Sick Management Culture Induces Pukey Organization

Management culture or workplace culture has been emphasized here and there in businesses and corporations, including those in my town.
Defining or describing the management culture at Volunteers of America, Wyoming-Montana, with offices in Sheridan, Wyoming, is slightly less easy than nailing Jello to a tree.
Maintaining the image of the organization has taken over the management style of the CEO and one of his VP’s such that anything of real concern or value must pass muster with the organization’s image. Even their image of the community’s image of them is distorted.
In this kind of culture, it is no wonder that valid questions about the treatment of vulnerable people at their homeless shelter would lead to defense and denial. It is not possible in their wildest dreams that they have a shelter director who shreds people like no-longer-needed documents.
“Bad things just don’t happen in this organization,” I can hear the CEO beaming at his leadership team all cherubic and artificially comfortable.
I attended a leadership retreat of VOA, and should have known then that the shelter director’s take-charge, interrupt and mow-down style had some sort of validating source. When you ask someone to give a presentation to the group, you shouldn’t interrupt them and help them make their points. When someone raises a concern, you should not turn your back on them and treat them as though they had not spoken.
His veep is worse. I will never forget the forgettable meeting we had with him in Buffalo where he spent a good 20 minutes telling us we were not a non-profit organization, but a not-for-profit one. (I may have reversed these, as the nonsensical blathering never quite solidified in my head.) While there is a distinction in the terms, we were forced to watch and listen as he slowly descended into lunacy. You get used to that after a while.
The integrity of an organization starts at the top and is directed by administration. Integrity asks what part of your organization melts like wax when heat is applied. Integrity asks whether you comply with all protocols for certification in all of your programs; do you comply with the demands and expectations of grantors who provide you funding; do you know where the men’s room is in the shelter you supposedly operate.Or, do you prefer to look like you are in charge and hoist your ego onto the table in front of you, which blocks your view of the valid perspectives of others.
The answer is obvious from an organization that does not train its staff to certification standards, does not comply with grantor expectations, and says it serves the homeless, when instead it floods the streets of Sheridan with people who have been kicked out rather than assisted, and placed on the “Not-Welcome-Back” list rather than given a toe hold on hope.
The easiest and best way to appear to be a good organization is simply to be one. VOA has lost its way thanks to its management culture and “creative” integrity.