How can you shape organizational culture as a leader?

If "culture eats strategy for breakfast" ??, then the part of culture that matters to you is collective behavior. How people do things around here. Do they operate in silos? over-analyse? exercise pocket vetoes? All these are negative cultural issues, but they're also collective habits. In this respect, a clear and compelling vision is a filter through which you strain out the bad habits and reinforce the good ones. Then, communicate good habits consistently in the context of the vision.

I would add to this section as you want to share a “compelling vision” to take into consideration other’s ideas that may extend/enrich the vision by bringing innovative ideas.

The best leaders are those who "walk the talk." On too many occasions, I've seen leaders fall into the trap of "do as I say, not as I do." When a new initiative or program rolls out, some executives mistakenly decide they're too busy to participate--they've done their job strategizing, organizing, and funding these initiatives. However, real leaders recognize the power of leading by example and modeling the desired behavior they're trying to inspire. It can be a simple decision to hold themselves accountable to a new policy or take time out of their busy schedules to join a training session. Everyone notices these simple actions, and it reinforces how important the new programs or behaviors are to them.

This is the most important step and it often gets skipped. Once you know your organizational values, you need to translate them to the specific behaviors, habits, norms and rituals that exemplify those values. Otherwise, they're just words on a poster or website. And then you HAVE to start making the changes at the top - including yourself. If you're not modeling these changes from the top down, your culture will never change.

The quickest way to kill a strategy with culture is to NOT model and reinforce your values. As a leader, you have to not only talk the talk, you have to walk the walk.

The trouble with the word empowerment: it tends to be a pleasantly cloaked instruction. "I empower you... to do this task." It's a weaselly word that ends up in a lot of value and credo documents "our employees are empowered" and has little to do with the reality on the ground. A better question to ask is what behaviors do we have, (collectively) that stifle autonomy? What hinders people from speaking up? How do we keep people aligned (against our strategy) and still give them freedom of movement. It's often small, subtle signals from leaders that belay the empowerment message.

This of course represents psychological safety at its very best. Invite others to name and define 4 norms or standards that they will not violate...for any reason. The process is just as important as the output.

The dichotomy of diversity is that you want diversity of thinking--different perspectives, backgrounds, experiences, and identities do add value. Then you want to execute. For this, you want all those diverse people, opinions, and ways of doing aligned and engaged against shared goals and objectives. So, the trick: hire people who are not in your image, but share the same purpose and values (cultural fit). Be clear on moments for brainstorming, autonomy, diverse thinking, disagreement, and equally focused on execution.

Bringing people from different backgrounds together is crucial for checking and confirming the company's next big moves. A strong team should have diversity to work well together and avoid unnecessary competition. Additionally, having a diverse team can benefit leaders too, as it helps them find common motivations and understand various viewpoints better.

As a learning activity that elevates diversity talk about 4-5 unconscious biases that too frequently get in the way of inclusive conversations. Each team member names the bias they tend to be more culpable of, and shares this with their colleagues for accountability.

Stories shape culture. They create a shared context. Here are five things you can do: ?? Host fireside chats where leaders share stories about pivotal moments in their careers. We learn lessons from stories. ?? Produce short films of employees narrating how they live the values, this is a powerful way of translating the formal into the informal. ?? Launch a storytelling competition inviting people to share their proudest moments. Stories connect people to purpose. ?? Have monthly town halls starting with a customer success story. Stories make the mission real. ??? Share origin stories and history of the company during onboarding. Stories build belonging.

Here are some of the key changes that must take place: Performance tracking needs to stop focusing on individual contribution and start focusing on team contribution Leadership objectives need to stop focusing on delegating responsibility and start focusing on influencing effective teamwork Performance metrics need to stop focusing on output/productivity and start focusing on increasing a ‘Culture of Belonging’