Most of us have heard the expression, ‘the ivory tower.’ In our professional lives, the context usually describes the boss or upper management perched in an office somewhere, unaware, and ignorant of the demands and challenges that their employees are facing. It’s obvious to most that you cannot lead from this horrible place. For ivory tower leaders the preferred engagement style is more of an institutional one, without directly engaging the wider employee base, they rely heavily on one-way communication using texts, email, or a small group of direct reports.

The existence of ivory towers within the organization is one of the greatest issues to creating and sustaining a culture of engagement. Ivory towers can be built and inhabited at any level of supervision or management. As leaders we need to identify if this syndrome exists in our organization, and if it does; destroy it. 

With Ivory Tower Leadership a communication problem exists because leaders often rely entirely on the chain of command to get information about the business below them. There are biases, skewed or missing information, and changes in meaning. Because higher leaders are burdened with such responsibilities as strategy, operational oversight, and remaining competitive, they may limit their focus to major issues and not the reality of the day-to-day activities. They have no choice but to trust and rely on the perspectives and translations of those directly below them. The same is true of those below them, who also rely on their down-line employees. Since this data is often reported in meetings, the problems inherent to people in groups can further hinder communication.

Employees don’t feel important to ivory tower leaders, they feel like another “metric” to them. These leaders will use surveys to gauge employee satisfaction to their jobs but in all reality the surveys or questions don’t really tell the whole story of what’s going on with the day to day or how people are feeling. What’s more important is talking to the employees that are doing the work. They are the experts and are the ones that can tell you what exactly is going on. Leaders that are “boots on the floor” leaders build a good culture within the team as the employees feel the leaders care and want their input proving higher buy in and thus building a better culture. Come down from the tower and show the team that you are engaged and ready to go to battle with them.