Successful leaders recognise their culture is the cornerstone on which performance rests both at the organisational level, the individual level and that starts from the process of selecting a new hire. Corporate culture needs to be a key strategic priority at the executive level, not delegated to the responsibility of human resources to determine but rather across the entire business to drive and be committed to corporate culture change.
Although executive leaders are the primary, though not sole drivers of culture, the failure rate to consider how their actions, or inactions, contribute to the prevailing culture is very high. Senior executive teams need to explore how individuals behave as leaders, how the executive teams function, then flowing down to the next level of leaders. Many leaders fall into the trap of lack of commitment to culture change, either lacking the capacity or desire for reflection.
The lack of introspection on behalf of executives leads to a gap in management effectiveness between the executives and performance of the organisation.
Research shows on the one hand that those who achieve 3% average revenue growth are characterised by their connection to others, international experience, a core set of skills and a fit for purpose education, however on the other hand fails to detail how leaders achieve above average growth results.
It is suggested that’s where corporate culture becomes the missing link. Successful leaders focus on enabling a culture that encourages the best from their workforce. Developing a culture of common values and expectations increases overall performance of their people which ultimately leads to growth. An example of this is Netflix whose detailed values statement creates a cohesive corporate culture within the workforce focused in the same direction that produces results.
