misplaced loyalty

vs authenticity

Youtube video link: https://youtu.be/z0BdgaV4ueI?si=jvqxRzOx5jaIfQS0

Hi Everyone

Thanks for being here.

Most organisations have company values that they communicate via leaflets and posters and are talked about in communications with employees. One of the ones that is often used is ‘authenticity’ and whilst that's communicated via these various methods, it's not always the way. There are often covert values that are in operation in organisations and one of them is ‘misplaced loyalty’.

In my many years in HR, I've seen quite a lot of that going on and I want to share with you some of my experience with regards to that and what the implications are for people who work in these organisations.

In one particular company, a member of the leadership team was not performing very well in their role and pretty much everyone on the leadership team knew that. This person didn't have the experience, the knowledge, the capability for that role and they weren't the right fit for the organisation.  It was really clear that that was the case and so in my role I tried many ways to communicate that with the head of the company. To talk about what was happening, what I saw, what people were telling me and the implications of the poor performance of this person. I would go into the office and we would talk about it. He would listen to me, say he’d think about it, go away and then nothing would happen . I’d get really frustrated and my ego was getting in the way a little bit too, because I was very attached to the outcome. I wanted this matter to be dealt with properly and unfortunately it wasn't.

I tried many times to come at it from a different angle and it was pretty exhausting, because although I felt like I was being listened to I wasn't really being heard. The main reason that I wasn't heard is that there was no way this person was going anywhere because they were brought in by the most senior person in the company. Because of that, my boss wasn't able to do anything about the things that I was telling him.

The repercussions of that poor performance were that people really struggled in their roles. They didn't have the communication, or consistent messaging, they didn't understand what this leader was trying to get them to achieve and that meant that they were stressed, and they couldn't do their jobs properly.

It also impacted the bottom line for this company because when somebody isn't performing in their job, especially at that level, then it costs the organisation quite a lot of money. It costs money in poor performance in terms of people being off with stress or under-performing and this money has to come from somewhere and where it comes from is the ultimate price that you pay for a product or a service because that has to be factored in.

So that's what happened - that person stayed in their job for a very long time and the situation continued. It was a really strong example of misplaced loyalty because the loyalty wasn't to the people in the organisation and there were a lot of them, it was to the most senior person in the organisation. When somebody is very closely aligned in that way, then the right thing doesn't happen and that then has an impact on the people that they work for.

The reason I'm sharing this is that it happens pretty much everywhere. I've seen people being paid tens of thousands of pounds just because they weren't very good at their job and they were paid off because their boss didn't want to have an honest conversation with them. So, this value of authenticity isn't actually there because lots of leaders - I have experienced some great leadership, and I've also experienced a lot of really poor leadership - avoid having what they perceive to be a difficult conversation. But the difficulty is in being honest about what they see. If I would have had an authentic and open conversation with my boss about this person, then at least it would have been, “Pauline you might as well stop because this person is going nowhere, and these are the reasons”. Wouldn’t that be amazing - not amazing that that is happening, but the fact that it was an authentic open and honest conversation, and we certainly need more of that.

This is one of the main reasons that corporations are crumbling because people see through this nonsense and now, they're waking up to it because not only does it go on in large corporations, it goes on in government, in healthcare and in pharmaceutical companies - it's all about power control and profit. The pretence around “it’s for the people” is utter rubbish, it's not for the people at all.

So, more and more people are choosing different ways of earning money, living lives that are true, true to nature, aligned with who we are and moving away from that BS basically.

In knowing that we are moving more towards a heart-led, heart centred way of living (and that applies to organisations because organisations are full of people), it's the human beings in organisations that want truly heart-led leadership, heart-centred companies to work for, where they can be authentic, where they can speak their truth. Also, where they don't have to worry about, if I say this about somebody and they're very close to my boss, will they receive the information - they'll be able to have those honest conversations and that is the only way.

What we are experiencing is a massive shift in consciousness and awakening to the truth of who we are. Being authentic, being true, being heart-led, not head-led and I look forward to seeing more and more of that in the coming years.

Much love

Pauline

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