Becoming a Cultural Leader

One of our clients is Nissan and one of the leaders I worked with at Nissan was an EVP responsible for the performance of the loan portfolios for the lease and new car sales at all their dealerships in North America. As I watched this leader I noticed that he had great respect from his peers, employees and also front-line staff.

A cultural leader is a leader who impacts positively the way an organization works at all levels. Think about that for a minute and let it sink in. Do you make a positive impact with your leadership on the way the organization operates at all levels?

Three Steps to Improve Your "Cultural Leadership (Level 5) Skills:

Assessment of your culture: Every leader should have a "now" and "then" of your culture. What is your current assessment of the culture of your organization? What do you want the culture to be like in two years?

Create your Game Plan: Your game plan should evaluate people, communication/training, processes, systems and technology in order to determine what you need to change to create the culture of the future. Here are questions your Game Plan should ask:

• Is there accountability in the organization? Do people have clear roles and recognize the top three priorities of their job? Is their job measured and do they get rewarded for their success?
• Are there any silos in the organization? What steps are being taken to eliminate them?
• Does each level communicate well down through the organization as well as to their internal customers and suppliers?
• Are the measurements for production aligned with organization success and the recognition and rewards aligned to support that success?
• Is the energy level positive in the organization? Do people feel good about the wins?
• What processes, information, systems and technology would increase productivity?

Develop your Skip-Level Strategy: A skip-level communication strategy is the way you communicate and interact with all levels of the organization in order to understand and change the culture. Here is a list of possible skip-level communication approaches:

• All Hands "On Deck" Meetings - Your entire organization
• Lunch & Learn - Communication lunch with a group (8-10) of front-line employees (Once a month)
• Surveys - designed to understand and benchmark how the organization thinks and behaves
• Focus groups - small groups of employees to discuss specific areas of improvement
  Conference calls with multiple levels in the organization
• MBWA - Manage by walking around and talking to employees (Note: this is not just to say hi and be visible - you are building relationships and really getting to know if the leadership of your team is making its' way through the organization.
• Training
• Cross-functional project team to address specific issues

A strong Level 5 leader is known and respected by front-line employees. That leader takes responsibility to eliminate bottlenecks, solve problems and deliver performance by building a strong organization at every level.

To improve your companie's leadership skills call us at 1-866-331-6044 or visit us at http://www.tmicentral.com.