Management in the cloud
Plenty of organisations do not only compute in the cloud, but also have their management operating in the cloud. This phenomenon is called disconnected leadership.
Disconnected managers
Managers who cannot make the organisation understand and follow their vision (or lack of it) are susceptible to becoming disconnected from reality. These managers pursue and sell totally unrealistic goals, unfeasible for their staff and themselves, as will be unveiled over time.
Personalities that do not have the capability to accept personal failure won’t acknowledge having taken the wrong road. These managers persist in following their initial direction and ignore any indication that tells them otherwise.
Disconnected manager
“Managers who refuse to listen will eventually be surrounded by people who have nothing to say.”
The combination with omniscient management characteristics
(see management drivers)
results in managers who do not want to hear anything that does not fit their view of reality.
Subordinates no longer dare to report unwanted truths after being bullied whenever they did. This behaviour reinforces the effects of disconnection.
In psychology, avoidance coping, escape coping, or cope-and-avoid is a maladaptive coping mechanism characterized by efforts to avoid dealing with a stressor. Coping refers to behaviours that attempt to protect oneself from psychological damage.
Except for managers with extremely high levels of psychopathic traits (around 20% of upper management, according to recent studies), the other category of omniscient managers —
the technocrat managers —
eventually become conscious of the unpleasant reality and working atmosphere.
They begin developing avoidance coping mechanisms such as escapism, suppressing unwanted and uncontrollable realities by withdrawing into an imaginary management world and denying reality.
In many cases, these detached managers retreat into specific areas they can oversee and control — such as setting up quality frameworks or (yearly) planning processes — while neglecting more pragmatic management responsibilities.
Depersonalization and derealization are dissociative symptoms that can occur on their own or alongside other disorders. They are often the result of past trauma but may also arise from prolonged stress and anxiety.
With all these ingredients in place for an explosive cocktail of mismanagement and disconnected leadership, organisations are heading for a dinner of disaster.
Fortunately, these disconnected managers can be easily detected. They operate in a vacuum, hiding themselves in corner offices and attempting to lead from afar via processes and status reports.
Unfortunately, it takes connected senior managers or board members to recognize them — and in hierarchical organisations, they are often just as disconnected.
