Story 357

An MD in the former USPB Risk group started quietly reassigning a Director’s workload onto one of his peers.

No explanation was given — none is deemed required. By routing a Director’s responsibilities through another, she could create the appearance that he was supervising and elevating a peer.

A paper trail for a promotion, built on optics.

The whole thing was an absolute farce. The favored Director couldn’t get his peer to do a thing.

The tension was palpable.

When I pulled him aside and asked if he noticed how defensive and alienated his peer had become because of this, his response was the definition of sociopathy:

“It doesn’t matter how people feel. We have to get the job done.”

Tone from the top, loud and clear.

It reframes toxic behavior and a total lack of emotional intelligence as “laser-focused professionalism.”

But that is a rookie mistake. You can care about the people and hit the targets. In fact, that’s the only way to make the results last.

Meanwhile, no one can point to what’s actually more innovative, more efficient, or different in any measurable way. No output, no evidence, no comparison — just a declaration of success.

This is the reality: management manufactures the appearance of collaboration, tells you to step on your colleagues’ necks to build your own promotion case, and then reminds you to fill out your corporate empathy survey by Friday.

This is one example of many others under this particular leader, focused entirely on political stage performance.

When Jane Fraser first pushed for leading with empathy at Citi, skeptics scoffed. They thought empathy was “soft” and wouldn’t get results.

We need to stop letting people mask a lack of leadership capability behind the mandate to “drive results.”

Understanding how people feel gives a leader the data they need to motivate, influence, and actually clear roadblocks. Ignoring it is like driving a car and refusing to look at the dashboard because you’re “focused on the road.”

When the “tone from the top” rewards this behavior, it signals to everyone else that interpersonal collateral damage is acceptable. It’s exhausting to watch, and even more exhausting to work under.