Owning the Culture

5 March, 2012 By Leave a Comment

There is a great deal of discussion about the difference between leadership and management, with many experts defining the two in all different ways.  However, every successful executive knows that it takes both to enable their success.

Regardless of how you define the two (leader or manager), every successful leader shows to their people that they OWN THE CULTURE.

Look at successful leaders and you see them focusing on creating the culture of collaboration and performance…and at the same time driving everyone to deliver today’s results.  In fact, this is one of the key traits that defines a leader.

There are some in management positions who just accept the culture they have and then find ways to work with or around the culture to make things happen.  Then there are others…these are the “real” leaders…who know that success is only repeated by always working on the culture.

Since change is a constant, the right culture for top performance must always be continually changing too.  That’s why Owning the Culture is key to long-term leadership success.

If you are leading others, in what ways do your people see you Owning the Culture?

Filed Under: Blog

Owning the WHY

2 January, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Great organisations have a Purpose (a WHY) that is beyond just making money, and it is this Purpose that provides the organisation’s motivational power to make things happen.

Successful leaders understand they have two key responsibilities: 1) Developing the WHY (the purpose of the organisation) that everyone in the organisation can “OWN”, and 2) Enabling the Culture that will embrace the WHY and keep it alive every day within the people in the organisation.

You could say that successful leaders are the WHY people, and you can think of the CEO, not as the Chief Executive Officer, but as the Chief Explaining Officer…their job is the Explain the WHY.

Successful leaders Explain the WHY with such power that everyone in the organisation OWNS IT.

Filed Under: Blog, Communications, Culture, Influence

Owning your Beliefs

28 December, 2011 By Leave a Comment

You have probably heard the expression “stay true to your beliefs“.   For leaders, this is one of the most important objectives to keep in mind.

Leaders are role models for their teams, meaning that their habits and behaviours have a great influence on their people.  The foundation of these habits and behaviours are their beliefs, and here is where there is a big difference between the great leaders and the average leaders.

Great leaders have strong beliefs that guide their actions, and this helps them to behave consistently in all circumstances. They own their beliefs. The average leaders don’t truly understand what they believe in, and are often influenced by others, driving them to behave different depending on the situation.

Do you OWN your beliefs?

 

 

 

Filed Under: Blog, Influence, Self Awareness

Owning What You Learn

4 December, 2011 By Leave a Comment

The saying goes, “You really haven’t learned it until you reflected on it”.  That’s important, because it is when we invest in reflection time, that we begin to integrate what we have learned and see more clearly the actions we can take.

Owning what you learn is about investing the time to see how you will use what you have learned.  Without using it, it only has potential power for you, and not real power.  The most successful people own what they learn with their first step always thinking through the learning to the action they could take.

Why not try the same approach for yourself.  When you are learning something new, ask yourself this key question:

“How would I apply this to my life?” 

This is the best way of turning your learning into action (Owning it).

Filed Under: Blog, Development

Owning the Relationship

13 November, 2011 By Leave a Comment

How many times have you heard people say “that’s their problem”?  Probably a lot….

However, you probably haven’t heard this expression from successful leaders.  They know that that making relationships the responsibility of others can only weaken their influence, and with everyone.  These leaders take ownership of their relationships and look to themselves first in taking the lead to resolve any problems.

Think about this for yourself.  Do you have more control in a car taking the wheel in the driver’s seat or sitting in the passenger’s seat?  The more responsibility you take for your relationships with others, the more influence you will have, and the more success you will achieve.

Filed Under: Blog, Influence, Relationships

Owning Participation

5 November, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Successful leaders take ownership of their participation, and also ownership in the participation of members of their team.  These leaders know that greater influence and stronger solutions are gained through participation.

First, it’s their own participation in meetings with other stakeholders.  Successful leaders know that they need to express their views in order to influence others, and very often they will “plant seeds’ that they can follow-up with fellow participants in one-on-one meetings to expand further on their key points and to strengthen their influence with these participants.

Second, successful leaders know that they need to use the full power of their team in order to get the strongest solutions designed and implemented.  They view it as their responsibility to structure meetings so that everyone in their team participates and expresses their ideas and views.  These leaders know that they get two benefits:  1)  They get stronger solutions with everyone’s input and 2) People who see their input in parts of the final solution will always take more ownership for the whole solution too.

Participate to influence, and get everyone participating for stronger solutions and stronger ownership for those solutions.

 

Filed Under: Blog, Influence, Outcomes

Owning our Behaviour

2 November, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Successful teams are born when they develop together a set of values and principles.

These values and principles provide a framework for everyone’s behaviour, and a way to challenge people when their behaviour becomes bad.   Teams without agreed values and principles have no way to challenge bad behaviour…there’s no established framework or norm to compare the bad behaviour to.

Teams without this framework view a challenge on bad behaviour as a personal attack, which usually only helps in increasing and making more permanent the bad behaviour.

Teams with a framework of agreed values and principles have a way to compare the bad behaviour to the framework, and have a constructive way to challenge the bad behaviour.

Values and principles are powerful in guiding the right behaviour and providing a way for fellow team members to constructively challenge each other.  What’s also interesting is that teams that create their own values and principles (i.e. not defined by the leader) will often create tougher and more strict principles (rules) than the leader would define.

Remember, values & principles provide the framework to align good behaviour within the team, and to constructively challenge bad behaviour.

 

Filed Under: Blog, Culture, Teamwork

Owning YOU

30 October, 2011 By 1 Comment

A leader’s success in motivating others is often in direct proportion to how he or she understands themselves.  You could say this is all about You Owning YOU.

The more you understand yourself, the more you will use the passion and strengths you have, and then surround yourself with people who have strengths within your weaknesses.  Also, by understanding yourself, you have the foundation by which you can adapt your behaviour to others in order to be more effective in influencing those around you.  So you see…greater success starts with you understanding yourself.

How much time do you invest in understanding yourself?

(Owning YOU)

Filed Under: Blog, Influence, Self Awareness
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