We spotted some one really big underlying theme in the IoIC Index that we wanted to cast our judgment and eye over in a bit more detail.
Leaders: trust is gently rolling off a cliff.
Trust in leadership teams, CEOs and senior leaders has dropped 9% since last year, to 50% on average – and it’s significantly lower for frontline workers, where only 35% trust the CEO. Let’s just be honest, the stats aren’t pretty and they point to a significant trend. Leaders are flopping.
We think that this comes down to three things explored in the index, namely:
- The increase in restructures, redundancies and change.
- Weak trickle-down understanding.
- Widening gaps between leadership perception and colleague reality.
If we were gonna sum it up in a sentence it would be:
‘Life imitates art’
Life being the workplace, and art the geopolitical. Hear us out here. The unrest that’s going on in the outer world, is being mirrored in the inner world of internal communications, as significant changes happen more and more.
As Paul Diggins mentions: “the days of big change programmes are gone… now change genuinely is a constant and across multiple levels and areas of organisations.’
52% of respondents had experienced a restructure in the last year, 34% redundancies and 27% significant change or business transformation. These are all increases from las year, and can all have a negative impact on trust and advocacy levels.
Compare that to only 25% who were paid a bonus or gave performance bonuses to others, or only 20% who exceeded their financial targets – the things that actually see higher trust and advocacy levels.
This is reflected in colleague confidence. Less than three out of five are confident about the future of their organisation. 20% have a negative outlook. People are unsettled – and the buck stops with leaders.
Points #2 and #3 are sort of two sides of the same coin, and they’re most recognisable in strategy and AI understanding.
It’s actually quite striking. There is a direct correlation between seniority and understanding of strategy.
The biggest gap between non-managers and senior leaders can be seen in the ‘belief’ category i.e. whether an employee believes their organisation’s strategy is the right one. 80% of senior leaders do, as opposed to 44% of non-managers (36pts lower).
This holds up across the board. Clarity on strategy is 30pts lower, understanding how to personally contribute to strategy is 33pts lower, and clarity on business performance in relation to the strategy is 26pts lower.
If you look at AI, a similar trend follows. Less than a third (32%) believe their employer has clearly communicated how they are expected to use AI as part of their job.
The make-up of that average? 67% of senior leaders vs. 23% of non-managers (plus 38% of those who manage a team/ individual, and 40% of those who manager people who lead teams as the other two rungs.)
This signals two things to us:
- Leadership communications are not working how they should.
- Leadership is detached from those on the ground.
Here’s what makes that really matter. One of the top drivers of colleague confidence is clarity on the organisation’s strategy and business priorities. The very thing that isn’t getting through.
So, guys, it’s got to change. This isn’t just about communicators, it’s about getting leaders to buy into communication. This rift is real, getting ever greater and threatens to create a real disconnection within organisations.
The end of the report showed the real impact that IC has – those with a dedicated IC team had higher strategic understanding, better manager comms, saw higher representation and good news communicated and were nearly 20% more likely to recommend their employer as a great place to work. That’s not nothing.
Leaders take heed because without comms you’re losing that bridge and losing a grip on the steering wheel.
