Leadership Response to Negative Information Conditions Future Delivery

In the course of any business there will be days where difficult or challenging news is shared with leadership, whether that is a missed deadline, a cyber incident impacting production, or missed financial targets. How leadership receives and responds to this bad news will ultimately shape the culture of how bad news is communicated within your organization.

Yes, there will come a time for accountability, but how that accountability is addressed and implemented will have ripple effects down through your organization. A hyper focus on the news itself and a harsh reaction does not drive the conversation toward a root cause and ultimately a path to resolution.

As addressed in the Factors Limiting the Effectiveness of ERM article, one cannot manage a risk that has not been acknowledged. The same goes for risks and gaps that are known by employees but not communicated up through the organization.

By responding wrongly, leadership may instill and create an environment of fear and drive behavior that actually suppresses innovation or worse yet, an environment where hiding bad news or burying known risk and issues becomes the norm.

The issue is not a lack of awareness of risks, missed targets, or operational failures, but a belief that speaking up carries a higher cost than benefit based on prior experience. Whether employees should speak up anyway is beside the point; over time, even highly committed individuals reach a threshold where they disengage quietly rather than exit the organization altogether.

• Employees need psychological safety to operate at their best.

• How you react and treat people today will create the standard operating environment for tomorrow.

• Looking back, can you see the organizational impacts of leadership’s reaction to bad news (both positive and negative)?

• Does your organization have a culture that welcomes and allows the space for addressing the “bad news”?

• What risks within your organization are left unsaid and therefore unaddressed due to cultural fear to speak up?

Would you like to discuss this topic further? Contact Brian Howell from Crestview.io