In all my nearly 15 years of working in risk management and compliance never have I ever seen such toxic of work environment until what I saw at MACU. Those at the very top of senior leadership allow politics to sway their opinion and decisions as opposed to really listen to the logic. There are decisions being made where they listen to senior leader(s) who bully their way into what they think should be allowed for the benefit of looking like they never were wrong and instead trying to point the finger at you for bringing awareness to situations that really could warrant review. I became the scape goat to blame for assignments that were given to me by management and therefore I was looked upon as the analyst who was trying “create problems”, when all I was trying to do was be a good partner and help protect the credit union. I gave specific examples of situations where policy procedures and practices didn’t necessarily meet but yet there was one or a few leaders who would go at any length to try to justify their rationale just to prove they were never wrong even if there were examples or stories of companies that potentially had similar situations that were given headlines by authoritative sources. Then there were times where I got called out for reviewing items that authoritative areas were looking at already with them and then asking why I was reviewing it when management asked me to. I felt I was being set up to fail. Then prior to me leaving you had high senior leaders at the top going to lunch with one leader below always never even giving thought to that appearing like favoritism. I also had this very high leader demoting other senior leaders and providing communication in bigger audience meetings stating that “…sometimes you have to go back and forth to move forward and grow into higher positions.” What sort of message is this and how would that motivate anyone??? This was even being said from a very high leader to leaders who had done tremendous things who received high praise from outside authorities. Some of those leaders ended up retiring or moving positions outside of the company rather than get demoted which I can’t blame them for. I also asked for training on a frequent basis and asked what books can I read to which I was given an answer of nope just need to get used to each others ways. I begged for tools and resources always but yet never got what I asked for. I was also micromanaged all the time and couldn’t even send an email without asking for permission. Yet there is all this saying about mutual trust and respect being part of the great culture of MACU but they don’t practice what they preach.
