Great team culture is something every leader strives for. You cannot create or modify your organization’s culture — you can only fuel it through the systems you develop. For instance, new processes and structures for long-term business challenges, such as revamping outdated business models or strategies, lead to cultural change.
At the heart of a successful organization lies a culture that is supported by strategy and structure and based on widely shared beliefs. An organization’s culture determines three things — how the top management wants the employees to respond in every situation, what the proper response is, and how the employees will be rewarded for demonstrating the organization’s values.
Here are six key ingredients for creating a culture of action.
Sitting in a corner office and delegating tasks is easy, but there is much more to successful leadership than that. Proper management has a significant impact not only on the team members but also on the entire organization. Great leaders make their employees happier, more productive, and more committed to the company.
Additionally, they strive to create a high-performance culture and increase productivity. They empower their employees, engage in open communications, bond with them, teach them instead of just giving orders, and encourage personal and professional growth.
Each company must set a clear performance management process. During this process, managers and employees need to monitor performance, set goals, and assess results. More importantly, they must be capable of evaluating employees’ performance and contributions to business goals fairly.
No matter how finely crafted your objectives are, they won’t have any real impact if they’re buried for 363 days in a drawer. Using goals as a framework throughout the year for guiding key decisions and activities is crucial. Setting and evaluating goals quarterly instead of annually is a better way to drive performance and improve future results.
It’s vital to set realistic and attainable goals. While ambitious goals are great, we shouldn’t aim for the impossible ones. For example, increasing your company’s revenue by 20% for the year is difficult to achieve if you only look at it at year end. Consider breaking out the goal to quarterly objectives – a 12 month goal is difficult for your team to be constantly motivated and focused on that goal for that long a time. Frequent targets also help the employees with feedback to see how their actions are impacting their goals. Burnout, missed deadlines, low morale, and high employee turnover are possible consequences of setting goals that are too ambitious.
In addition, your objectives should reflect your company’s values. You won’t be motivated to succeed when your goals don’t align with your values. Of course, for this to work, you must know what your values actually are.
A great leader is always there for their team members. In case of any problem, a leader can help the team or individual get back on track by identifying the root cause or symptom of a problem and helping them fix it.
On the flip side, sometimes they should try solving the problem on their own. Encourage team members to brainstorm and suggest their own solutions instead of imposing them. You can empower your team to think creatively and develop their confidence by giving them space to find the right solution and propose new ideas.
If your people are not motivated, they will not achieve their full potential, regardless of how much expertise they possess. Therefore, motivating and empowering them should always be on top of your list.
The only way to inspire your team is to tell them why they are doing what they are doing. Be sure your employees understand your vision and your ultimate goals. Having a clear idea will motivate everyone to work together toward success. This vision should also serve as a framework for setting measurable and clear objectives that will help you and your team stay on track.
To create and cultivate a culture of action, every leader needs to focus on a few things. One of them is establishing accountability as a core principle. This way, you will make sure all employees make commitments that they can adhere to. Also, all the employees must be in the loop regarding the set goals. Knowing the strategic plan will help them make more effective job-related decisions that can contribute to the success of your organization.
In addition, the leader must empower team members through communication. This refers to clarifying the goals, plans, roles, and responsibilities. As a result, communication will be more focused and effective.
Finally, the leader should build trust through transparency. Creating a culture of openness promotes cooperation and ensures that potential problems are communicated and solved before they become major issues.
We all want good, competent managers and leaders who inspire, motivate, and value us. However, in reality, studies have found that 75% of Canadians believe their bosses are among the most stressful aspects of their jobs and the number one reason why they want to leave. It is crucial to address poor leadership qualities in order to improve company performance and employee retention.
Still, the mistakes leaders make usually keep them up at night. They mostly falter due to a lack of knowledge, poor habits, work overload, or too much stress. However, interacting incorrectly with others is the most common and damaging mistake. Supervisors who belittle their direct subordinates are widely known to cause poor job performance, mistakes, job migration, and decreased team morale. In some cases, such behaviours can even harm workers’ health.
Another issue arises when leaders don’t know how to prioritize tasks and want to do them all at once. They usually want to accomplish more than a company is capable of, which is why they push its capacity to the limit by overburdening the employees. When the employees have too much on their plate, all the tasks will likely be done poorly. Once again, if everything is important, then nothing is important.
Leadership is similar to talent — even though you can easily recognize it, you may have difficulty defining it. Several factors contribute to this, including the fact that not all great leaders govern in the same way or have the same experience. Some put the work-life balance and employee satisfaction on a pedestal, while others put a lot of pressure on their teams. Some are hands-on, while others delegate to a great extent.
However, these leaders don’t manage people and teams based solely on intuition. They also rely on the iterative process with many attempts, mistakes, and triumphs until they find their style. After all, what Vince Lombardi said is true — great leaders aren’t born; they’re made.
Exceptional leaders can be identified easily. They are great communicators, empathetic, risk-takers but not reckless, capable of influencing others, and understandable of a multi-generational workplace. These people are also not afraid to empower the individuals they lead with a bit of vision and purpose.
Leaders demonstrate a unique blend of charisma, vision, and character traits that make them compelling to follow. Ultimately, as they exhibit the qualities and traits of leadership, they become the kind of person others want and choose to follow. Thus, if you want to spot a leader, look at the number of their followers.
In order to govern others successfully, leaders must attract people who want to follow them. Suppose a leader guides their team confidently in the right direction, with clearly communicated desired outcomes. In that case, employees are more likely to feel empowered and enabled to contribute to the organization’s success. After all, a leader who is open to seeing the social cues can easily notice if people consider them a good leader and if they are willing to follow them or not.
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