MOST CONTACT CENTERS TRY TO SOLVE THIS WITH TRAINING OR COACHING, BELIEVING,“ IF WE JUST TRAIN THEM BETTER, OUR SUPERVISORS WILL LEAD THE WAY WE EXPECT.”
And while AI can help stem drift, as we will see later, there is also the risk that drift will be amplified and accelerated( SEE BOX) if these applications are not deployed correctly.
FROM CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE TO SUPERVISOR EXPERIENCE
In“ Tapping the Power of Culture – Part 1”( Contact Center Pipeline, July 2025), Mark Pereira offered a powerful reminder: cultural intelligence [ cultural quotient ]( CQ) is the difference between connection and confusion.
His article walked us through real-world agent interactions where culture reshaped the outcome of a call. The same principle applies to the employee experience.
The moment a supervisor delivers feedback, runs a huddle, or escalates an issue, they are not just executing a task. They’ re impacting the employee experience and company culture.
And in a world of remote, diverse, and high-pressure teams, leading with CQ consistently is not an entry-level skill. It ' s an advanced one: and it requires a system, not just hope and memory.
You can ' t expect trust to form evenly if what " good leadership " looks like depends on which supervisor you’ re assigned to. This is where most organizations unintentionally fall short, because until now, they ' ve never had a way to make consistency stick.
That ' s the purpose of an Execution System. When CQ doesn’ t consistently show up in how supervisors lead, it’ s not just a missed opportunity: it’ s evidence of drift.
DRIFT ISN’ T A STYLE PROBLEM. IT’ S A SYSTEM PROBLEM.
When leaders are inconsistent, it’ s easy to blame " style " or " personality." We say,“ She’ s a natural communicator” or“ That team just clicks.” But the reality is more troubling: the leadership behind those outcomes comes from outdated methods, habits, and tribal knowledge.
Every supervisor interprets expectations differently based on their past experiences:
• One leads how a previous boss taught them.
• Another leads by memory and principles.
• A third leads by instinct.
None are trying to negatively impact the employee experience, but that’ s exactly what happens because of the inconsistency.
What looks like“ style” is often just variation with consequences. A coaching conversation on one team feels empowering. The same coaching on another feels punitive. One supervisor follows up on engagement surveys. Another dismisses them as corporate noise.
And because this variation is rarely visible in a dashboard, it gets normalized. If the experience of being coached, supported, or corrected depends on who your supervisor is, you’ re not scaling leadership. Instead, you’ re scaling variation. That’ s supervisor drift: and it’ s silently shaping your retention, engagement, and performance.
MOST CONTACT CENTERS TRY TO SOLVE THIS WITH TRAINING OR COACHING, BELIEVING,“ IF WE JUST TRAIN THEM BETTER, OUR SUPERVISORS WILL LEAD THE WAY WE EXPECT.”
WHY TRAINING AND COACHING AREN’ T ENOUGH
Most contact centers try to solve this with training or coaching, believing,“ If we just train them better, our supervisors will lead the way we expect.” But drift proves otherwise. It happens with new and tenured leaders alike.
New supervisors drift because they’ re undersupported. They complete training, but in the heat of the day, they fall back on:
• What they think their manager wants.
LEADERSHIP
• What they saw another supervisor do.
• What worked when they were an agent.
• Whatever gets them through the next shift.
It’ s not that they have forgotten their training; it’ s that there’ s no system to guide them.
Tenured supervisors drift for the opposite reason: they’ re habitual. They’ ve been through multiple training programs and shifting priorities, so they fall back on what feels familiar and psychologically safe:
• The routines they learned from a favorite boss.
• What worked last quarter.
• What they’ ve seen over time on how to stay out of trouble.
Without reinforcement, even high-performing supervisors start leading based on memory and habit— not aligned with current expectations. Coaching helps, but it’ s often too late and too inconsistent, reinforcing their way of leading, not your way.
If your supervisors are still inconsistent after being trained and coached, don’ t ask,“ What else do they need to learn?” Ask,“ What are we doing to guide and reinforce the right leadership behaviors every day?”
THE FONE FACTORS: HIDDEN FORCES BEHIND SUPERVISOR DRIFT
If supervisors are still inconsistent after training, you have an execution problem, not a knowledge or competency problem. Without reinforcement systems, leadership behaviors don’ t stick. This is because your supervisors are human, and no one is immune from the“ FONE Factors.” These are the four internal forces behind supervisor drift, causing leaders to stray from your expectations even when they think they ' re leading the right way.
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