Dictatorial and power-hungry people in charge don’t make the worst leaders, surprisingly enough. But when apathy in leadership shows its face inside your business, you’ve got a major hill to climb.
NOBODY KNOWS WHERE THEY STAND
Maybe it’s something that’s flown under your radar for some time. You’re not experiencing much disagreement or pushback from your team.
But you have this sense that they’re not functioning at anywhere close to the capacity you believe they’re capable of.
This is one of the best clues that your team is under the direction of an apathetic leader. Whether that’s you or someone else you’ve designated the job to.
Things that matter aren’t getting done in a timely fashion. There’s a sense that your team members aren’t feeling truly heard or understood.
Yet empty praise gets delivered to the underperforming team because your leader is “out of touch” with what’s really happening with the team’s performance.
OTHER KEY INDICATORS OF AN APATHETIC LEADER IN CHARGE
As it turns out, team members would rather have a “boss” who was power-hungry or who micromanaged them than someone who acted like they didn’t exist at all.
Of course, that’s the extreme of apathy…Not acknowledging much of anything or anyone else with a relevant and reasonable response. But it’s a cancer that can and will surely take over your entire staff.
That is if they stay long enough at their post.
All other relevant factors considered, like skill suitability for the job, high turnover is a key indicator your leader is apathetic.
That is if they stay long enough at their post.
Lack of open conversations, signs of distrust, high absentee rates, poor decision-making, and increased stress levels are other potential side effects.
DEEPER REPERCUSSIONS OF APATHY IN YOUR WORKPLACE
Indifference is a way of being towards others that makes nearly every human retreat.
Sensing a lack of energy, concern, excitement, or passion from a leader instills in your team that they don’t matter. What they want, how they think, what they feel isn’t important.
As your greatest asset, your team needs to feel connected, relevant, and absolutely necessary to the success of your business. If they don’t, you’ll very soon be filling vacancies.
ENERGY LEVELS AND APATHY IN LEADERSHIP
More often than not, a leader who is apathetic is operating at a Level 3 on the seven levels of energy scale. And that leaves your team operating at Level 1. Both of these levels are catabolic in nature.
Essentially, at Level 3, the leader feels as if everything is fine. They rationalize. Coping with the day to day is where they’re vibrating at. This essentially means they’re not leading with intention and appear to have “checked out” on what’s really going on with their team and in the business.
At Level 1 energy, the team members feel stuck. Like they can’t have or do what they choose. They’re operating at a level of fear and feel directionless. Operating at this level long enough causes analysis paralysis, lack of action, and problem-focused victimhood.
Without an engaged leader to steer the ship, it’s an understatement to say it’s so far off course it may never get headed back to the destination.
CORE DYNAMICS AT PLAY WITH AN APATHETIC LEADER
The good folks at iPEC created a coaching certification known as COR.E Dynamics which allows for a specialization in the area of Leadership.
As a certified graduate of the program who coaches clients on leadership, when I see this problem present, I ask my clients questions surrounding two specific dynamics.
The first is the Awareness core dynamic. And the second is Acceptance.
THE AWARENESS CORE DYNAMIC
To explore awareness, I ask not only about self-awareness but also about the awareness my client has of the others they’re charged with leading.
How aware they are of how they show up as a leader. Awareness of their environment and surroundings.
Most times they get a quick sense of how much of their daily responses are based on automatic behavior. Going through the motions doing what is habitual. Like being on autopilot when you brush your teeth or drive your car.
And, if that’s how you’re living your days, it’s a quick realization that how your team is showing up is a direct reflection of interacting with your disengaged, automatic behavior.
THE ACCEPTANCE CORE DYNAMIC
Once you have awareness, you can move onto a better understanding of why it is you behave, act, or respond as you do.
You get to clear a path and unravel how your past experiences have shaped you into what you stand for and what matters most to you
Instead of being reactionary about life happening to you, there gets to be an acceptance of the part you play in creating the life you have…As well as the one you want.
Working through self-acceptance allows you to accept that the past is gone, to focus on the present, and to reframe or shift your energy from a catabolic level 3 into the higher anabolic levels.
IS APATHY AT PLAY IN YOUR WORKPLACE?
To know this, take a quick look at the following criteria.
If you can answer yes to witnessing two or more of these conditions, you’ve caught it early enough to affect real change with Core Dynamics Leadership coaching.
- Boredom
- Feeling insecure about tenure in a job
- Micromanagement
- Minimal progress
- Poor performance goes unchecked
- Team members are unpleasant
- Lack of communication
- Team feels no confidence for the leader in charge
CORE DYNAMICS AT PLAY WITH AN APATHETIC LEADER
Ultimately, choosing or being the “right” leader in charge is the ideal way to run your business.
However, nobody is immune to making an underperforming choice or becoming stale on the vine.
Energy has a way of fluctuating from a catabolic to an anabolic state naturally for anyone. Leaders aren’t immune to this truth.
The best course of action you can take is choosing instead to have awareness, acceptance, and getting the assistance you need to reframe your way of thinking about your leadership role.
Treated early enough, dramatic shifts in your team and your workplace can follow closely behind when you choose leadership development to squash apathy. Schedule a free strategy session with me to learn how.
