My experience at this company was defined by organisational dysfunction, poor leadership, and a deeply political culture.
The business appeared to be operating with serious manpower shortages, but instead of resolving the problem, senior management seemed content to leave teams overstretched and new hires unsupported. Employees were expected to perform in an environment with inadequate handovers, poor accountability, and very little clarity around ownership or process.
Leadership was one of the biggest issues. The culture was highly top-down, interventionist, and often chaotic. Members of senior management frequently appeared to undermine one another, withhold information from one another, and give conflicting instructions to staff. Employees were at times told not to follow the direction of certain leaders, which, from my perspective, reflected a high level of dysfunction and mistrust at the top.
There also seemed to be a strong culture of deference within parts of senior management, with some individuals unwilling to challenge top leadership even when it would have been constructive to do so. In practice, loyalty appeared to matter more than competence or accountability, which meant that poor performance was often overlooked while others were left to deal with the operational fallout.
Although the company talked a great deal about structure, frameworks, and training, the day-to-day reality was disorganised and messy. Internal communication was poor, cross-team coordination was weak, and critical operational information was not consistently visible to the people who actually needed it. Instead of fixing broken systems, management often responded by introducing even more layers of intervention, which only seemed to make things worse.
My experience around resignation only reinforced these concerns. I was initially asked by top leadership to allow time for changes to be made and to reconsider my decision, only to later be told that a different version of events had been communicated internally. That lack of transparency and alignment was, to me, reflective of the broader culture.
In short:
- Chronic under-resourcing, poor handovers, weak accountability, micromanagement, a highly political leadership culture, poor internal communication, and unclear structures and processes.