Road-mapping Sustainable Leadership #26 #cong21
Synopsis:
Leadership is a key influence on maintaining and developing an organisation’s culture. A company’s inspiration and drive must filter down from its leader to its people who operate at the “coal face”. There are a number of proficient leadership capabilities that serve to underpin a corporate culture. But can leaders stay at the top of their game by intentionally road-mapping their leadership journey and then consciously maintaining that journey? Yes – provided they constantly self- examine and self-calibrate four major elements: Knowing themselves, Managing themselves, Growing themselves, Awareness of, and working with others.
Total Words
1,045Reading Time in Minutes
4
Key Takeaways:
- Leaders can stay at the top of their game by intentionally road-mapping their leadership journey and then consciously maintaining that journey.
- Leaders need to constantly self-examine and self-calibrate four major elements: Knowing themselves, Managing themselves, Growing themselves, Awareness of, and working with others.
- Building a conscious and enduring bridge between the leader’s constantly shifting potential and opportunities requires self-calibrated awareness, alignment, resilience and deep tapping into authentic self.
- With the above in place a leader gives him or herself the best possible chance to endure and set ongoing examples.
About Simon Haig
The Growth Strategist. CEO of GCM Consulting Limited & Simonhaigh.com
Through his Ireland, UK and Australia based company GCM Advisory, and operating as simonhaigh.com, Simon helps organisations and leaders unlock, build and sustain business, leadership, brand and mindset growth through his coaching, consulting, training, publications, speaking and e-learning programs. Simon’s clients include high performing leaders, companies, business schools such as Trinity College- Ireland, Smurfit, UCD, -Ireland, Southampton- UK, professional organizations & Government bodies globally. His work is endorsed by world no. 1 leadership thinker, Marshall Goldsmith, nominated by PeopleHum Top #200 Influential Thought Leaders 2021, Thinkers 360 # 4 Sales, #9 Entrepreneurship, #10 Legal & IP, #13 Health & Wellness, #33 Mental Health, & #37 Management, and featured in the PeopleHum Top 100 Thought Leader series for Mindful Negotiation. He has also been featured on the BBC, Australia’s ABC television and numerous radio and podcast channels, including with his own radio show on UK’s first wellbeing channel, Serenity Radio.
Simon started out as a tri-qualified (England & Wales, Australia, Ireland) commercial lawyer who, also as an entrepreneur, has built and sold out of technology, luxury items and travel companies. He has also been a C-suite (NANA Development Corporation, Dell, BHP, Xilinx) executive and has sat on five boards, across different industries, four continents over 27 years. He is also co-founder and partner of InclusionInLeadership.com.
Simon’s work and two of his three Amazon 5 Star books – How to be a Better Dealcloser and Dealmaking for Corporate Growth are endorsed by Marshall Goldsmith and he is an associate member of the Marshall Goldsmith Stakeholder Centered Coaching Organisation.
Simon is an acclaimed Keynote Speaker, including in Australia, US, UK/Ireland, Canada & China: including World Forums; Ireland TechConnect 2019; Northern Ireland Small Business Conference 2019; Brand Forum London 2019; Start Up, Scale-up Summit – UK 2020; Bogu Investment Summit – China, 2021.
Contacting Simon Haig:
You can read about Simon’s work on Simonhaigh.com , GCM Advisory , Haigh E-learning Institute, Inclusion In Leadership, listen to his Podcasts, radio, speaking and publications or check out his YouTube channel
By Simon Haigh
‘Amazing things happen when you make people feel they are valued as individuals”. Herb Kelleher, President Southwest Airlines
Leadership is a key influence on maintaining and developing an organisation’s culture. Leaders need to understand that even the strongest teams need to feel appreciated. A company’s inspiration and drive must filter down from its leader to its people who operate at the “coal face”.
Despite all the ups and downs of corporate life, if the employees share the corporate passion, they are much more likely to work together for the common good. As with any successful business, employees drive the organisation through the vision and culture set by the boss.
Proficient leaders in organisations, which demonstrate good corporate culture:
- Build a genuinely unified team through collaboration (combined skill base and knowledge) and cooperation (aligned attitudes);
- Create a genuinely enjoyable environment;
- Foster a philosophy of “Do your best”, accepting that certain mistakes happen;
- Develop an enduring culture- not just one for a certain occasion;
- Produce an exemplary dynamic and competitive workforce;
- Define and live the cultural values to filter them through and propel the company forward;
- Ensure the employees are sufficiently compelled by the vision that they “believe” in, and enforce them;
- Equip their company with all the programs, processes, structures and systems required to uphold and continuously improve the culture;
- Communicate and celebrate success;
- Embrace ideas;
- Take risks;
- Keep information flow high;
- Engage frank, open and honest performance evaluation.
All very well. But can leaders stay at the top of their game by intentionally road-mapping their leadership journey and then consciously maintaining that journey? I would answer yes provided they constantly self- examine and self-calibrate four major elements:
- Knowing themselves – their purpose, their awareness, their authentic self and their capacity to cope or resilience.
- Managing themselves – self-regulation, balance, alignment, confidence in their judgment and perseverance.
- Growing themselves – love of learning, innovative thinking and vision casting.
- Awareness of, and working with, others – Empathy, inclusive mindset, conflict management, collaboration, communication, team building and ethical responsibility.
The most successful companies in the world are those, which make their entire team feel like they are a critical and integral part of the company’s success. This requires creating a culture of accomplishment and sharing in the ups and occasional inevitable downs. A corporate culture is truly cemented when the whole company feels like it has a purpose.
A good corporate culture needs a strong leader, who in turn, needs good followers and an entrenched environment where positive cultural influences can develop.
Building a conscious and enduring bridge between the leader’s constantly shifting potential and opportunities requires self-calibrated awareness, alignment, resilience and deep tapping into authentic self. With this in place a leader gives him or herself the best possible chance to endure and set ongoing examples.
To be successful in tomorrow’s world, leaders will have to embrace global thinking, cross-cultural diversity, understand rapidly changing technology, rely more on collaborations & be facilitators rather than experts
MARSHALL GOLDSMITH