When we first began work with the Clerk of Courts office in Orange County, Florida, a major, unexpected change occurred. A week before they were scheduled to begin an organization-wide employee survey, the elected Clerk ofCourts passed away. They would not get another elected clerk into the leadership role for over one year, and they had two interim, unelected clerks before the next election. In other words, over that first year-plus that we worked with them, they saw more than their fair share of the disruption that change can render.

During that time, the office was experiencing significant breakdowns in trust throughout all levels of the organization. The results of the employee survey we were to help them run would have been quite useful to them at the time, but unfortunately, with the death of their leader, the data wound up being put on hold. When the new official took office, she came with a different vision about how to improve the organization, and the survey results remained idle indefinitely.

“We were just in this constant state of not being able to get settled,” explained Steve Urquhart, HR strategist with the Orange County Clerk of Courts. In an environment like this one, making sure the employees are settled is often a top priority. The vast majority of the employees with the organization serve in a clerical role, which means that any change to the process—whether procedural or technology based—tends to disrupt workflows and impact employee morale.

For example, their recent shift from a paper to a paperless workflow didn’t only upset the processes the staff had relied upon for years; it completely changed the way the organization thought about how to manage their work. “It has had an impact on the organization because it requires you to think differently about the work and push more empowerment down to the frontline employees. A technological shift like this one stretches our functional capabilities, and many of our employees’ comfort levels.”

From the outside looking in, this kind of workflow change might seem like a trivial matter, but here we are talking about people who have been performing clerical tasks the exact same way for ten, fifteen, and even twenty years. That seemingly small shift was often enough to turn some people’s career perspectives upside down. The new workflows were causing some people to call off work for family, medical, or other leaves of absence on a more frequent basis. And most of these absences didn’t even seem to be phony. The new workflows were literally impacting the health of certain staff members. Short-tenured staff was leaving abruptly, and even long-tenured staff seemed to be wavering in commitment.

What was the answer? “We determined that the best way to fix the problem was to get the staff involved with reshaping the way we were shifting to the new workflows.” In an environment in which the power must always come from the top (most of what they do is mandate-driven by the state government), they realized that any measure of empowerment they could give to the staff would benefit the organization as a whole. So they tasked employees with leading coaching, training, and guidance through the new processes and systems; they repurposed some longer-tenured employees into new roles that might give them a fresh perspective on the workplace and their role in it; and took a proactive approach to reskilling and reemploying staff rather than cutting them when they failed to meet new mandates.

“We found that leaders had to drive all of this,” Urquhart said. “The TalentKeepers engagement survey helped us share data and employee feedback with our managers.” That data and feedback opened up new insight for how those managers could improve themselves and their teams. With that knowledge, the organization managed to turn itself from feeling like victims of a state-mandated push toward paperless technology and more like drivers of positive change.

New products. New marketing strategies. New sales goals. New policies. How often do these kinds of changes emerge in your organization? If yours is like just about every other organization on the planet, the answer is “constantly.” Almost across the board, the difference between high-performing organizations and everyone else is that the former’s leadership structure—from top to bottom—is equipped to foster, manage, and communicate the reasons for that change, details of the change, the benefit of the changes to the organization, and how the change will affect employees. Plus, these organizations let employees know how to get their questions answered as they reflect on what they have learned.

In 2008, TalentKeepers took up a project with a major American communications corporation. Back then the United States was sinking into the depths of the Great Recession—meaning that many organizations were facing a significant decline in business. Meanwhile, because of its exclusive access to a revolutionary piece of technology, this particular organization was growing rapidly. Like any good organization, they still made cuts in response to some of the other parts of their business that were suffering, but for the most part, they prospered during one of the darkest economic periods in history.

Now here’s the interesting part about what happens when your frontline employees see this tremendous growth and yet still have to deal with cutbacks. Employees knew the company was making sales hand over fist, and yet suddenly they were losing perks like coffee and chairs in the break room, discretionary spending for managers who wanted to treat their teams to pizza or donuts, and reimbursements for business-related travel or spending.

Understandably, the frontline employees tended to see only the negatives in these kinds of cutbacks. They saw these negatives despite the fact that the reason for the cutting was so the organization wouldn’t have to lay anyone off when business inevitably leveled off or began to decline. The organization looked out across the economic landscape and decided that now was the time to be as profitable as possible, because profitability during major recessions is rare.

When viewing the issue from the top-level leadership down, the message was clear: “We’re making these tough decisions so our frontline employees have stability in their work.” Unfortunately, when we looked at the issue from the front lines up the ladder, what we found was that the message was not being delivered at all. In most cases, what we found was that managers were doing what we earlier called “blaming up.” Rather than communicating the desired message about trying to maintain stability, frontline managers were blaming their immediate leaders for the changes. In some cases, those leaders were in turn blaming their leaders, and so on and so on all the way to the top.

Blaming Up

“I don’t know why they won’t let me buy you pizza anymore,” a frontline manager would tell an employee who complained about the cutbacks. “And I can tell you one thing for sure: If I were running this store, the last thing I would have cut was the coffee. I mean, how much can coffee possibly cost, anyway?”

Leaders often find themselves caught between a desire to build good relationships with team members and their responsibility to communicate changes and support, defend, or enforce company policies and initiatives. Frequently, leaders have little or no influence in determining the policy, strategy, or decision. What’s worse is leaders at many levels often learn of a change in direction or policy at the same time as their team members.

This dynamic occurs with changes in schedules, attendance policies, operational issues, and myriad other topics. Add significant announcements like shifts in strategy, changes in structure or roles, realigned priorities, even mergers and acquisitions, and it’s easy to see how leaders can struggle with communicating and defending the steady onrush of changes in today’s workplace.

It’s a natural human reaction to deflect blame. It’s also an all-too-natural response for managers to deflect that blame upward. The true message was that the organization was making cuts because it wanted to be able to keep all its employees in both good times and bad. The message that management was delivering was that they didn’t understand the changes and definitely didn’t agree with them. When a miscommunication like this occurs, people become distrustful of senior management, resistant to inevitable change, and slow to adopt new processes or procedures.

Think about it from the frontline employee’s perspective. If he or she hears from his or her boss, “I don’t know what management is thinking,” then the message isn’t only about disagreement, it’s about how “my boss isn’t on board about this decision, and in fact, he may be skeptical that this is the right decision in the first place.” If I’m the frontline employee, what exactly is my incentive to work hard on this new initiative or make the change management is asking me to make? Why should I jump in with both feet if this might not even be the direction we’ll be going long term?

Debbie Weaver told us that they have a policy at Stillwater Mining Company: “Don’t go down there and ask a guy to do something when you don’t know why you’re asking them. It’s not because ‘they told me to.’ It’s got to be transparent. It’s not a secret. Share it and they’ll appreciate it. When our leaders understand that notion, it’s a big win for our organization.”

In all business matters, but particularly during times of change, communication through every level of leadership is incredibly important. The question is, how do we ensure that the right messages are being communicated in the right way to all the right people?

What Not to Do

Before we discuss best practices, let’s dig in to the all-too-common worst practices we have seen during our years of observation in the field. The top mistake organizational leaders make when approaching a change that has to be passed down through the leadership structure is making the change without including anyone else in the decision. Top leaders send the message down from the executive office and expect everyone to follow it. Obviously that doesn’t work. It always leads to confusion from all levels of the organization, and almost always leads to the kind of resistance we mentioned in our opening story about the communications company.

Frequently, organizations attempting to make a change don’t give their leadership teams adequate opportunities to be advocates for that change. The leaders don’t receive advanced notice about the change; they aren’t included in the decision; and they don’t receive the kinds of talking points that will help their teams understand how the change will help the organization, benefit all employees in the long run, and why that change is necessary in the first place.

If you are the leader of an organization, one key question to ask is, “Who is telling your frontline employees about you?” The answer is the leader beneath you, the leader beneath her, and the leader beneath him. The leaders beneath you in the leadership structure are the ones who are delivering your message and painting the picture about you. If you feel that the frontline employees and managers are resistant to a change that you have deemed necessary, then you have to ask why they are so resistant. Do they not trust you? How could that be? You’re looking out for their best interests, after all.

The issue is simple to identify but sometimes more difficult to resolve. The short answer is that you’re doing your half. You’re communicating the message you want to communicate. But like the leader who doesn’t give any face time to his team, you’re not ensuring that the all-important other half gets covered: When you’re not there, how are people speaking about you and your message? How would the leaders beneath you describe you? Do they value you? Do they understand you? Do they understand why you want to make this change?

Such a shortfall in communication can devastate any number of organizational initiatives. The message about how and why a change occurs so often gets muddled, misunderstood, and resisted because people are doing the communicating. Unless we as leaders recognize the value in each individual person and appreciate that value by tailoring the message to the individual who must receive it, then we will not maximize the value of any important change.

We know that everyone comes from a different background: different upbringings, generational factors, and matters of individual values. Every individual values something different about her job. We all come to work for a different reason. If we hope to communicate the right message about change, then we need to know what those reasons and values are and make the message personal.

Let’s imagine a scenario where you have to announce cutbacks to your organization’s benefit packages. If the message is simply, “We need to make cuts so we can remain profitable and all of you can keep your jobs,” that message might seem benevolent on its surface, but it doesn’t play the same to everyone. For some people, job stability is the key motivating factor about their work. For others, stability isn’t nearly as important as keeping those benefits they have come to enjoy.

The message has to be tailor-made for each individual. “Susan, I know you’re here because you need the benefits because you have a sick child” is one kind of message. “Richard, I know you’re here because the schedule works for you right now as you’re in school getting your degree” is another. “Christine, I understand that you’re here because you want to climb the corporate ladder” is yet another. Each of these three people has a different motivation about work, and each of these three people will need to hear a different version of that same core message about cutting benefits to not have to cut anyone’s job. Recognizing the individual’s specific needs allows the leader to be better at shaping the experience of the change to meet specific goals.

Here’s an interesting question: With messages about organizational change, does the message get clearer and more accurate the closer you get to the top of the organization? The short answer, at least for most organizations, is yes. We find, in fact, that in most cases the closer each level of management is to the top, the more engaged it is, not only with communicating messages, but with all aspects of leadership. We’ve found two reasons for this. First, people who are higher up the ladder of leadership tend to be more committed to their roles because they have been with an organization longer and have more responsibility. With a longer tenure comes more experience to deliver the correct message to a team and to react to change with a level head. This person has seen more revolutions of the business cycle than most, after all. They’ve seen the impact of different policies and procedures over time. This leader is more stable and less swayed by the smaller things that might sway newer leaders and employees.

“Historically, we have been a top-down, hierarchical organization,” Steve Urquhart said about the Clerk of Courts in Orange County. “But through our Leadership Academy Development Program, we are working to instill that sense of ownership to the middle-management level.” They are doing this by setting clearer standards and holding everyone accountable to meeting those standards, providing nearly real-time feedback on performance metrics and qualitative coaching, celebrating successes and creating a strong sense of team identity, and using feedback to advocate and champion for improvement on all levels.

“One of the most powerful things we do is bring best practices from the industry back to the team,” Steve said. The strategy has worked in spades. The Orange County Clerk’s call center had a reputation for being the place where employees were sent if they were underperforming in another division. But recently, thanks in part to their decision to empower middle managers, that call center returned some of the highest engagement scores in the organization. “It’s all because of that one manager,” Steve suggested. “He addressed that idea that this call center was kind of known as the place of last resort. He made sure that it was clear that the call center and the role it played was of significant value to the organization. It is the front lines for almost all customer interaction. He really turned around their perception of themselves.”

That manager listened actively to his team, took their feedback to heart, and held his own supervisor to the high standard he held himself. “He pushes his employees,” Steve explained, “but also makes sure to validate and value them and show them that their feedback is being heard. He actively works to improve issues for his employees.”

The turnaround at that one call center has been incredible. Now other managers are starting to pay attention. “This call center was once the lowest of lows, and now it’s a cohesive team that’s valued and respected in the organization.” Other managers and teams have started to adopt the strategies that have been so effective.

The second reason higher-level leaders are more engaged is the higher up you go on the ladder, the more talented the leader tends to be—not only with performing their roles, but with leading people. That high-level leader didn’t get into that position by being merely adequate at the job and at leading teams. She was promoted (at least in theory) because she was good at leading people.

The LEI numbers we have gathered over the years bear this out. Picture a staircase of LEI scores as you get higher in an organization. More often than not, that staircase leads upward, and the higher you go, the higher the score.

There are exceptions to this rule, however. Sometimes we see an inversion in the stairs, where one leadership level is less engaged than the one beneath it. This can be a big problem, because it’s more difficult for a team to be engaged if its boss is not. The leader is the lens through which that team views everything, and if that lens is muddied with a low LEI score, then they’re not seeing the correct message. If left unchecked, it will decrease the level of engagement beneath that underperforming manager and, in fact, will continue rolling downhill to the front lines.

What to Do: Sharing Down

Your greatest ally to reverse blaming up and strengthening your culture is increased communication. This is what we call “sharing down.” In any culture, communication is the lubricant for effecting change, and silence is the friction.

We know that the problems we see on this front are similar from organization to organization and leader to leader. We also know that the ways to attack these problems are virtually the same. First, whenever possible, providing advance notice to all levels of leadership about an upcoming announcement, policy change, new goal, and so on is important. This gives them time to personally react to the change before they think about how their teams will react. Sometimes those initial reactions can be negative. It’s important to give leaders time to stew through that negative reaction and come to embrace the positive business need for this change before they communicate it to their teams.

Second, management must give leaders the right talking points to share about the reasons for this decision. It’s not enough to say, “We have to make this change” to survive, thrive, or whatever the message happens to be. Your leaders must know the business drivers that you’re hoping to influence with this decision. They need to know what alternative strategies management considered before arriving at this decision. And they need to know every element of why this decision will benefit the organization. Then—and we can’t stress this highly enough—leaders must use these talking points when they address their teams.

The third tactic is to give leaders an upward feedback channel to go to with questions from their team that they can’t answer. This lets them quickly get an answer and provide it to their team, which builds confidence for the team, confidence for the leader, and confidence between the team and their leader. Rather than reacting in a way that says, “I don’t know why management is doing this” in a negative tone, now every leader feels as though he or she is empowered to get answers. Meanwhile, the team also sees the leader as someone who can get answers, which builds trust in that individual leader from that team. Now when a team member has a question, he or she is going to go to that manager because that manager has consistently been able to get answers to questions he has had. As an added (and highly powerful) bonus, this upward feedback channel helps inform you how the delivery of your message about change is going.

There’s a litmus test in all of this. If you want to know whether your message is being delivered appropriately, listen to your managers as they describe changes. Listen specifically for two words: If the leaders are saying, “They want us to do this,” then they aren’t engaged with the message. They’re blaming up. If they say, “We want to do this,” then they’re owning and advocating the decision. They’re “sharing down.”

This difference allows leaders to bridge gaps, strengthen the bond of their teams, and always ensure that the message is well received. With these tighter bonds and stronger messages, leaders at all levels take the next step toward that higher LEI score. This brings them closer to being able to have those difficult conversations about career.