Don’t Turn Your Leadership Team
in a Fortress

This is a social media post from our very own Head of Learning, Innovation & Quality – Richard Santos Lalleman.
The update itself as well as the conversation it triggered are worth sharing with our Innovisor audience

When I saw this network of how people with formal leadership roles were connected in an organization, it reminded me of a blueprint of a fortress.

A blueprint that may have worked well to keep people outside, but that is probably (and hopefully) not something today’s companies wish for.

Let me explain why:
The management team (the light green dots) sits in the middle. It’s like the White Tower inside the The Tower Of London. They have surrounded themselves with only one group who are part of the Inner Ward. These people are from Finance (the light blue dots). So, to put it bluntly, most of the signals exposed to management are only financial signals.

The other groups like IT (dark green) and other unique organizational departments (dark blue) are part of the Outer Ward. Their signals are still in reach, but the signals need to ‘travel’ a higher distance. As a result, these signals may arrive too late, or the context have modified when it gets to the right person.

And then the groups HR (orange dot) and Legal (red dot). They are even not part of the Outer Ward. They are part of the Moat – a deep, wide-ditch surrounding the fortress intended as a defence. Their connectivity with the rest of the leaders is non-existent. Again, to put this bluntly, they seem like the ones to hold their people and legal rules on a great distance.

Is this how we need to lead organizations?

Read more about the conversation on this question on Richard’s LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/richardsantoslalleman_thetoweroflondon-it-hr-activity-6832971939129147392-lgwe