Middle Managers - Leading for Performance The case of a major Australian retail business

The Centre for Workplace Leadership was invited by a major Australian retail business to conduct research on the company. The CEO wished to have a solid basis of evidence on which to improve communication, innovation and decisionmaking in the company. The research took place over a year between mid-2014 and mid-2015. It involved interviews with staff at all levels, from CEO to frontline business staff. Key Findings: The analysis of communication, innovation and decision-making processes found three main issues that were impacting organisational effectiveness. These were: • shifting to hierarchical leadership had reduced employee engagement; • increased bureaucracy had reinforced organisational silos; • top-down decision-making had crowded out collaboration and innovation. Each of these findings is described in more detail below, along with quotes from the interviews.