How come good people run companies with a toxic culture?

A friend of mine dropped me a note last week to tell me he was packing in his job, I was surprised seeing as he had only been at it about 6 months and each time we had met since then he had been properly excited about it and things were happening – positive things

Changes being made, efficiencies being driven, new processes implemented. He seemed to be getting a good level of freedom to excel at the job

Then I got the note

So I arranged a quick video call (I love the low down on tricky situations!)

Turns out the company he was in had a really poor culture. He had seen the boss bawl out a couple of colleagues over the recent few weeks – then last week it happened to him

Twice

Enough already, he was tired of not knowing what he was going to find when he got to the office, not sure if the boss was having a good day or a bad day. Not sure if today when praise would be lavished – or he would get another bawling

Too stressful

So sad – he loved it, the job, his colleagues, the hours, the pay. All good, But none of it good enough to keep him there – so he’s off

With this in mind I headed off into my day

Client calls mostly. All on Teams as I am away till the end of the month

First call was with a leader who has become a good friend over the course of the past year. We have done some good work together in trying circumstances

Through it all she has been honest and teachable and caring and enthusiastic. Your perfect boss I’d say

On this particular day she wasn’t very happy

She’d just spent some time on the shopfloor fixing problems that she felt shouldn’t need fixing decided to show them how it should be done

I can imagine how that went! Ruined her day. And certainly ruined the day of the poor guys and girls on the shopfloor who felt the benefit of her wisdom

When we unpacked it, when we thought about different ways she could have approached the problem

It was like a proper lightbulb moment. A different way. A better way. A more encouraging way. Now she is looking for the next "opportunity" to show she can do better!

Delegating a big part of the leadership process. If you want to be a good leader. Run a good company. Have people brag about how good their job is to their friends

You have to learn how to delegate. It doesn’t just come naturally. Do it well and your team will love you respect you and work well for you

Do it badly and the opposite is likely to be the case

If you are struggling with team, frustrated with their performance, annoyed that they just don’t get it

if you think that the solution to your problems would be to sack the people you have and get some one ones who could d the job properly

You should probably take a look at how you delegate, ask someone you trust, be teachable

You see good people do run companies with a bad culture, not because they want to, but because they don’t know how not to

If that’s you find someone to help

I don’t know if my friend’s boss is a good guy or a bad one

But I do know that he runs a company with a poor culture

My client is definitely one of the good guys, and her company culture gets better all the time!!!

Because she is teachable

I’m Daryl, I’m looking for people to mentor and small businesses to invest in

If that sounds interesting let’s talk