Leaders and Culture

Posted On: Monday, March 5, 2018

We know that fostering the right culture promotes engagement, nurtures innovation and fuels both purpose and profit. The key word here is “right” culture. It is about the desire to pursue what enables people and financial results to flourish together.

According to the Fortune Magazine commentary on the Best Companies to Work For 2018 list “…it’s the companies that employees say are great workplaces that demonstrate stronger financial performance, reduced turnover, and better customer and patient satisfaction than their peers.” The commentary continues: “Caring and high-trust company cultures with a sense of purpose and clarity are consistently associated with strong revenue and stock performance.”

Great workplaces aren’t about who offers the best perks or highest salaries. The simplest thing leaders at every level can do on the road to creating a great workplace culture is sustaining an environment where employees are and feel respected, valued and supported in doing their best work.

Granted, not rocket science. Yet, it does require that a leader be self-aware, understand his or her impact on others and make it safe to share feedback about what is or isn’t working. All skills that can be developed. And when they aren’t? Well, we’ve seen in far too many recent crises, including at Google, Wells Fargo and Uber, how the absence of respect and inability to navigate conflict or hear bad news in a work environment bring repercussions.

An April 2017 Gallup report indicated there is 21 percent greater profitability from engaged business units: “Organizations have more success with engagement and improve business performance when they treat employees as stakeholders of their own and the company’s future.”

Treating employees as stakeholders means there is a level of engagement between a boss and an employee around finding synergy in what an employee needs to do his or her job well and how and why what they are doing matters (to the business and all its other stakeholders). It is a dialogue that enables work to become more meaningful, taking it from the isolated individual and team silo and connecting it to the whole.
So how do these conversations so fundamental to healthy cultures start and take hold?  They are second nature for some leaders. For those for whom it isn’t, the company’s Human Resource team should be helpful. In addition, key points in two recent leadership books, Radical Candor and Stretch, offer relevant suggestions that can  build better understanding in work relationships affecting the bottom line and engagement. (Radical Candor offers pointers on caring personally and challenging directly; Stretch provides tips on how “to untap the value in front of you.”)

Culture defines what is possible in an organization. It is human nature that with overloaded plates, leaders look for evidence that things are going well, not what isn’t. At least until a red flag is impossible to miss. However, if culture leadership isn’t a top priority and early warning signs are overlooked, untold time, energy and money may be required to fix it while other business goals are derailed.

CEOs need to ask themselves, their team, employees and Human Resources what more they can do on every level to get their culture right: to enable their people and financial results to flourish together.

Not to do so puts all other achievements at risk.

Gael O’Brien is a catalyst for leaders leading with purpose and impact. She is an executive coach with a corporate and public affairs background. Gael is President of Strategic Opportunities Group.

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