Leadership needs a gigantic wake up call. There are too many leaders who haven’t been in tactical consulting roles that have made up very subjective processes that lack professionalism and merit, and are borderline unethical.
New job performance model was also created to be incredibly subjective and forces you into set roles despite indicating to leaders that you’re interesting/capable of filling additional roles. I was siloed into a role that I wasn’t entirely interested in but was refused role opportunities that I had extensive experience in prior to joining slalom because “I don’t have experience in it at slalom”, so staffing was also based on internal opinion and subjective thinking based on what they have seen vs skills you were hired in with. This, in addition to the 4+ capability areas also being very very subjective allowed for the continuation of gossipy cliques at the leadership level which then perpetuated a culture that felt very icky towards the end. The lack of promoting qualified and ready candidates based on leaders poor financial decisions also led to weird and almost unethical practices. I was told by my manager that successes I had in various categories were going to be left out in my annual review because “you’re not going to get promoted this year, so let’s save some of this for your development plan for easy wins when you can get promoted”. Absolute joke. The lack of adequate salary raises and bonuses for those that really performed well was a big morale crusher. The explanations and rationale were made out to feel like we needed to be grateful for now making less money and “let’s work harder in selling so that you can get a raise”. So essentially they asked for more time at less money to help those at the top continue to make more. This was made worse in that my job title or rank couldn’t actually help in the sales process nor did I receive benefits for the sales deals I did support, even though leaders received a percentage of the sale when it was won.
Leaders who have direct reports are so overloaded that the amount of true “mentorship” you’re receiving from a manager is inadequate. I frequently felt like my manager was distracted or used the time to vent to me about the problems they were facing than helping me grow in my career.
Finally, the amount of corporate gaslighting and outright lies that leaders are able to say and get away with, even when other leaders will tell you privately that they know what they did, was appalling. There was no accountability or doing the right thing. It was all about doing whatever you had to do (lies and lies) to win work with clients and then underperform or overwork individuals who don’t have the skills to perform the roles in the first place.
