Authentic Leadership Case Study

A given company – let’s call it company X – had a huge client. In all fairness, it was one of their biggest clients. We’ll refer to the big client as client Y. This authentic leadership case study really happened, exactly as described. The purpose of sharing this is to learn how NOT to be a leader.

Company X manages client Y’s paid search via Google AdWords and Bing Ads. Company X raised the bids at one point in a given month at the request of client Y. The bids were lowered back to their normal amount 100% at the discretion of the client and immediately when the client requested it. By the end of this particular month, the total paid search spend was higher than it ever was before.

One of client Y’s higher-level managers told the paid search manager as well as the paid search specialist at company X that the total paid search spend was “quite a shock to us”. She then proceeded to ask company X to provide her with an absurd amount of reporting data in a ridiculously short period of time.

The paid search specialist then spent 12 hours straight (with a few short breaks in-between) completing weekly reporting metrics for a more than two-year period, in addition to completing other reports. It was a five-day task and the paid search specialist completed it in less than one business day.

Additionally, the paid search manager of company X was very thorough to cater to exactly what the higher-level manager at client Y wanted.

The paid search specialist at company X then proceeded to email the higher-level manager at client Y 12 intense hours worth of reporting, copying in the account manager and paid search manager at his company. The account manager at company X requested that the paid search specialist at company X contact the client directly. The higher-level manager didn’t respond to the paid search specialist’s email. It was the first time the paid search specialist ever emailed client Y – previously, all communication to client Y from company X came from the account manager or the paid search manager. The paid search specialist only contacted client Y at the approval of the account manager and paid search manager because he knew his place and didn’t want to step on any toes.

The paid search specialist at company X assumed that “quite a shock to us” meant that the higher-level manager at client Y was unhappy with the total amount of money spent in paid search for the month thus far, which was by far the highest amount spent for paid search in both a weekly and monthly time period.

Over the next five days, to finish out the fiscal month, the paid search specialist at company X reduced some of the bids and paused a few high-volume keywords to reduce some of the spend. This was to please the higher-level manager at client Y. Again, the paid search specialist at company X assumed that client Y was unhappy with all the paid search money that was spent.

In the detailed and thorough email the paid search specialist sent to the higher-level manager at client Y, the paid search specialist explicitly stated, “To offset this, I’ve reduced the daily budget of each campaign by 80%. What is ideal your weekly spend range?”

Yes, it is true that the paid search specialist shouldn’t have assumed anything. But in an email directly to the client who was shocked, the paid search specialist both stated his actions and asked a follow-up question.

If the higher-level manager at client Y really had a problem with what the paid search specialist was doing, she could have responded to him directly. The paid search specialist, always staying on top of his work, would have implemented client Y’s request within minutes. Instead, client Y did not have the courtesy to even acknowledge receipt of the paid search specialist’s email, which took twelve hours for the paid search specialist to compile.

A Painful Lesson

At the beginning of the following week, which also happened to be the beginning of the next fiscal month, the paid search specialist put the keywords and bids back to the normal. His adjustment was only temporary and it was specifically done to please the client. No, the client did not explicitly and officially state that she wanted bids lowered, but that’s what she implied with her “shock” email. When the paid search specialist emailed her his action-steps, she never responded. Because she never responded, the paid search specialist assumed he was taking the appropriate and necessary action steps to do what the client wanted. If he hadn’t sent that email directly to her explaining what he did, he never would have taken the initiative to temporarily lower the total monthly paid search spend. 

The paid search specialist then sent another email to the client, recapping how he temporarily slowed up spend so that the total paid search spend wasn’t too high for the month as a whole. This was the second email the paid search specialist at company X ever sent to the higher-level manager at client Y. In this second-ever email, at the request of the account manager at company X, the paid search specialist at company X copied in the superiors of the higher-level manager at client Y, including the owner of the company of client Y.

The next morning, the paid search specialist was directly confronted by one of the highest-level bosses at his company, company X. On the spot, without given time to gather his thoughts, he was asked to step into a meeting. This meeting included three senior leaders at company X, the account manager, and the paid search specialist. The meeting did not include the paid search manager.

In the meeting, the senior leadership of company X explained to the paid search specialist that client Y was extremely displeased with his actions. Specifically, the owner at client Y was furious that the paid search specialist reduced the paid search spend. The owner at client Y is not afraid to spend money, and he was deeply upset that the paid search specialist went ahead and did this without explicit written permission to do so.

There was some sort of prearranged agreement between company X and client Y that company X would never change anything in the paid search campaigns unless specifically requested by client Y. The paid search specialist was never informed about this when he took over the account, and there’s no way he would have known about this without being directly told because he has free reign to edit and modify all of his other 100+ paid search accounts he’s responsible for (in regards to his other clients). That part wasn’t the fault of the paid search specialist of company X. Also, in the past the paid search specialist made some modifications to the ads in AdWords for the client, so as far as he was concerned he had the necessary autonomy to make minor changes without there being serious, unexpected repercussions.

The tough and difficult – yet valid – lesson the paid search specialist learned is that even when someone implies something, you can never assume what they mean unless they come out and specifically state it. Yes, the paid search specialist did ask for further clarification in the email he sent to the higher-level manager at client Y, but the higher-level manager at client Y never responded to that email. Therefore, the higher-level manager at client Y can legitimately claim that she never requested for paid search spend to be reduced.

Here’s one of the kickers: there was dysfunction on behalf of client Y. The owner of client Y was the brother of the higher-level manager at client Y, but they weren’t on the same page. The higher-level manager was displeased with the high spend in the paid search account and she didn’t have a problem with the paid search specialist at company X scaling things back a bit. The higher-level manager at client Y didn’t realize her brother, the owner, had absolutely no problem with paid search spend being very high, especially with high search volume and intent in their specific market.

When sh*t hit the fan and the owner of client Y became upset that his paid search was scaled back, the higher-level manager at client Y covered her own a$$ by saying she never actually requested for paid search to be scaled back. The truth is that she not only implied for it happen, but she never responded to the paid search specialist’s email when the paid search specialist mentioned that he did scale PPC back. In the PPC specialist’s mind, no news is good news so when he didn’t hear back he took it as a sign that he could continue temporarily scaling back PPC for the remainder of the fiscal month (another five days or so were left in the month before he put PPC back to normal).

Dysfunction At Its Finest

With all of that said, we haven’t gotten to the most dysfunctional part yet. Let’s quickly recap:

• The paid search specialist at company X was not informed he wasn’t allowed to make changes to client Y’s paid search accounts. In fact, he made changes in the past and the client welcomed it.
• The paid search specialist made an error in assuming that client Y wanted to scale back their paid search accounts. Even though the client implied that she wanted to scale it back, she never explicitly stated that. In business, it comes down to direct, written statements, not implication.
• Client Y had some dysfunction going on between the higher-level manager and the owner, and this dysfunction was impeding their ability to properly communicate with company X.

Are you ready for the weirdest part? Ok, here it goes:

Let’s go back to that meeting between the paid search specialist, the account manger, and the three senior-level leaders at company X. The paid search specialist explained to them everything from his point of view, and two of the three leaders at company X sided with the client’s perspective.

For the record, there’s nothing wrong with siding with a client – if siding with the client is the appropriate course of action. In this case, it was not the right thing to do. Yes, client Y was a big client, but the leaders at company X made some serious missteps. Their actions weren’t outlandish, but they did cross the line.

One of the leaders at company X said to the paid search specialist, “Instead of assuming that the higher-level manager at client Y wanted paid search scaled back, you could have asked her directly, Do you want paid search scaled back?”

This is an incredibly flawed statement from one of the leaders at company X for several reasons. First of all, it’s delusion to say that the paid search specialist should have sent a follow-up email to the higher-level manager at client Y. It’s not like he was emailing this client all the time. In fact, as stated above, literally the only two times he ever contacted client Y was at the specific request of the account manager at company X. He fully respected his role (not a leadership role) and didn’t want to step beyond his authority. He thought that if he emailed client Y without getting permission, he would have gotten in trouble.

Second, the paid search specialist DID ask the higher-level manager at client Y about budget adjustment. In the email to the higher-level manager, the paid search specialist said (word-for-word), “What is your ideal weekly spend range? I ask so as to ensure we don’t overspend again in the future.” The client never responded, further confirming in the paid search specialist’s mind that he was doing the right thing.

After the paid search specialist explained this, another leader at company X said, “Email is an unreliable tool and a bad way to get in touch with someone. Email me something and I probably won’t see it or respond.”

The leader at company X who said earlier that the paid search specialist could have asked her directly then chimed in and said, “Yeah, email is not a good tool to rely on. I just got back to someone who emailed me an urgent issue 5 weeks ago.”

The problem with this is these two leaders at company X were not taking the time to fully understand the situation. The paid search specialist would not have contacted the higher-level manager at client Y under any condition unless receiving approval to do so. To say the paid search specialist should have taken the initiative to follow-up is beyond ridiculous and pure nonsense – he wouldn’t have emailed her without permission, let alone call her on the phone (this is not the usual mentality of the paid search specialist but this is a big client so he walks on eggshells around them).

Finally, to put the cherry on top, once again the leader at company X who said earlier that the paid search specialist could have asked her directly added in, “Also, don’t include too many details in future emails.”

This is not bad advice per se, but it doesn’t address the real issue or root cause – it’s avoiding tackling the problem directly. If details are relevant (which, in this case, they were), a company should not be afraid to share them with their client. What this leader is essentially saying is that rather than be direct with the client, he’d rather avoid the issue and pretend like nothing is wrong. That’s pure dysfunction.

If all this wasn’t enough, the boss of these two bad high-level leaders at company X then made sure that the paid search manager at company X apologized to the client. The paid search manager at company X, being a leader and the bigger person, went ahead and apologized to the client so that the client could save face, even though the client was in the wrong. The fact that these two high-level leaders at company X threw both their paid search specialist and the paid search manager under the bus to keep client Y is disgraceful. They lacked the courage necessary to confront client Y and address the root cause of the problem.

Face Reality and Put Your Employees Before Your Clients

Let alone the miscommunication, the core error here is that the high-level leaders at company X failed to put their hard-working, diligent, and thorough paid search employees before the client. To these bad leaders, it’s more important to keep a client and protect their egos than to face the truth and reality of the situation. The best leaders, on the other hand, face reality and leave their ego behind.

Yes, it was an error for the paid search specialist to assume something without clarifying it in writing, but there are two levels of dysfunction here. One, his company put the client before their employees (I can’t emphasize this enough). Two, the client had miscommunication and misunderstanding on their end that was affecting their requests to company X. For the high-level leaders at company X to not address this is flat-out bad leadership.

The leaders at company X crossed the line. They emphasized how email is a bad form of communication, but they didn’t take the time to understand the situation. They prefer dysfunction to truth.

Let me say this again because it’s such bad leadership: the boss of the high-level leaders at company X, the President of company X, personally assigned blamed to the paid search manager, who was the least responsible for this situation out of everyone. The President of the company made the paid search manager apologize to the client. The President clearly doesn’t live the values of company X and is not a leader. The President of company X interrupted a meeting between the paid search specialist and the paid search manager to personally make sure the paid search manager would apologize to the client. The President of company X is out of his mind, as much flawed as the two high-level leaders at company X who put the client first no matter what.

Three Crucial Authentic Leadership Lessons

I know that was a long story, but I wanted to make sure I included the details so you could fully understand what happened and why it was so dysfunctional. Thank you for staying with me until the end. Now for the payoff and the benefit for you – three authentic leadership lessons that will cause you to become one of the best authentic leaders on the planet. Now that we know how NOT to be a leader, we can see how the best authentic leaders operate:

• Put your employees before your clients. As a leader you serve your employees. If you make your employees happy, they will make your clients happy. If you make your employees feel miserable and unvalued, they will leave your company. This will cause you a loss of profits in the long-run. Don’t take the easy way out by putting the client before the employee. Putting the client before the employee is a temporary, short-term, cut-the-corner mentality that will cause you to lose valuable talent.
• Fully take the time to understand your employees’ points of view and the situation as a whole. Hear every side of the argument. Don’t rush to judgment. Yes, you are allowed to form an opinion on the matter, but only after you know all the details.
• Acknowledge the hard work of your employees. There’s nothing worse than a leader who doesn’t acknowledge the hard work of his/her employees. There’s nothing worse than a leader who only focuses on the negative.

I shared all of this with you so you don’t make the same mistakes as the high-level leaders at company X. First and foremost, value and respect your employees. As much as possible, within reason, put your employees before your clients. Then everything else will fall into place. I will see you, my friend, at the Mountaintop.

Jeff Davis is an award-winning leadership author and authentic leadership expert. For more free resources on leadership, please email his Executive Assistant at meg@jeffdspeaks.com.