The best leaders embrace the responsibility of driving their culture.
They understand that driving a culture is something that they cannot delegate if they expect to have and maintain a thriving and positive culture. Leaders and leadership skills evolve as the organization, people and environment change.
Therefore, as the leader, you must consistently be present and engaged with the people in the organization and the clientele you serve. This type of approach provides critical insight and develops the relationships that are necessary for you to have the pulse of the organization and its people in both good and bad times.
Leaders, coaches as well as members of an organization or team must have a certain set of traits to create a strong culture. One of these traits we talk about with leaders is curiosity.
Leaders and leadership skills evolve as the organization, people and environment change.
Leaders must be curious.
This trait provides a means to build relationships, resource your organization and truly understand the challenges, needs and mindset of your employees, players and or clients.
Leadership is not reserved for those who sit at the top, each and every member of a team or organization can lead and contribute to a culture. Its not as complicated as many theorists or practitioners make it seem to create and in turn drive a positive culture.
It can be as simple as exercising curiosity and asking a few key questions.
The ideas and questions I am sharing with you are open ended. I am not going to provide the answers to the questions that great leaders pose and consider. Rather, I am challenging you to think about what answers truly lead to a thriving culture and valued people. Then consider what steps you would take to create a culture you aspire to.
1. What or who is most important to you in your organization? Rank in priority order.
- Bottom Line- Sales, Revenue, Wins
- Clients, Customers
- Employees, Team (Players)
2. Do you want to be the best organization or the most successful organization for people to be part of?
3. If you asked 3 members of your organization to provide a solution to a problem, which direction would you go if each came back with a solution that would address the problem, BUT:
- Each solution is different from what your approach would be.
4. Which model of leadership aligns with your organizations approach?
- The collective group works to resource key leaders to execute at a high level.
- Leaders work to resource the collective group to execute at a high level.
The answers to these questions provide you all the information you need to understand critical aspects of your current culture.
We ask these questions of CEO’s, Managers, and Coaches before then synthesizing the answers to support these leaders in creating the culture they aspire to that is both positive and sustainable.
There are no right or wrong answers, just insights into the type of culture you as a leader have fostered.
If you have interest in learning more about how we help leaders evaluate their culture through these questions or would like to discuss the answers you came up with to these questions, let us know!
Source: Jim Stagnitta, President of 360 DEVELOPMENT™ part of Destination Athlete®