"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” ~ Edith Wharton

Question: A question for the Regulatory Consultants and C-Suite Leadership: Since the creation of the CFPB, how many potential "Warning Letters" have been sent?

Answer: According to the information published on the CFPB webpage - 7. Since 2012.

Yep . . .

The CFPB has sent a total of 7 Warning Letters, with the last letter being dated, 10/27/2016.

Why is this noteworthy occurrence?

Well, let me answer with a question: "Would you drive a car or truck that was sold absent any warning lights? You would not be able to see when you were running out of gas, your water temperature was high, your oil pressure was dropping, your battery was losing a charge, and so forth?"

Of course not.

So then logically what basic assumptions might we conclude about a regulatory agency's agenda' with unbridled power, that stops sending warning letters?

As I always tell my clients, "I learned everything I know about life in Sniper School."

The larger concern for our industry is this, "What happens to the companies, when their leaders can no longer see the signs on the horizon or read the signs of an impending storm?

The CFPB is deadly serious regarding their agenda.

It's a fact, and the C-Suite leaders and their 3-Party Regulatory Consultant's need to get on their game.

In my opinion, it's the front-line FTEs, and middle managers who see what is going sideways before anyone else. The middle managers may catch issues, or they may not. The determining factor is this, "Is there a corporate culture/environment of empowerment, and collaboration, or not."

Are you certain that your front-line folks are empowered to escalate concerns when they see them?

With all this in mind let's consider the following:

One of the biggest yet perhaps underrated factors in a company's corporate culture and individual well-being is our workplace environment. To many of us, the workplace has become essentially a second home, even the main home for many of us workaholics.

When relationships in the workplace become a source of stress for people, that stress can take a larger toll than we initially realize. Accordingly, a workplace structure that emphasizes a positive company culture is crucial. Our industry's workplace culture is still growing in its understanding in terms of awareness or prioritization of these wellness issues. The bottom line vs. a work-life balance is always a balancing act. And obviously leadership or the lack thereof is one of the most important factors in setting the tone for a workplace’s culture.

Leadership can also be one of the major causes of stress in the workplace, when a leader displays certain behaviors and characteristics that contribute to a negative, even hostile working environment. The following traits and behaviors are warning signs for leader to take note of:

1. Unwillingness to listen to feedback: Leadership is about leading people, which includes listening to those on the front lines, those at different levels of management, and all of their meaningful concerns. Some leaders unfortunately emphasize their own desires and ideas at the expense of any receptivity or openness to what those who work with them have to offer.

A continued unwillingness to hear or respond to concerns meaningfully can lead to many conflicts and problems down the line, as well as employee dissatisfaction, resentment, and attrition.

2. Excessive self-promotion and self-interest: While it is important for leaders to provide guidance and clear goals to their employees, it should not be at the expense of any other goal except their own self-advancement. Narcissism has its limits; employees can easily detect when they are viewed more as pawns than people, and when the leader’s goals do not seem to relate to anyone else’s beyond their own naked self-interest. No one likes someone who never tries to share.

3. Lying and inconsistency: Nothing undermines a leader more than backtracking or shuffling on rules or guidelines they set up for their employees. This is not to say there shouldn’t be any room for flexibility or amendment on established protocols or procedures at a workplace, but those potential changes should be part of organized dialogue and reasonable consensus around a core of consistent philosophies and principles, communicated clearly and directly to everyone.

When leaders create secret sets of rules for different parties or make things up or waffle as they go along without any genuine discussion, conflict, and resentment can build and brew. Dishonesty always poisons morale and nearly always comes to light.

4. Lack of moral philosophy: Leaders need to have a guiding ethical core that informs their decisions and how they decide to prioritize and work with the people around them. They need to care about values like honesty, equity, fairness, and empathy.

Sometimes these values can run directly in the face of other priorities. But in the end, a lack of ethics often leads to corruption and a human cost when people are thrown under the bus or even thrust into legal jeopardy. Ultimately, their chickens may come home to roost.

5. Rewarding incompetence and lack of accountability: Leaders can sometimes be so disconnected as to refuse to see toxic or incompetent employees also poisoning the workplace around them, even if the leaders themselves are not engaging in those behaviors directly. If employees see a leader ignore or even reward and protect bad behavior, their morale and dissatisfaction will foment accordingly, and they will understandably blame the leader for their negative colleague’s running amok.

6. Lack of general support and mentoring: Leaders can sometimes be negative through indifference; if they don’t take time to nurture or help others under them develop their own career tracks or paths for future development, employees will feel stagnant and will also not work to their full potential.

Opportunities for mentoring need to be communicated and distributed fairly—and not cherrypicked for grooming members of “the old boys’ club” only. Employees can easily see when they are picked last for the team in gym.

7. Cliquishness: Insecure leaders will often surround themselves with a small cadre of “yes” people who parrot and mirror themselves completely, leaving everyone else to feel like the uncool kids in middle school at best, or in line for the chopping block at worst. Cliquish behavior causes dissent and splitting within an organization, and breeds resentment. General unity and openness of perspectives within an inner circle, and fluidity with all employee levels should be a more harmonious goal.

8. Bullying and harassment: In the worst-case scenario, a leader may become abusive and belittling to people around them, using foul language, threats, or coercion. This behavior should not be condoned at any level of any organization.

Overall, leaders have to be held to a higher standard since they are responsible not just for themselves, but for the people they work together with. They are the ones who have the decision-making power to institute positive and helpful dynamics in the people in a workplace; but sadly, there are many times, past and present, where they choose to use power to just exert their own sense of control or self-serving goals.

That misuse of power can easily trickle down into their employees’ psyches, causing incredible distress, betrayal, anger, and eventually can even lead to mental illnesses like depression, anxiety, and even trauma.

Bottom-line - Our industry's ocean is swarming with Great White Regulatory Sharks. Leaders, managers, etc., who cannot read the weather signs and/or navigate these troubled waters, need to be schooled, mentored or replaced, and quickly.