Anne Krog Iversen is the Co-founder, Chief DNA & Culture Officer at TimeXtender.
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Effective leadership is the cornerstone of every organization. Without the vision and motivation it provides, workplace culture can flounder. It becomes challenging to foster direction, alignment and commitment, hindering progress and limiting the potential to make a significant impact.
Nurturing a leadership culture is essential for long-term sustainable success. By evaluating your organization’s prevailing leadership practices, you can identify areas of improvement, develop strategies to enhance leadership effectiveness and create an environment that inspires individuals.
3 Types Of Leadership Culture
Before diving into how to assess a leadership culture, it's important to understand what currently exists at your organization. There are three distinct leadership cultures: independent, interdependent and dependent. Each represents a different approach with its own characteristics and dynamics.
1. Independent Leadership
In an independent culture, employees are encouraged to act autonomously and take ownership of their tasks. It's an approach that focuses on individual achievement and self-reliance. The leader is a strong figure who sets goals, then expects employees to meet them without intervention. An independent culture allows employees to be self-driven and creative, which can result in innovative solutions and individual growth.
2. Interdependent Leadership
Collaboration and teamwork are highly valued in interdependent cultures, which focus on strong relationships and leveraging teams' diverse skills and perspectives. The leader fosters a sense of community and encourages open communication. An interdependent culture promotes synergy and strengthens overall team performance.
3. Dependent Leadership
In this culture, the leader holds authority and control over decision-making processes. Employees rely heavily on the leader for guidance and direction, so this culture focuses on following instructions and adhering to protocols. While this can ensure consistent adherence to standards, it may limit creativity and individual autonomy.
While these leadership approaches can seem distinct, workplaces often exhibit a mix of characteristics from each. This is because their effectiveness can vary depending on the organization, industry and situation.
Key Strategies For Assessing Leadership Culture
Understanding how to evaluate your leadership culture involves looking closely and clarifying the principles and expectations for your leaders. When these expectations match your company's main goals, you create a clear way to measure how leaders are doing. It's also important to carefully evaluate whether these principles are being followed across your organization.
Clarify Leadership Principles And Expectations
Start by defining the core leadership values and principles you want to foster. These should align with your organization's purpose and vision, which will help set a clear standard for leadership behavior and performance.
At TimeXtender, we've identified seven leadership principles and differentiators that can help you evaluate culture and identify areas that may need nurturing.
1. Creative Resourcefulness: This highlights leaders’ ability to think outside the box, find innovative solutions and utilize resources.
2. Ownership And Responsibility: These factors reflect leaders' commitment to take ownership of actions, be accountable for outcomes and foster a culture of responsibility.
3. Open, Proactive And Clear Communication: It's vital that leaders promote an environment where communication flows freely, information is shared transparently and trust is nurtured.
4. Initiative, Drive And Focus On Execution: Evaluating this principle will help determine leaders' proactiveness, determination and ability to inspire their teams to achieve goals.
5. Clear Expectations And Structures: Effective leaders emphasize clear expectations and well-defined structures, and they ensure everyone on their team understands their responsibilities.
6. Curiosity: This highlights leaders' willingness to explore new ideas, ask questions and foster continuous learning and improvement.
7. Co-Creation And Planning: This principle reflects leaders' ability to involve teams in decision-making, encourage collaboration and engage in strategic planning to achieve objectives.
By evaluating your leadership culture against these differentiators, you can gain valuable insights into strengths, areas for improvement and overall potential for success.
Evaluate Whether Leaders Are Upholding Principles
Once you've solidified the leadership principles you value, assess whether the current culture and behavior reflect them. This involves observing leaders, gathering feedback from employees at various levels and conducting performance evaluations. Look for signs of effective leadership while also identifying areas of improvement, such as micromanagement, lack of transparency or inadequate decision-making processes.
It can help to examine how well your company’s leaders do with direction, alignment and commitment. I won’t dive deep here, you can ask questions like these:
• How do we achieve agreement on direction?
• How do we coordinate our work so it all fits together?
• How do we maintain commitment to the collective?
Having thorough discussions around direction, alignment and commitment can be greatly beneficial when making necessary, ongoing culture adjustments.
How To Improve Leadership Culture
Improving the leadership culture in your organization is about making positive, incremental change. It's about building trust and making sure everyone feels safe to express themselves. This means looking at how well people communicate and whether things are open and clear. Another important thing is to support ongoing learning and development. Good leaders always try to get better, and they want their teams to improve, too.
Foster Trust And Psychological Safety
Trust and psychological safety are crucial in a healthy leadership culture. Assess where your organization stands on these by examining factors like communication, transparency and employees' willingness to share concerns without fear of reprisal. Encourage leaders to create an environment where diverse perspectives are valued, mistakes are seen as learning opportunities and individuals feel empowered to take risks.
Encourage Continuous Learning And Development
Effective leaders are committed to both personal and team growth. Continuous learning and development strengthen leadership capabilities and foster a culture of growth and innovation. So look at the availability and effectiveness of development programs within your organization. Successful opportunities for enhancing leadership skills include training, workshops, coaching and mentoring.
Leadership is not just individual actions. It’s creating an environment that inspires and empowers. That's why cultivating a strong leadership culture is a process requiring commitment and adaptability. By clarifying values and expectations, evaluating leadership practices, fostering trust and psychological safety and encouraging continuous learning, you can lay a solid foundation for exceptional leadership. This will help pave the way for success by unlocking your organization’s potential to make a meaningful impact.
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