My Thoughts on Leadership & Culture Building

I am writing this based on my recent one-on-one coaching/mentoring with our team. People get burnt out, some look for new opportunities, or some just get derailed from team culture.  

To be honest, I have a love-hate relationship with leadership. But because I have a passion to run an organization and to help our customers & team, it\’s my job to love leadership and it is my job to align teams and ask about their well-being.

I have been trying to lead teams since I started hiring employees back in 2002. I never had any formal training about leadership and I don\’t remember that this was taught in school.  

Regardless, here is my take about leadership & a bit of culture building in the past 20 years of running an organization.

I want them to be more successful than me.   Most of our employees are programmers. When I talk to them, I try to give them paths that they can take as a technical person. I tell them my back story of how I started as a programmer, my inspirations, my challenges over the years, and my success stories.  

If they are entrepreneurial, then I allow them to be involved in the business model aspect of the organization. If they are inclined to lead a team, then I promote them right away to a leadership role or provide them the autonomy to do product innovation.

In any case, my mindset when I engage with them is to show them what I have accomplished and then inspire them to surpass what I did within the company.

Be Humble As a leader, the old notion is power. Some of us are tempted to overuse power. I believe it has to do with ego. It may work short-term, but it will never work long-term. I remove the ego, I let them criticize me and evaluate me and we adjust together accordingly.

Be Honest.  I try not to hide company challenges. I tell them when we don\’t meet our KPIs or company goals but I am being honest when I tell them that I positive that we will do better next quarter.

To me, people get motivated when you ask for their help to meet our next milestone.

Focus on Strategies Doing the leg work as a leader may help the organization but may derail the company in the overall goal. It is my job to balance things out and oversee essential matters on a high level.

More Than Profits Whether they believe it or not, I am honest when I tell our people that it is not about money. It is about living our purpose as an organization and preserving our core values. I learned this from the book I read circa 2004, Built to Last by Jim Collins and I still practice it up to now. I tell our people how I feel fulfilled when I see our clients happy with our products and services and how I feel frustrated when they are not. If I feel demotivated to work, I only think of our customer\’s faces when they see the realize results of our project, then I get up right away.

Positive Energy.  I avoid negative confrontations and I promote positive energy. I always give them changes and the benefit of the doubt.

Leaders have different perspectives on leadership\’s true meaning, but the most basic mindset is knowing that it\’s not all about you. People think that leadership is your people serving you but a true leader is someone who serves his/her people. 

It is a fact that other business elements won\’t matter without someone\’s good leadership. Strong leaders that have values and principles help to boost productivity in the workplace, achieve the goals they have set, and contribute to the growth of their employees. 

With all this talk on leadership, we move now to culture building in your company or organization. A leader should be able to establish a culture that you and your employees can live out to create a good atmosphere and avoid any toxic behavior in the workplace.

Any group that is put together creates a culture and it\’s important that you align with everyone with what kind of culture you have in your organization. Every person has their own unique worldview and the way they see the world combines with those of others to create the culture of the group. 

Creating a culture starts with your core values and clear conversations between you and your people to define the culture. You have to be the one to clarify every aspect of this culture because there are different perspectives involved. 

Building a culture doesn\’t happen overnight. Everyone\’s principles and their own cultures they live by can be deeply rooted in them and some will find it difficult to adjust. All it takes is perseverance and efforts by everyone to have a meaningful culture in the organization. 

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