PILLAR SEVEN

Perceptions of Leadership

PILLAR SEVEN

Perceptions of Leadership

What it is we aim to measure:

Employee perceptions of senior leadership, and whether leaders both “talk the talk” and “walk the walk.”

Topics covered in the assessment:

Whether the message of integrity from senior leadership is resonating
Belief that senior leadership consistently acts with integrity

Why it matters:

“Tone from the top” has always been a critical component of a strong ethical culture, and the extent to which the leadership team emphasizes and demonstrates the way in which they expect employees to behave will have ripple effects throughout the organization. We see a signiﬁcant delta when we compare the perceptions of those employees who believe senior leadership acts ethically to those who are not so sure, particularly on key questions like whether the company abides by its commitment to non-retaliation.

RESOURCE:

The Messenger, Modality, and Message of Ethics & Compliance Communications

What the data says:

This pillar tends to be an area that strongly correlates with all other areas of culture measurement:

87%

of surveyed participants believe that senior leaders promote the importance of doing business the right way.

78%

of survey participants believe that senior leaders act consistently with their words.

That eight-percentage point gap is an area of opportunity for most organizations. What we generally ﬁnd when we dig into the data is most employees do not actively disagree that senior leaders “walk the walk” – they simply do not have a reason to say one way or the other. This is particularly the case with geographically distributed workforces who may rarely see or hear from the leadership team.

PILLAR SEVEN

Perceptions of Leadership

How Ethisphere clients have used the data/insights:

Opportunities in this area tie to two of the three M’s of effective communication: modality and message. For the message, organizations often use the data from this pillar to review with leaders the extent to which they are engaging in storytelling when sharing goals with employees. Do they explicitly talk about ethical decisions they have made or how they might handle a given situation? If they do, an analysis of the modalities used is warranted: does the data available to the company show that employees are hearing those messages? Many times, the leadership team thinks they are conveying messages, but it’s through a modality that employees are not using. Avoid this scenario by using available metrics to inform modality choices.

Top Tips for Your Program:

When measuring comfort in speaking up ask follow-up questions that help determine which reasons are in the forefront of employees’ uncertainties surrounding speaking up. Are employees not willing to report out of a fear of reprisal? A lack of support from peers and management? Concern over a coworker’s wellbeing? These results will drive how you remediate.

Use data and feedback to evaluate whether employees are hearing and believing leadership’s messages about ethical behavior. Leaders often think they are communicating effectively, but the chosen channels may not align with employee preferences or habits.