In one word: weird. Leadership culture feels disconnected and performative. Managers often act one way in front of executives and entirely differently with staff: a sign of inconsistent values and poor integrity. There’s little to no mentorship culture; most managers don’t seem interested or equipped to mentor, and instead rely on caricaturing the company values, “optics,” and “perception” when interacting upwards.
There’s no cultural continuity between job sites. It’s a gamble whether you land with a PM who’s solid (usually because they came from somewhere else) or someone who just reinforces the weird status-quo.
The main office recently moved from Miami to Miramar, which management said was to “centralize” it between staff and jobsites… everyone knows they just wanted to cut rent (and save for their self-designed interior renovations, which might be nice if the office wasn’t in the middle of nowhere. It has no foot traffic and requires 20ish employees (mostly based in and hired from Miami) to commute hours to take video calls… day in, day out, the same 20ish employees warehoused in the middle of nowhere taking video calls. Worse yet, after moving to Miramar, the work-from-home policy was cut to “improve culture,” but no mentoring or meaningful interaction actually happens… just weird silence in a painfully open concept office.
Leadership seems uninterested in engaging with or developing the people under them, ironically, considering how hard they championed for the return-to-office policies. Upward mobility is hard to achieve, or really even want, since there are too many middle managers with questionable character as it is. It seems like they’re more interested in trading on politics, scarcity, and the “sorry I’m unavailable, busy, booked, out-of-office, commuting to a client’s office in Miami” look to give the appearance of an authority status. It’s hard to feel inspired or bought into ivory castles. It’s also hard to tell whether they think they’re above mentoring, or just don’t know how to do it. Maybe it’s both. Either way, it adds up to a weird, tone-deaf approach that discourages growth and connection.
This feedback is not solicited or welcome by the new GM, who is very proud of his new role and new office. He’s a nice guy personally, but many do not think he was ready for this role. Power, especially in the middle of nowhere, has a funny way of revealing character. Upper HQ management, good as it may be, is too disconnected due to too many layers of middle management to see what’s going on, especially since all those layers are putting on their best performance for them every time they visit the office. I’m sure this Miami experience is not unique to Miami. Maybe that’s just how corporate life goes.
