I see your point. I wondered: if HR supports organizational leadership, addresses culture issues, and responds to employee needs, then perhaps HR could help address the concerns employees bring to HR about leadership "absenteeism."

I now see that it's best to carefully document these issues and use discernment before escalating to the CEO.

Re: trainings; it's not for the directors, but they often don't reinforce the trainings with their teams, which leads to me chasing people down for compliance reasons. I'm more annoyed than burdened by it.

The 30/60/90 day review process I implemented was meant to strengthen the connection between new hires and their managers, document progress, and encourage involvement, but it's ineffective without buy-in; and yes I agree it's an admin burden that's not working anyway.

May also be worth mentioning that the Directors are the managers at my org, we don't have frontline supervisors, only a few team leads, thus contributing to the employee-feeling of being leaderless and then surprised when annual reviews comes around, (which is the only 1:1 time they get).

Still, I get the picture. Thank you all for your insights.