The Leadership Failure Behind the CBS News Upheaval
Multiple reports, veteran correspondents, and producers at CBS’s 60 Minutes described the arrival of CBS’s new leadership as abrupt, dismissive, and, at times, tone-deaf. Explanations surrounding key personnel decisions—including the firing of two highly respected journalists and their executive producer—were either limited or nonexistent.
Longtime employees who had spent decades building one of the most respected and trusted news organizations in America were left asking basic questions:
Why did this happen?
What was the rationale?
What does this mean for the future?
One of the most common mistakes leaders make during times of change is assuming that information is optional — “we don’t owe anyone an explanation.”
Technically, that may be true. But when leaders don’t communicate, people will fill the vacuum themselves. They create their own narratives, become frustrated, then angry, and eventually that anger spills into the public arena, as it did at CBS.
Whether you’re leading a news organization, a Fortune 500 company, a nonprofit, or a team of five people, you have to remember that you can change strategy and even eliminate positions, but you cannot eliminate people’s need to understand the why behind those decisions.
What Leaders Should Take Away
1. Communicate early.
People can handle difficult news far better than uncertainty.
2. Explain what you can.
You may not be able to share every detail, but you can almost always share the rationale, the process, and the vision moving forward.
3. Respect the people affected.
Employees don’t expect to agree with every decision. They do expect to be treated with dignity.
4. Never confuse authority with leadership.
Your title gives you the right to make decisions. Your communication determines whether people will follow you afterward.
5. Remember that silence communicates, too.
When leaders say nothing, people hear something. And it is rarely what leaders intended.
UP NEXT
Employees Make Big Mistakes Too
The CBS employee response and why communication breakdowns are rarely one sided.
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