Great leaders sow the seeds of culture every day
Organizations (be they companies, nonprofits, churches, etc.) are living organisms made up of people who regularly grow, and change, and where every person comes from a different place and brings with them a unique set of perspectives and opinions.
Your job as a leader is to develop a common culture that attracts the best talent possible and provides them with a platform to do their best work in the most effective way possible.
But culture doesn’t happen by accident.
Great leaders sow the seeds of culture every day.
What exactly does it mean to sow the seeds of culture every day?
It means you show up intentionally every day to set the tone for how people behave and interact in the organization. Your guidance, messages, influence, and input need to reinforce those cultural behaviors and beliefs that you want them to mimic across the organization.
When you show up every day to sow the seeds of culture you help the organization and every individual on the team to build and grow a healthy root stock that will hold everyone together throughout the organization.
There are seven specific requirements for leaders who want to sow the seeds of culture in their organizations:
Trust is foundational - You build trust in an organization by being transparent and by making sure that your words, actions, and decisions are in alignment. Demonstrating consistency in your words and actions is essential.
Clear communication is essential - Organizations thrive on information, and the only way to move information from one point to another in an organization is through effective communication. You reinforce the importance of clear communication by ensuring that people always know where they stand with you and your leadership team. It’s important that you teach your team what it looks like to have tough conversations in a safe and healthy way, and that information is a tool to be shared across the organization.
Open dialogue - Healthy cultures promote open dialogue as a key component of learning and growth. Leaders can encourage open dialogue by inviting it personally when they are sharing information and providing input. By inviting employees and other team members to discuss issues at deep levels, even if and when a perspective varies from your own, you show your team the value of open dialogue. Leaders can also foster open dialogue by creating an environment where feedback happens in the moment instead of only at three or four key times throughout the year. When you create a system where people receive feedback in small bites throughout their regular work this encourages and reinforces the importance of maintaining an open dialogue.
Promote curiosity - Organizations that grow and thrive are those that encourage healthy dissent and challenge the status quo. The linchpin of healthy dissent and challenging the status quo is the promotion of curiosity. When people feel safe to ask the hard questions, to probe ideas so that they are fully understood and exposed for their benefit and their risks, you get better outcomes. Leaders can promote curiosity by encouraging people to explore all of the perspectives and options when discussing an issue, and by giving people the latitude to challenge ideas without fear of reprisal or punishment.
Inspire courage - Leaders can inspire courage by facing challenges head-on. By not hiding from difficult situations and not trying to shift blame to others or to external forces when you make a mistake. Celebrate efforts and attempts that your people make, even when they don’t deliver expected results. Leaders can also inspire courage by helping your people regularly share about their mistakes, learn from them, and broadcast those learnings all across the organization.
Cultivate a growth mindset - The most effective way to cultivate a growth mindset is to help your people develop a sense of appreciation for the process instead of focusing solely on the outcome. This means that pursuing excellence is more important that achieving excellence. It means that in sales, the activities are encouraged more than the outcomes. That doesn’t mean that outcomes don’t matter to your organization. They’re still essential. But when the leader celebrates, reinforces, and measures the activities and the process instead of solely the outcomes, it helps your people understand what is essential to delivering results. And that the constant pursuit of goals is essential in cultivating a growth mindset.
Reinforce the vision and values - There is no better way to point your people to the culture you want to see them emulate than to regularly remind them of your vision and values. Those are the north star in your organization. If you aren’t focused on those, sharing and reminding your people of them regularly, you’ll get off course quickly. Your vision and values are like a compass. They direct your path to achieving your long-term goals. If you don’t follow them, you’ll end up somewhere you didn’t intend, and you likely won’t even realize it until you get there and see that it’s not what you expected.
Accelerate Your Leadership Impact in 90-Days
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