Matt Auron believes that culture change in business need to start with the leader and go deep.
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Warren Bennis, one of the founders of the field of leadership development, says, “Leadership is about becoming more of yourself… it’s just that simple… and just that difficult.” Oftentimes executives and managers walk around the office, shake their head at results, or lament behind closed doors that their team or organization isn’t executing. Many have a long list of things to attribute the current state to. Sometimes they reflect on their organization’s culture: the subtle web of behaviors, rituals, symbols and processes. And even more rarely, they reflect on how they personally drive and role model the actions and reactions that make up culture.
Culture experts Edgar Schein to Carolyn Taylor argue that the largest driver and determinant of culture is leadership–the Chiefs, the Queens and Kings, the parents of the organization–and as they go, so goes the organization. Many organizational cultures are literally created as extensions of the leader’s personality, both the wonderful and healthy aspects as well as the flip side. Examples of this phenomenon include many iconic companies today, such as Apple, Southwest Airlines, Oracle and Salesforce. These are companies whose leaders’ way of being deeply imprinted the operational DNA of the business.
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Culture is driven from the depths of an organization’s essence, driven through aligned actions that ultimately create results. It is no different in the life of an individual. A helpful way of thinking about this is the BE-DO-HAVE framework. A leader’s internal values, mindsets and mental models determine what action they take, which then create their results. Who they are drives what they do, which results in what they have. The challenge is that most people in general–including leaders–stop at the “do” level of self-examination. They think that if they just learn to do something different that all of their results will change. Stopping at the action level of change is not enough.
The first step in this journey for a leader is getting clear on individual credo and core values. Credo is something that forms the core of personal credibility, and Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner (who have compiled over 25 years of leadership research) say credibility is maybe the most foundational thing a leader can have. Values serve as a decision rubric and guide how to show up. This is BE level clarity. In this leaders also need to know their shadow side–the hidden and repressed motivations that unconsciously drive behavior–and take accountability for them. Shadow drives often show up as the need for control, aggression, jealousy, shame, and duplicity. All people, leaders included, have shadow sides. Many of those same iconic companies leaders are known for their shadows as much as anything else. Getting clear on credo, values and shadows allows leaders to begin to making plans to create actions and processes that align and reinforce the results the organization wants to “have.”
Another temptation of high-performance leaders is to being a change effort on fixing others. This is also the wrong place to start. Any meaningful organizational change effort, especially a culture change, begins with the leader and/or leadership team. This individual or group of individuals must take the difficult time to reflect on the following questions.
- Who am I? (Or who are we?)
- What do I want to achieve? (Or what do we want to achieve?)
- What are my values? (Or what are our values?)
- How can I lead from a place of values clarity? (Or how can we lead from a place of values clarity?)
- What am I role modeling and not? (Or what are we role modeling and not?)
- What is the shadow side of my behavior that I need to confront and own? (Or what is our shadow side of our behavior that we need to confront and own?)
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“The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture.”
-Edgar Schein
Creating space for reflection on a regular basis is both helpful and critical. This can start by assessing current results. Leaders can use quantitative measurements, such as an engagement survey or a 360-degree feedback report that gives insight to the state of the individual, the team or the organization. This work can also come from an “intuitive sense” that things are off and deep reflection is necessary. The leader may need to come to grips with unhealthy values or shadowy beliefs that drive counterproductive behaviors. By understanding what lies in the depths an individual can make the choice to adopt and integrate a different or more positive or helpful set of values or beliefs. It may just mean seeing an issue from another perspective. By going deep and doing the difficult work a leader can influence and role model different ways of being and acting, thereby forging a new culture.
This is the journey of a lifetime, to “know thyself” and the choose impact we have on others. It is seductive to blame culture on someone or something else. It’s far more difficult for a leader to see their own role in the challenge they’re attempting to overcome. Yet all leaders know that their success starts with them–who they are and how they show up. Culture improvement starts with leader improvement.
Photo credit: Flickr/Sukanto Debnath