Plenty of organisations do not only compute in the cloud but they also have their management operating in the cloud, this phenomenon is called disconnected leadership.
Disconnected managers
Managers that cannot make the organisation understand and follow their vision (or lack of it) are susceptible to getting 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 will 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] makes these managers not wanting to hear other sounds than fitting in their view of reality. Subordinates don’t dare to report the unwanted truth anymore after they have been bullied every time they did. This behaviour tends to reinforce these effects of disconnection.
In psychology, avoidance coping, escape coping, or cope and avoid is a maladaptive coping mechanism characterized by the effort to avoid dealing with a stressor.Coping refers to behaviors that attempt to protect oneself from psychological damage.
Except for the managers with extremely high’ levels of psychopathic traits (20% of upper management according to recent studies) the other category of omniscient managers, the technocrat managers eventually will become conscious of the unpleasant reality and working atmosphere. They start developing an avoidance coping mechanism, like escapism, in which they suppress the unwanted and especially uncontrollable reality by withdrawing themselves into an imaginary management world and by denying reality.
In many cases these detached managers retreat into a specific area that they can oversee and control, like setting up a Quality Framework or (Yearly) Planning processes, while neglecting all the other and more pragmatic aspects of their management responsibilities.
Depersonalization and derealization are considered to be dissociative symptoms, which can occur on their own, or alongside other disorders. It is often a result of past trauma, but can also come about after experiencing 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 by hiding themselves in the corner office and attempting to lead from afar via processes and status reports.
Unfortunately it takes connected senior managers or board members to recognize them, in a hierarchical organisation they are probably as disconnected.
Sources:
The Australian Psychological Society - Forensic psychologist Nathan Brooks research
Avoidance coping