Flamingo reviews about "leadership"

Unfortunately, it’s run as a personal fiefdom and slowly but relentlessly being driven into the ground. Working there can be an esteem destroying experience. Daily life is shaped by petty bureaucracy, tokenistic time wasting initiatives, interspersed by some random acts of nastiness. For an agency that talks so much about culture, it’s sad that its own is so toxic. Progress and reward are often uncoupled from merit. Favourites are lavished with attention from the CEO and promoted rapidly beyond capabilities. Don’t expect hard work or talent to get you ahead. Do bank on sycophantic loyalty. But not too much. Routine purges and spectacular fallings from grace are the norm. Everything is in a constant state of flux. The entire business has been forced through unending rounds of tokenistic action with depressing regularity. Layers of process are dressed up as strategy, with no substance beyond the superficial semblance of industriousness. Even the revolving door of senior staff has become an accepted norm. All of this comes down to the leadership style of the CEO, a mix of paranoia and delusion in equal measure. For a while there were yearly celebrations of her elevation to CEO-ship (once marked by cupcakes featuring her face), forced company-wide Fireside Chats with SLT members ‘spontaneously’ standing up and offering fawning praise. Very little was put down in writing lest the SLT be held accountable. Even mundane policies were rarely shared, resulting in farcical situations such as employees frantically screenshooting slides during company meetings to keep track of the latest process they were meant to be following. All of which is a shame. Flamingo could be a great place to work. But at the moment it isn’t.

Sadly the company is no longer operating.

Poor leadership killed off all the interesting divisions, lack of clear direction,

Incredible talent is pushed out or runs out Toxic working environment lead from top down Working with a painful and inept “Senior Leadership Team” who have managed to rip the guts and heart out of this company and expect you to thank them for it. An utterly tone deaf and inappropriate gifting of a Mulberry handbag from one SLT to the other during a company meeting was a particular highlight. 

Don’t expect: 
A bonus 
Diversity 
Excellence Do expect:
 Some type of breakdown Not to matter if you aren’t in a senior role To be fired if you are a senior hire

The company is run similar to a totalitarian system with a narcissist CEO as its commander. The supposedly flat hierarchy – several teams representing the level of CEO likes and yes-saying by their team members. The senior leadership team’s combination of personality types was retrofitted, based on a free online personality test. Which, going further, everyone else was asked to complete, share, and discuss in their team. Behavioural science - NOT. The senior team changed constantly, and so did the strategy and business proposition - actually there was never one, but a lot of talk that there would be one. There was also a lot of talk about accountability - it was expected from the bottom, never from the top. And so was excellence - senior leadership failed to inspire and truly lead, again and again, and again. Senior Leadership has failed to take a business with a good reputation and plenty of potential to new heights. The business is on a downward spiral and it will be only a matter of time Flamingo’s clients will realise they bought into a lot of smoke and mirrors. Don’t touch it - there are many agencies out there, where you will be able to do great work, rather than having to deal with the consequences of bad, toxic leadership and lack of vision on a daily basis!

Very stressful and little support from leadership