Within the past year research has surfaced regarding out of touch leaders. Thirty-three percent of those surveyed believe that the C-level executives and their teams sometimes appear to operate as though they are in a bubble. Not good. This is how your employees perceive you and your leadership team operates.

Some of the causes noted were:

• (16%) Personality of the CEO – most of us agree that the culture of the organization starts at the top. Have a rogue CEO; you probably have a no holds barred culture.
• (32%) The failure of internal communications – email is not enough. Your people are busy, if the message is important; go desk to desk if you have too.
• (29%) Believe corporate culture is to blame for the leadership bubble in their organization.

While the above percentages make us uneasy, the negative effects of Bubble Leadership are even more damaging. 95% believe Bubble leadership causes employee disengagement, 77% believe it causes a gap between policies and practices, 68% high turnover and 40% unethical behavior.

In the business world; communication is comprised of core skills such as, objective listening, non-verbal ques, influencing others, interpersonal skills and empathetic outlook. We are complicated beings and with everyone having a little different interpretation on ‘what you said’ it’s no wonder we sometimes don’t trust our leaders or think they hear or understand us.

Take heart, all is not lost here. So how do you know if your organization might have leadership that is living in a bubble?
You will see:

• High turnover in your employee ranks
• Ineffective communication within the organization
• Poor execution of business strategies
• Lack of transparency on performance and results
• Failures of alignment

Some of you may remember the French Revolution. The leadership of the country was definitely living in a bubble until Robespierre declared the King must die. Unfortunately for Robespierre and his leadership also ended up living in somewhat of a bubble and were eventually taken to the guillotine.

I’m not saying you are going to have a revolution on your hands if you and your leadership are out of touch so what can you do? Start by undertaking an overall company survey. Ask specific questions related to the above areas and then start to work on ways to get your team out of their bubble.

What if you don’t do anything? You, your leadership and your business could go the way of King Louis XVI and Robespierre.

Need a better way to build and communicate with your team? We can help just sign up for a Free Strategic Human Insights Strategy Session