Strong connections are essential for performance. But there are times when colleagues connect for the wrong reasons, producing damaging cliques. Senior leaders should take decisive steps to eliminate their malign influence.

KenRo, Matsson, Greglets. In its fourth season, Succession continued to be a masterful and grotesque study in what happens when we connect for all the wrong reasons. Tom and Greg’s toxic alliance being just one part of a seemingly endless game to take control at Royco Waystar.
We’d hope few businesses are as dysfunctional and factional as that run by the Logan clan. Yet in any organisation, factions and cliques are very human phenomena.
Being an MD or CEO is challenging because it involves the constant synthesis of external pressures, competing views, imperfect evidence, diverse perspectives and agendas in order to make decisions for the greater good of the overall business or organisation.
It’s no surprise then that leaders seek to coalitions of support and advice from others. It’s wise to build strong connections with direct reports, peers and teams. But at times connections can descend into cliques that actually undermine performance.
Under the pressure of leading we can fall prey to our natural biases to form tribes and herds, favouring certain voices and ways of thinking. We draw close those we’ve worked with for longer, or who share our views.
This can happen inadvertently, if we’re not self-aware and vigilant; but it's even worse when a calculated act.
This is so costly because it damages the fragile psychological safety that leaders must establish and protect at all costs to get the best from their people.
I’ve written before about leadership as a ‘social contract’ in the workplace. The emergence of cliques or factions within a business or organisation is a symptom that this ‘contract’ is breaking down.
But how can we recognise the symptoms? Here are three things to watch for as an MD or CEO:
Weakening accountability. Members of a forming faction give one another ‘free passes’ and start to shift the blame for difficulties onto others. They even level blame at specific ‘problem’ individuals.
Passive aggression increases. In meetings, genuine points of view are left unsaid. Sidebar conversations become more frequent. The meeting after the meeting becomes the norm.
Bunkering. Members of a clique spend a disproportionate amount of time with each other both in and beyond the workplace. Here, gossip and speculation can quickly replace critical thinking.
In today’s connected, open plan workplaces with their glass walled meeting rooms, these behaviours are far from invisible. They are ‘read’ by the wider organisation, communicating that power or influence is concentrating within a smaller group.
Formal reporting lines and decision-making processes are superseded by these informal yet influential relationships. The clarity and certainty about how decisions are made breaks down, risking wider team engagement. A profound uneasiness takes hold.
In The Five Dysfunctions of A Team, author Patrick Lencioni reinforces that it’s absence of trust and conflict avoidance that undermines the foundations of strong teams, unleashing political agenda and individual ambition.
To restore trust and eliminate unhealthy faction, there are direct actions you can take:
1. Consistently elevate everything to the overall goal. Set more objective criteria and processes for decision making. You can rarely make a decision that pleases everyone, but you can be clear how you arrived at that decision.
2. Don’t let someone speak on behalf of others. Insist that individual leaders and team members speak in their own voices. Chinese Whispers is a poison every business can do without.
3. Form independent assessments of your direct reports. Observe them and get diverse feedback on their behaviour. Use this constructively, to ensure they remain self-aware. Many are oblivious to how their own actions impact the teams they lead. This could require extensive coaching.
4. Spend equal amounts of time with your direct reports. Time spent with individuals is regarded by others as a shortcut to favouritism. Insist that your direct reports do the same with theirs. This is something President Lincoln did to manage the famous 'team of rivals' in his first Presidential cabinet.
Allowed to take root, cliques can strangle cultures. The longer you avoid taking action, the more damage will be done, and the harder it becomes to retain confidence in your own leadership.
Trust should be the common currency of a whole business, not something hoarded by the privileged few.
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