Improving employee performance and raising the engagement of the workforce requires both strong leadership and a constructive culture. 21st Century Leaders must pave the path for highly-functioning progressive teams to perform. Developing the level of skill to bring out the best in their people and hold accountability for both performance and effective operating behavior, is a primary component of how our leaders will need to spend their time.
Core Values are a solid barometer of any Cultural Alignment initiative. When purposefully selected and mindfully integrated into the organization, Core Values allow both leaders and team members to see, feel and hear how they guide behavior and operating practices. A dictionary definition of Core Values indicates that Core Values are the fundamental beliefs of a person or organization. These guiding principles dictate behavior and can help people understand the difference between right and wrong. Core Values also help companies to determine if they are on the right path and fulfilling their goals by creating an unwavering guide.
The Key with establishing and integrating core values into the organization is selecting the right values; ones that define the type of behavior that you want to see in a healthy, functional organization. The core values become a living and breathing “way to be” in the organization; these values modulate how people interact with one another. The core values inform how problems are solved and how work gets done. You know you have the right core values when the people who work in the organization are inspired by living into those values, and when the behavior and operating practices are aligned with those values and enable the fulfillment of the mission and vision.
Ultimately, it is the Chief Business Leader’s responsibility to shift the culture and raise the level of competency of the leadership team to be in alignment with that culture. The way people are led, the way they interpret their relationship with their boss, and what they witness must be congruent with the spoken core values, operating principles, and mission of the enterprise or effectiveness will not improve.
Elevating corporate culture and improving employee engagement are both tied to raising the level of leadership competency within your organization. Gallup’s recent poll on leadership reported that less than 18% of people in leadership roles actually are qualified to lead. This means that the biggest constraint to improving culture and raising the level of employee engagement within your organization is the lack of leadership ability.
To get people more productive, smart leaders need to create a culture where people are connected to the company mission, vision, and purpose. In addition, they must recognize the employee’s unique contribution to the fulfillment of it. To do that takes up-leveling the leadership acumen of the entire team of business leaders.
Today, up-leveling the leadership team’s ability to actually lead requires a clear assessment of how leadership competencies impact culture. The top leadership competencies that drive culture are encompassed in the following seven leadership categories: Envisioning an Outcome, Understanding Your Supporters, Communicating the Vision, Serving Others, Inspiring Others, Guiding Others and Developing Yourself. Encompassed in these seven categories are multiple underlying competencies that drive leadership performance overall
1. Envisioning an Outcome – Leading begins with realizing and clearly envisioning the overall mission to accomplish. A mission is what is going to happen, not how. Realizing your mission leads to the understanding of where change is required and why it is needed now. It takes initiative and determination to solidify the vision and set goals around its achievement. “Starting with the End in Mind,” as Stephen Covey wrote in The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, is how you point the way for others who can’t see it yet.
2. Understanding Your Supporters – Understanding how your vision satisfies peoples’ perceived needs is crucial to engage them. You must know what changes others are receptive to and ready for. Listening carefully and objectively will ensure that your mission is one that others will embrace. Without followers, you can’t be a leader, and followers will only voluntarily engage in something they think satisfies their needs as well as your goals.
3. Communicating Your Vision – In order to engage people to follow, you must clearly communicate your vision to them. The most powerful movements for change are created by people who have an emotional commitment to the mission and are passionate about it. Therefore, you must be able to communicate with people not just through logical arguments, but in a way that touches them emotionally. You must first have that passion for your mission and to allow others to see your passion. It takes a certain amount of courage to champion a new idea, which by definition, others can’t yet see.
4. Serving Others – People will not chase a difficult dream for very long unless they think it supports their own personal goals. You must ensure that people connect both your vision and your actions with their own goals. They initially chose to follow you because they thought that by helping you they would help themselves. Now that they are engaged, you must work at reinforcing the initial faith they placed in you.
5. Inspiring Others – Embarking on difficult and uncertain journeys requires a special kind of energy in order to continue for the long term. Inspiration draws forth that special energy that can only come from the individual. Therefore, leading others for the long term requires that you are able to recognize and bring this energy. People become inspired when they start believing they have more ability than they thought they did. Therefore, leading includes challenging people to do more than they have before, and empowering them to make efforts that will yield a positive result. Sharing hope and courage will keep people motivated to continue on with the mission, even when it seems like the goal is still a long way off.
6. Guiding Others – In taking action and moving toward completion of your mission and vision, there will inevitably be surprises and unexpected results. A person skilled in leading will continually assess the plan for achieving the stated goals and make course corrections along the way. Part of this process is to test, in the real world, the initial assumptions that were made. Leading requires a focus on the milestones along the way, not only on the long-term mission. Followers require some indication that they are on the right track and this builds confidence in the leader. A leader requires great courage and character to be tenacious about moving forward, and not exhibiting loss of confidence, even in the face of disappointment.
7. Developing Yourself – In order to understand, motivate and lead others, you must first understand yourself. As Chris McCusker, Chairman and CEO of Motorola once said, “Leadership is going first in a new direction – and being followed”. So, before a person can lead others, they must lead the way. This applies to helping people become better. Leaders must practice what they preach and be able to see and develop themselves
If you want to create powerful and compelling core values that enable a humanistic, self-actualizing, high-achievement culture, begin by setting the vision and mission of the enterprise and then start practicing those values directly from the top Leadership. Core values are your pathway to deliver the mission. Contact us today for a free consultation to learn more on how you can improve the engagement of your workforce.