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The Steps to Building a Values-Based Culture of Leadership Part 1 September 06, 2002 By: The recent scandals rocking the business world are more than accounting improprieties. They are at their essence, breaches of leadership at a Board of Directors, CEO and senior officer level. They represent the actions of individuals, boards and companies who have conducted and condoned activities which are outside of a defined framework of values-based leadership. When developed inside a company, a values-based framework of leadership is specific to a company’s circumstances and culture but based on principles that are universal and easily understood by every human being. They are black and white issues that inform people’s actions and provide the overall context within which employees at a company work on a daily basis. Perhaps the most critical action for any board, CEO or senior leadership team in a company today is to not only define their culture and a values-based framework of leadership, but to begin the process of evaluating individual and organizational performance within this framework. With the absence of this, individual behavior that is the antithesis of a declared culture and values-based framework of leadership becomes the operational culture and operational framework of conduct. The aberrant individual behavior becomes the organizational norm and a company soon begins to lose its greatest asset, its people. The steps to building a values-based culture of leadership are straightforward and actually simple. These steps do, however, require an organization to muster its courage and intestinal fortitude. These steps do require an organization to begin to evaluate itself differently. These steps do require an organization to begin to distinguish the dichotomy that may exist between a declared culture of leadership and the operational culture of leadership. A declared culture may be the goal, and sometimes represented internally and externally as a reality through a company’s marketing efforts, but if this is not reinforced with the continued evaluation and assessment of individual and organizational performance within the declared values-based framework of leadership, a company begins to default to the existing operational culture. And rarely has an existing operating culture evolved to a high-level of self-awareness around aberrant and dysfunctional individual and organizational behavior. The results are all too familiar to most companies. An environment of mistrust occurs when people’s actions are inconsistent with their words. Little breaches in integrity that are not acknowledged snowball out of control and end up becoming larger issues in the day-to-day environment. This environment ultimately breeds discontent, frustration, dissatisfaction and tension leading to significant problems with retention and a loss of credibility internally with employees and externally with clients, partners and vendors. Instead of the best employees experiencing being nurtured and supported in their career pathways, they don’t see how the corporation is supporting their personal and professional goals. This is a breakdown that is all too familiar within a high percentage of companies in the U.S. today. This breakdown starts at the top with the Board of Directors and extends down to the CEO and senior team. And it is a breakdown that can be fixed through either self-directed actions or working with a qualified consultant with an expertise at leading organizational transformations. Whether on your own or under the care of a consultant, the same actions need to take place in order to start on the road towards organizational transformation. You need to look in the mirror and undertake some fundamental analysis of where you are. You need to create a values-based leadership framework and implement a methodology for individual and organizational assessment within this framework. This can be augmented by executive coaching and/or recruitment of new leadership at the board, CEO and senior team level with individuals whose career track record of performance and actions exemplify and match the sought-after skills, experience, culture and framework of values-based leadership. |