The Workplace Mirror: What happens when accountability ends at the profit margin?

RECENTLY, I RECEIVED a call from an executive who wanted to talk about what was happening inside his organisation. As he described his experience, his voice changed. Eventually, this accomplished professional, someone accustomed to carrying significant responsibility, could no longer contain his emotions. He broke down and sobbed.

What I heard in that moment was not simply the frustration of someone having a difficult day at work. I heard the accumulated weight of what he described as years of verbal attacks, humiliation and psychological intimidation from the person leading the organisation.

According to the executive, he is not alone. Others within the organisation have had similar experiences, and the leader’s behaviour has become so familiar that employees seem to anticipate who will become the next target. He described an environment in which people sometimes protect themselves by shifting blame, withholding information or throwing colleagues under the bus, hoping to avoid becoming the focus of the leader’s anger.

Think about what that does to a workplace over time.When people learn that their own safety may depend on someone else becoming the target, self-preservation can gradually become stronger than trust. Colleagues who should be collaborating begin protecting themselves from one another.

What troubled me even more was the apparent contradiction between how this leader is experienced by some employees and how the leader is regarded by those responsible for oversight.

By conventional measures, the organisation is performing. It is profitable. Results are being delivered. From the boardroom, therefore, the leader may appear highly effective. But that raises a question I believe boards, executives and organisations need to confront:What happens when accountability ends at the profit margin?

If financial performance is the primary evidence used to determine whether someone is leading well, what happens to everything the numbers cannot tell us?

A profit-and-loss statement cannot show us the executive crying after years of accumulated distress. It cannot tell us whether employees are afraid to speak honestly, whether colleagues have learned to sacrifice one another for self-preservation, or whether people rehearse conversations before entering a leader’s office because they are uncertain which version of that leader they will encounter.

Financial results tell us something important about organisational performance. But they cannot tell us everything about leadership. An organisation can be financially healthy while parts of its culture are deeply unhealthy.

This is why I believe we must become more specific when discussing harmful leadership. General statements about respectful workplaces, treating people well or improving culture have their place, but sometimes generality allows accountability to escape.

It is like calling an entire staff meeting to address misconduct without identifying the behaviour, confronting those responsible or establishing consequences. Everyone listens. Everyone agrees the behaviour is unacceptable. Everyone leaves believing the message was intended for somebody else. Nothing changes because nobody has been required to see themselves in the problem.

Boards therefore have a responsibility that extends beyond asking whether the organisation is producing results. They should also be asking:

How are those results being produced? And perhaps even more importantly: What is the pursuit of those results producing in people? What behaviours are being tolerated because the numbers remain strong? What are employees afraid to say? What patterns are hidden behind turnover, grievances, silence, unusual levels of conflict or the departure of capable people?

A leader who produces excellent financial results while leaving fear, humiliation and mistrust in their wake should not be exempt from scrutiny because the organisation remains profitable.

Performance and humanity were never meant to be competing measures of leadership.

Perhaps the most dangerous cultures are not always those in which harmful behaviour is invisible. Sometimes people see it clearly but learn that results make it untouchable.When that happens, silence itself becomes part of the culture. And every person who has been hurt receives an unintended message:What you are experiencing matters less than what this leader is producing.

The Workplace Mirror Reflection: Profit can tell us whether an organisation is making money. It cannot, by itself, tell us whether someone is leading well. Perhaps leadership should be measured not only by what a leader produces, but also by what their leadership produces in people.

l Karen James is a Strategic Leadership Advisor, author, speaker, and founder of The Workplace Mirror, where she helps leaders and organisations uncover blind spots, expand perspective, and strengthen organisational effectiveness. She is also the founder of TheWise Professional, helping individuals and organisations make wiser workplace decisions.

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