on the front line from time to time, talk to customers often to get an accurate picture of their experience. The idea is to put measures in place to receive information from different perspectives consistently. The diversity of such information-gathering will provide you with a much clearer picture, invariably leading to more informed and productive decisions by yourself. 

4. Infect the group with productive emotions

People are more susceptible to the moods and attitudes of the leader than anyone else. For example, calmness is one of the most essential, constructive emotions. Phil Jackson, the most successful basketball coach in history, noticed that many other coaches would try to rev up the team before a game, getting them excited and even angry. Instead, Jackson found it much more productive to instill a sense of calmness that helped the players execute the game plan and not over-react to the ups and downs in the game. As part of this strategy, always keep the group focused on completing concrete tasks, which will naturally ground and calm them. 

Remember, infecting the group with a sense of resolution must emanate from you. Don’t get upset by setbacks; keep advancing and working on the issue at hand. Stay persistent. The group senses this, and individuals feel embarrassed for becoming hysterical over the slightest shift in fortune. 

5. Battle-test the team before the battle

You don’t quite learn their strengths and weaknesses in good times, but you can undoubtedly count on adversity to reveal their true character. Now and then, it’s a good idea to give various members some relatively challenging tasks or shorter deadlines than usual and see how they respond. Some will rise to the occasion and even do better under such stress, while others won’t, giving you a clear idea of everyone’s capabilities and temperament – and their overall strength and character. For lagging individuals, this provides a fair chance to improve before an actual crisis. For the team, it serves as a practice run with them getting an opportunity to learn about each other and improve chemistry. 

“A leader must be humble but not passive; quiet but not silent.” — Jocko Willink

www.bridgecapconsulting.com

Think of the last time someone at work—maybe your boss, your boss’s boss, or an HR person—told you a change was coming. Some new way to do something, or a restructuring, or a new system to learn.

What was your immediate response?

If you’re like most people, your first reaction was probably more negative than positive. Perhaps something like: “Aargh, as if the past 18 months haven’t been stressful enough.” Or maybe you thought, “This is going to be awful,” followed by a sinking feeling and a sense of being newly overwhelmed.

Why is the idea of change—especially change imposed upon us by others—so unwelcome? Given the past few years of massive change and disruption on so many levels, you’d think we would have gotten used to nonstop personal and professional change by now.

Our Anti-Change Wiring

Blame our experience as a species. Change has been dangerous for most of human history; the safest course of action has generally been to return to the known. If there was a famine, you wanted to get back to eating regularly. If there was an invading army, you wanted to get back to peace and prosperity. If there was a plague, you wanted to get back to (relative) health. You get the idea. Most of the time, homeostasis—returning to a previous set of stable conditions most supportive of survival—was the way to go.

Over thousands of years, this has resulted in people seeing most change in a way that can be summarized in three words: difficult, costly, and weird.

Difficult means “I don’t know how to do it” or “things will get in the way of me doing it.” Costly means it will take time and resources, and perhaps other things I value as well: my identity, relationships, power, or reputation. Weird just means strange and unnatural. Assigning these three negative qualities to change has kept us focused on maintaining the status quo for hundreds of generations.

And while this impulse is still appropriate in some ways—if we’re too hot, our impulse to cool off is still helpful—in many other ways, our deeply wired-in impulse toward “the known” simply doesn’t serve us anymore.

In today’s world, being capable of and comfortable with change is a necessary response to the rapidly changing world we live in. From addressing the climate crisis to resolving inequities in society, to operating our businesses in ways that respond to ever-evolving customer needs and expectations (organizationally, economically, politically, and sociologically), maintaining the previous status quo is quite often no longer the safest choice. In many situations, it’s now the most dangerous choice.

Rewiring Ourselves for the 21st Century

So, what’s a human to do? How can we revise this thousands-of-years-in-the-making response to change? Luckily, we humans have a powerful tool at our disposal that can help us do just that: we can decide to think differently.

We do this every day without realizing it. For example, let’s say you decided when you were a kid that you didn’t like Brussels sprouts; the only ones you ever had were soggy, unseasoned, and overcooked. So, your mental monologue—your self-talk, if you will—about Brussels sprouts is: “They’re disgusting.”

Then, one day, a friend who’s an excellent cook says to you, “Try these Brussels sprouts. I know you think you hate them, but these are cooked differently with ingredients you like. I bet you’ll enjoy them.” And because you trust this person (but are still probably thinking, “Oh gross”), you gingerly take one bite. They’re delicious; they’re sautéed with salt and pepper, and maybe a little bacon. Suddenly, automatically, you’re thinking differently: “Wow, yum! I guess Brussels sprouts can be good!”

Making Change Easy, Rewarding, and Normal

In the same way, you can decide to think differently about a change. When you notice yourself thinking that a particular change (especially one you know you need to make) is going to be difficult, costly, or weird, you can consciously decide that, instead, it could be easy (or at least doable), rewarding, and normal.

Here’s how this might look in real life. Let’s go back to one of those common change situations I noted earlier. Let’s say you’ve just been told that your organization is bringing in a whole new approach to invoicing clients, and invoicing is now part of your job. Maybe your first thought is: “Oh man, I bet this is going to be complicated (difficult), and the last thing I need right now is something new that’s going to take time to learn (costly). Worse, this doesn’t look like anything I’ve used before (weird).”

But as you now know, thinking this way about change is not your only choice. You have the power to change your mind. You can decide to say to yourself: “I bet there will be some training on how to do this (easy/doable), and they’re saying it will ultimately save us some time and be easier for our clients (rewarding). Susan is in favor of it, and I trust her (normal).

When you start to think differently about a change, you generally start to feel differently about it. You go from worried, irritated, overwhelmed, and unhappy to curious, a little more relaxed, and maybe even hopeful. You’re starting to rewire yourself—to change your response to change.

Change Is Our ‘New Normal’

Every indication is that the pace of change in our lives and in the world will continue to increase. It doesn’t look like we’re ever going to return to a time when everything is mostly status quo; we no longer have the luxury of relying on our impulse toward homeostasis and staying with what’s worked in the past.

Having the ability to accept and respond well to necessary change will become more important with every passing day. Therefore, I invite you to rewire yourself in this way: to learn to think and feel differently about change, to become change-capable. It’s your best path to a successful, satisfying personal and professional life in this era of nonstop change.

As employers look to reopen offices and recoup losses, they face a full-blown employment crisis dubbed “The Great Resignation” that requires new thinking about bosses.

It’s been a rough 18 months with multiple COVID-19 variants, burnout, and fears over health and safety that has resulted in a trend of increased employee disengagement. As a result, 11.5 million American workers opted out of corporate employment voluntarily in the 2nd quarter of 2021 alone, and 48% of America’s working population is actively searching for a new job or looking for new opportunities. 

As HR departments scramble and C-suite executives pivot, everyone in the corporate management space expresses their opinions on the situation. While many are targeting superficial causes such as benefits, compensation, generational laziness, and/or entitlement – a few see the actual root cause. It’s the manager. More specifically, the practice of management has exacerbated post-pandemic, as Gallup stated in their valuable 2018 Employee Engagement Report. 

It’s time for corporate leaders to take a hard look at how their businesses are structured, what is truly valued in their culture, and what they really represent. It’s time for bossing to end and modern leaders to make employees the top priority. 

In this article, we will uncover five reasons why businesses don’t need bosses anymore with solutions.       

As an example, Our Iceberg is Melting by John Kotter, and Holger Rathgeber is a top modern leadership book. In it, a group of penguins becomes alerted by an astute member of their community that their home may be about to melt into the sea. The book deals with what happens when urgent change is required, and teams must navigate to survive. There is a leader named NoNo in the story who is the primary antagonist of the group. Because NoNo refuses to see what everyone else is quickly coming to understand – their livelihoods are at stake. If they don’t make a move and fast, no one will make it. 

NoNo is a classic boss archetype – who is more concerned about his standing in the community and defending his personal needs versus doing the right thing for the greater good. Unfortunately, employees have been under the thumb of corporate bosses like NoNo for far too long. Similarly, in a recent analysis by The Predictive Index of the current turnover tsunami, “63% of employees who state they have bad managers are thinking of leaving their company within the next 12 months compared to only 27% of those with a good manager.” 

With that said, let’s look at our definition of a boss and bossing to determine the causes of employee turnover. 

“A boss is someone in a position of hierarchical authority who is primarily focused on furthering their own career interests. Bossing is the activity of leveraging this hierarchical authority to make workers adhere to their beliefs, values, judgment, and behaviors to gain access to their own future employment opportunities.”

Gallup states that an astounding 82% of people chosen for managerial positions are the wrong hires (bosses)! Are executives not paying attention to all this data out there, or are they too beholden to a model that doesn’t work anymore? When the penguins start fleeing for safer shores, it indicates that the bosses failed to keep the flock together. And now it’s up to the employees to define the market for one of the first times in modern employment history. 

Employees have spoken clearly – bosses will no longer be tolerated. To illustrate this point, here are five reasons why businesses don’t need bosses (as well as what modern employers can do about it).

1. Bosses can’t cultivate trust or talent

Bosses are usually masters at managing up and playing politics, but far worse at developing their people due to an inability to manifest professional intimacy with their staff – a fundamental component of the Trust Equation (credibility + reliability + professional intimacy divided by the degree of self-orientation). Without trust, the only way for managers to get things done is through browbeating, berating their employees, and creating active employee disengagement. Solution: Create managerial performance assessments that take employee trust into account. Managers with low employee trust scores should be flagged for immediate mediation programs.

2. Bosses thrive in toxicity 

When a person’s value system has been corrupted by over self-orientation, self-indulgence, and feeding ego needs, this desire for more taints their every action as a manager. They are harbingers of chaos who turn working for them into an emotional gauntlet that workers must successfully navigate daily to gain favor and avoid being denigrated and/or denied opportunities to succeed. Solution: Remove toxic bosses from the system ASAP and create new manager selection programs that focus on identifying individual contributors with low self-orientation but high task orientation and emotional intelligence. Assess alignment with the values of high-performance managers (trust, compassion, stability, and hope). Then only promote those who meet these criteria.

3. Bosses don’t care about equity, diversity, or inclusion

Bosses are all about aligning with the desired metrics of the day. They will do whatever they are told will gain them visibility and promotional opportunities, including fudging their recruitment, onboarding, and diversity and inclusion efforts to look good on paper. Self-absorbed bosses make sure they pass muster but make no effort to understand or create spaces for employees so their team members can thrive. This insidious box filling can give the impression of progress where none is occurring. Solution: Create “how-based” metrics that are harder to mask in regular team 360 managerial assessments with an emphasis on DE&I measures, tenure statistics at a demographic level, the overall hiring mix, demographics of those promoted into positions of increasing authority, and team productivity targets. You may convert bosses into effective managers simply by changing how (and why) they are incentivized using this measurement approach.  

4. Bosses lack the humility, will, and empathy to lead in the modern era 

Bosses are so busy focusing on what’s in it for them that they get lost in today’s increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world. As a result, they take every challenge personally, lose steam before the job is done, and burn out those around them. As a result, it inhibits their ability to help people navigate the constant changes and challenges in businesses today. Solution: Prioritize servant leadership as the most incentivized management style in the organization. This will allow companies to identify and leverage the future Level 5 leaders who use the paradoxical combination of humility and will to achieve results because of their empathy for people.

5. Bosses don’t solve customer problems

Bosses see their job as a means to an end. That end being their own prosperity. They are often poor listeners who regularly ignore issues brought to them by their employees in favor of doing whatever is easiest for them. When they are responsible for people who create value for customers, this lack of purpose demotivates good employees and may also cost the company revenue. Solution: What gets incentivized gets done. When customer orientation and problem-solving are genuinely valued and prioritized, managers will fall in line. Conduct calibration exercises where groups of managers are rated on solving employee concerns related to customer issues with role-play exercises. Film the exercises so they can review how they communicated in the training sessions. Lower-rated managers should be required to have coaching and training on this topic.

As you can see, many bosses create more issues versus adding value. The typical “boss” archetype now costs businesses talent, innovation potential, productivity, and revenue growth. It’s time to take an honest look at the overwhelming data. Companies must take action necessary to demonstrate that they are addressing The Great Resignation. There will be hope if businesses replace bosses with modern servant leaders. The Dawn of the Enhanced Employee Experience is within reach on the other side. Is your organization ready for this shift?