Your organization has a culture, whether you know it or not. If you’re not proactively building and shaping your company culture, it’s being created unintentionally. Without a unifying culture, people feel frustrated and disengaged. That will be detrimental to morale, productivity and, eventually, the success of your business.
Discover how leadership affects company culture, the qualities of effective leaders and how to invest in leadership development in this article.
What Is Company Culture?
Your company culture is the natural, normal way employees respond to emergent opportunities and challenges. In addition, company culture includes:
- Predictable employee behavior patterns
- Employee engagement, the atmosphere and the emotional and physical environment
- Ideas, values and unspoken assumptions that guide employee behavior
In a company with a strong, positive culture, everyone from the CEO to the entry-level intern is on the same page, focused on achieving the same goals and empowered by the same values and vision.
Could you get there without leadership? No, because leadership and culture play off one another. Leadership influences company culture, and company culture influences your success as a leader. For example, companies with a culture that’s supportive of leadership development efforts will have more capable leaders. These companies will also have higher employee engagement and a stronger bottom line.
Leadership and Corporate Culture
While every employee plays a role in supporting the company culture, leaders usually have the most potential to influence it. This isn’t always the best way to develop company culture, but the reality is that it often develops from the top down. For that reason, you must be highly conscious of your leadership style and how you practice it. Your employees observe what you say, how you act and how you respond to different situations. You must act, speak and think in accordance with the culture you want to build because others will follow your example.
Leaders must consider how their decisions affect company culture. Do employees respond differently to some leaders than they do to others? As a leader, you will eventually have to make unpopular decisions. But, if you are a strong leader who has built a culture of trust with your employees, it’s much easier to weather any storm with your team intact.
Leadership Fosters Engagement
High employee engagement — where employees care about the work they do — is essential for building a positive company culture. As a leader, there are many things you can do to improve employee engagement.
First and foremost, as a leader, you must “sell” your team on the company’s vision and values by explaining the reasoning behind them and allowing for questions and feedback. When the entire team shares the same perspective and understands how they fit into that vision, engagement will soar.
On the other hand, leadership can also wreak havoc on employee engagement. For example, if your leadership style is to rule by fear, employees will respond accordingly. You will create a culture of fear and distrust and potentially lose employees in the process.
Qualities of Effective Leaders
Leaders have the power to shape the company’s culture for good, but they can only do so if they have the right qualities and skills. Here are some of the most important qualities all leaders need to create a work environment that supports employees and the business.
- Communication: Effective and consistent communication is a core component of leadership, as leaders must clearly and succinctly communicate their goals and provide instructions and feedback for their team. They are also active and intent listeners.
- Visionary thinking: Good leaders have an attainable goal in mind for their team and a plan to accomplish it. They share this vision with every team member, ensure they’re on board and guide them toward success.
- Problem-solving: Problems will always crop up, and leaders need the skills to tackle them head on, find the root cause and develop practical solutions. Leadership is all about making timely and fair decisions.
- Positivity: Good leaders are confident about themselves, their decisions and their teams. They lead with positivity and optimism to inspire others and see challenges and setbacks as growth opportunities.
- Emotional intelligence: Successful leaders are aware and in control of their emotions, particularly in stressful situations and when communicating with others. They can perceive and influence the emotions of those around them and feel empathy and concern for others.
- Adaptability: Effective leaders understand that plans and goals can change unexpectedly. They embrace challenges and can shift their strategies to overcome them. They’re flexible, resourceful and open to new ideas.
Strategies for Developing Strong Leadership
Leaders play a crucial role in developing company culture, but no one becomes a strong leader on their own. To develop effective leaders who promote the company’s vision and inspire employees, you’ll need to invest in leadership training and development opportunities.
1. Mentorship Programs
There’s no better way to learn how to be a strong leader than by witnessing and experiencing it yourself. Leadership mentorship programs provide this opportunity to aspiring leaders by pairing them with experienced professionals who can share the insights and advice they’ve gained over many years. Mentees can actively participate in leadership scenarios and discover how to handle leadership challenges in real-time.
2. Leadership Training Workshops
Many of the key qualities and skills of a good leader can be taught, and training workshops are an effective way to achieve this. Leadership training workshops employ proven models and frameworks backed by extensive research to teach leaders vital skills. They may cover leadership as a whole or target specific competencies that help leaders in their current role or future leadership responsibilities.
3. Feedback Mechanisms for Leaders
Leaders must continually evolve and learn to become the best they can be, but this isn’t possible without feedback. Leaders must actively seek feedback from their teams, peers and superiors to discover their strengths and areas of improvement. In turn, they will promote a culture where feedback is given, accepted and celebrated as a growth tool. The two main feedback mechanisms are surveys and in-person meetings, where employees openly share their opinions, and leaders listen and provide feedback in return. This feedback loop is vital for growth and employee engagement.
Build a Strong Company Culture With The Center for Leadership Studies
Leadership isn’t easy, but because of its impact on your company culture, it’s important that you get it right. Implementing a cohesive leadership strategy and investing in leadership development is the best way to ensure that your leadership impact is a positive one.
At CLS, we understand just how important leaders are to company culture and success, which is why we’ve spent more than 50 years developing our Situational Leadership® Model. This award-winning training model teaches leaders how to match their behavior and leadership style to the individual and circumstance to build trust, improve productivity and drive behavior change.
Contact us to get started today! We’ve trained over 15 million leaders across 35 countries, and we look forward to helping you level up your leadership, too.
APPLICATION CHALLENGE
- Choose three words to describe your company culture. Ask other leaders and employees to do the same. Are you on the same page? What similarities and differences do you see?
- Think of some values on which your company culture is based. Once you’ve decided, review some of your business processes and procedures to determine whether they support or detract from these values.