Welcome to the second instalment of Simia’s bold and honest series exploring the hidden dynamics of organisational life. We’re lifting the lid on silence, confusion, and cultural contradictions that often go unspoken but shape the way teams and leaders really operate.
Drawing on our programmes delivered across the ASEAN region—where we’ve worked with more than 3,300 leaders and staff over the past 18 months—this series offers unfiltered insights into the realities organisations face, but rarely acknowledge.
In most organisations, staff and leaders see the world very differently.
This isn’t because one group is wrong, or even misinformed. It’s because they’re operating in different realities. One is embedded in the day-to-day trenches, managing shifting priorities and workload chaos. The other is trying to steer a ship through complexity, change, and cultural transformation.
And both are right.
But when these realities aren’t understood, or worse, dismissed; the result is damaging: frustration, silence, disengagement, and mutual mistrust. If we want performance, innovation, and trust to thrive, then bridging this gap isn’t optional, it’s essential.
Different Views from Different Vantage Points
In our leadership and competency development work across multiple sectors, we’ve observed consistent patterns in how staff and leaders frame organisational life:
Staff Perspective:
- Want clarity, fairness, and predictability in daily work.
- Experience chaos when goals shift, roles blur, or communication breaks down.
- Crave support from managers who are present, organised, and human.
- Judge culture through the lens of psychological safety, workload, and whether they’re heard.
Leadership Perspective:
- Want alignment, innovation, and strategic agility.
- Worry about silos, resistance to change, and cultural inertia.
- Feel pressure to deliver results, often without enough time to lead intentionally.
- See competencies as big-picture drivers of growth and sustainability.
It’s not that one view is more valid than the other. It’s that both are incomplete in isolation.
What This Gap Looks Like in Practice
The gap in perspectives play out in subtle and, at times, not so subtle, ways:
- Leaders believe they’re being clear about expectations, but staff feel directionless or overloaded.
- Staff feel voiceless, while leaders wonder why no one speaks up.
- Leaders introduce change, but staff experience it as disorganised or disruptive.
- Staff ask for structure, while leaders call for agility and innovation.
Both sides are speaking in good faith but they’re not speaking the same language. And that leads to disconnect, fatigue, and resistance on both sides.
The Hidden Cost of Misalignment
When this divide is left unchecked, the impact is real:
- Morale drops as staff feel misunderstood and leaders feel unsupported.
- Performance suffers when teams pull in different directions.
- Trust erodes as people assume “they just don’t get it.”
- Turnover increases, especially among those caught in the middle — team leads, junior managers, and high performers.
What is perhaps most important, is that culture becomes fragmented. People start working around the system instead of within it. Innovation slows. Accountability weakens. And everyone quietly lowers their expectations of what’s possible.
What Both Groups Actually Want
Here’s the twist: when we look closely, staff and leaders want the same thing, just through different lenses.
They want:
- Clear goals
- Effective teamwork
- A culture that supports learning and improvement
- Trust between levels
- Time and space to do meaningful work
They’re just navigating toward those goals in different ways. Leaders may talk about strategic alignment and transformation; staff may talk about fairness, support, and having the right tools. But these aren’t contradictions, they are, in fact, complementary needs.
Bridging the Gap: Where to Start
So how do we bridge this divide?
Not with slogans. Not with top-down emails. But by intentionally reconnecting the dots between vision and experience, between strategy and operations, between what leaders say and what staff feel.
Here are five practical ways to start:
1. Make Strategy Tangible
Translate big goals into visible behaviours and routines. Help staff understand:
- What does success look like for my role?
- How does my team’s work connect to the bigger picture?
- What priorities truly matter?
2. Listen Through Both Lenses – Intentional Empathy
Create channels where staff can share operational pain points and where leaders genuinely listen, without defensiveness. Then flip the lens: help staff understand the pressures and trade-offs leaders face. Perspective builds empathy.
3. Equip Middle Managers to Translate
People managers in the middle are the most stretched and the most crucial. They need support in:
- Navigating up and down the chain
- Coaching with clarity
- Aligning expectations without burning out
Invest in their development, or the entire system feels the strain.
4. Close the Feedback Loop
We have asked thousands of staff members about why they don’t speak up on issues, not one has said: “my idea wasn’t implemented last time”. If staff raise concerns or ideas, show what happens next. Even if the answer is “not now,” acknowledge the input. Silence breeds disengagement. Visibility builds trust.
5. Model Alignment — Not Just Talk About It
Senior leaders must demonstrate what alignment looks like:
- Consistent messaging
- Joint decisions across functions
- Owning the same priorities in front of their teams
When leaders walk in sync, staff believe the direction is real.
Final Thought: Same Mountain, Different Climb
At Simia, we have actually used a mountain climbing simulation to drive these discussions in our clients. We ask our clients to think of the organisation as a mountain.
Staff are climbing from the base, navigating terrain, dealing with the weather, trying not to trip.
Leaders are up higher, trying to chart the path ahead, scanning for storms, planning the route.
If they don’t talk, they both suffer.
- Staff may resent changes they don’t understand.
- Leaders may feel isolated and frustrated by lack of traction.
- And the summit may stay out of reach and not because people don’t care, but because they’re climbing alone.
To lead effectively today, we don’t just need better strategy. We need better connection. The real work is building the bridge between hilltop and ground level — between intention and experience.
Because in the end, alignment isn’t what’s written on the wall. It’s what’s felt across the organisation.