When Leaders Don’t Understand the Work, Decisions Become Dangerous- Part 2

There is a quiet assumption in many organisations that performance comes first and people follow.

• Targets first.
• Budgets first.
• Deadlines first.

Motivation is treated as something that should “take care of itself.”

In reality, the order is often reversed. When Motivation Collapses, Performance Follows. And when leaders are disconnected from the work, motivation is usually the first casualty.

This is not a soft issue. It is an operational one.

The Competitive Advantage We Talk About, But Rarely Protect

Ask any board what gives their organisation a competitive edge and you will hear familiar answers:

• Strategy,
• Capital,
• Technology,
• Market Position.

Very rarely will someone say the Uncomfortable Truth:

• The competitive advantage is the willingness of people to care.

Care is not Written into Contracts. 
Care is not Enforced by KPIs.
Care is not Demanded through Authority.

It emerges when People feel Respected, Understood, and Taken Seriously.

Once that disappears, the organisation still functions, but it does so on autopilot. People Comply, but they STOP Contributing. They Follow Instructions, but they STOP Thinking. They Show Up, but they Withdraw.

And no spreadsheet captures that loss

What Governance and People Frameworks Have Been Warning Us About?

Modern governance and people leadership frameworks have been saying this for years, often Quietly and often Ignored.

Principles such as those in King IV, Professional People Practice Standards, and Quality Management Systems all converge on a simple idea:

• Long-Term Organisational Performance Depends on Ethical Leadership, Capable People, and a Culture where individuals are not treated as expendable inputs.

Ethical leadership is not only about avoiding scandals. It is about how power is exercised daily, especially over those who do not sit in boardrooms or strategy sessions.

When leadership decisions consistently ignore frontline reality, something breaks, not immediately, but structurally.

The Psychological Contract Nobody Writes Down

In Case You Don’t Know, Every Employee enters an Unwritten Agreement with the Organisation:

“I (the employee) will give Effort, Skill, Loyalty, and Pride in My Work.
You (the employer) will give me Respect, Fairness, and a Voice that Matters.”

So when leaders remain disconnected from the work and judge performance purely from reports, this contract erodes.

Not with anger at first, but with silence.

• People stop correcting mistakes early.
• They stop warning about risks.
• They stop challenging bad assumptions.

Not because they don’t care, but because experience has taught them it doesn’t matter.

That silence is not Harmony. It is Withdrawal.

Why Demotivation Is an Operational Risk

In Technical and Industrial Environments, demotivation does not show up as laziness.

It shows up as:

• Corners Quietly Cut,
• Risks Not Escalated,
• Quality Checks Treated as Formality,
• Learning Avoided,
• Responsibility Narrowly Interpreted.

People do exactly what they are told. Nothing more.

I have first-hand noticed this and this is where leaders misread the situation. They see Compliance and think things are Under Control. They see Activity and Assume Productivity.

But Real Performance is Discretionary. And Discretion Disappears when Dignity is Damaged.

The Cost of Leadership Without Human Contact

I’ve noticed, when leaders never engage with the work, never feel the physical or cognitive strain of execution, they begin to talk about people in abstractions:

• Headcount,
• Utilisation,
• Efficiency Ratios.

The Workforce becomes a Line Item.

The moment people sense that and I mean truly sense it, something shifts. Pride Erodes. Ownership Fades. And once Ownership is Gone, NO Incentive Scheme will bring it back.

This is how Organisations Lose their Best People Quietly while keeping their Weakest Visible.

Motivation Is Not a Programme, It’s a Consequence

Many organisations respond to Declining Morale with:

• Engagement Surveys,
• Slogans,
• Workshops,
• Posters about Values.

These do not fix the problem because they are downstream solutions.

Motivation IS NOT created by communication campaigns. It is a consequence of daily leadership behaviour:

• How Decisions Are Made,
• Whose Reality Is Considered,
• How Mistakes Are Handled,
• Whether Questioning is Punished or Welcomed.

People do not expect perfection from leaders. They expect Honesty, Humility, and Effort to Understand.

The Question Leaders Should Sit With

This is not a call for Sentimentality. It is a call for Realism.

Leaders should ask themselves a simple question:

• If I were doing the work I am judging, would I feel respected by the way decisions are made above me?

If the answer is NO, performance problems are not far behind, even if the numbers look good today.

A Quiet Truth Worth Remembering

Organisations do not fail because People Stop Working.
They fail because People Stop Caring.

And Care is sustained not by Pressure, but by Leadership that Understands the Work, respects the People doing it, and remembers that Motivation is not a Human Resources Issue.

It is a Leadership Responsibility.

Please note:
I don’t think for one second that my account is a definitive account.
I offer it no more than an opening round in a conversation that I hope

End