Many of the challenges leaders face are individual in nature. An example of this might be an employee who is constantly showing up late to work, or a manager who always says no to every change in the management meetings. Leaders also tend to face group challenges as well - the performance or morale of their teams, for example. Those types of challenges may not be easy, as they involve human beings (and humans are very complicated!)
But sometimes there are challenges that go beyond the individual or group level. These are challenges that effect nearly every employee, across the entire office. These are challenges that are systemic in nature, and sometimes hard to truly identify.
The challenges I am talking about are organizational challenges.
An organizational challenge is systemic in nature. Examples of this include company culture, employee-management relations, organizational morale, company mission and purpose, and more. Organizational challenges may not be obvious, but they can be felt in the hearts and guts of the staff in the organization. A company that provides minimal autonomy to the staff might indicate an issue of trust throughout the organization. A non-profit with a high membership turnover rate might indicate poor member-leadership relations. A faith institution is down on donations/tithing this year, despite a booming economy - this might indicate a dissatisfaction of parishioners with leadership.
All of the above examples have some element of an organizational challenge. Some may have individual and group elements as well. But the main point is, what is the organization's part of the mess in each challenge? Asking this question can lead to additional (albeit sometimes uncomfortable) interpretations.
In the first example, the company that provides minimal autonomy to their staff may have issues of trust within the organization. Questions a leader within that organization may ask is - what is influencing this lack of trust? Where does the lack of trust stem from? What does the lack of trust within the organiztion end up costing in terms of performance and employee morale? What the lack of automy say about the company culture?
In the second example, the non-profit with a high membership turnover rate may have an issue with the member-leadership relations. A board member of the non-profit might ask - what is the common theme for members leaving? What is the story the members are telling themselves and others about the leadership of the organization? What makes our organization so difficult to retain membership? What is the story the members are telling themselves and others about the organization? What is the organizational leadership's contribution to the high turnover rate?
In the final example, the faith institution is seeing a decline in donations/tithing from their parishioners despite a booming economy. With the economic climate likely ruled out, the questions a leader within the faith institution might ask is - What is the disconnect between leadership and its parishioners? What message about the faith institution that the parishioners are hearing, but leadership is not? How might the leadership direction of the faith institution be at odds with that of the parishioners? How can the faith institution better meet the needs of the parishioners?
The questions asked are all great introspective questions for the respective organizations - but are also pretty tough questions to answer. The tough questions may lead to tough interpretations that make people uncomfortable. That's a good thing! The right about of discomfort (not too much that you cause discontent, and not too little that you cause no-one to care) is required for change to happen in an organization. It is your job as a leader to manage this level of discomfort or "heat"; more on that in next week's blog.
In short, when diagnosing a leadership challenge within your organization, ask yourself: what is my organization's part of the mess? Find other tough questions to ask yourself and others about the organization. Then, start forming multiple tough interpretations to consider in order to better diagnose your leadership challenge. That way, you have a clearer view of what the solution to the challenge might be!
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