“People join companies and quit bosses.” This age-old saying seemed to be the overarching theme of our conversation with Doug Thorpe when we spoke with him on his podcast, Leadership Powered by Common Sense, about what it takes to identify and correct dysfunctional behavior in organizations.

Specifically, we talked about how important it is to identify the root causes of an issue to be able to effectively solve a problem. And how in most cases, the root cause at the heart of an organizational dysfunction runs deeper than what the loudest complaints seem to be pointing to… As Anne says in our chat, “it’s very rare that we have a client coming to us saying, ‘I suck at leading people, I need some help’.

As we spoke, we ended up exploring how leaders can “manage up” (or rather, “lead to the gap”), the big problems with (and caused by) leading “off the side of your desk”, and leaders’ abdication of their responsibility to lead. Our short conversation really covered a lot of ground!

But overall, if you’re looking for just one thing to take away from our conversation, let it be this: the often-held belief by leaders and organizations that it’s okay to just show up and lead without any leadership training or skill development is the source of so much anxiety for leaders, and ultimately ends up being the root cause for a lot of organizational dysfunctions…

We thoroughly enjoyed our chat with Doug, and we hope you’ll enjoy listening to it just as much! You can learn more about the podcast here.