Your Leadership Link by Cullen S. Gibson
Culture Norms
Who sets the culture at your workplace? The leader does. The leader’s management style is critical to defining and setting a sustainable and functional culture. The leader is the role model and sets the tone. A leader’s behavior has a significant impact on the culture “norm.” What does your culture look like?
I sat down with some co-workers and talked about culture norms and how they are the important drivers that need to be set and occasionally adjusted to push long-term, sustainable success. We discussed that culture is a “balanced blend of attitudes, actions, reactions, and beliefs that when combined create pleasure, pain, momentum, or stagnation.” We concluded that it is the leader’s responsibility to engage everyone, informing and inspiring them to live out the purpose of the organization around core values and norms. We produced a list of norms that fuel our culture and actively guide the way we operate.
We believe in:
We model:
- Empowerment
- Support
- Integrity
- Respect
- Stewardship
- Family
- Caring
- Teamwork
- Genuineness
- Commitment
- Servant Leadership
- Risk Taking
- Saying “It is ok to fail”
- Shepherding
- Promoting
- Loyalty
- Excellence
- Core Competencies
- Compassion
- Creativity
As a leader, you can implement all the leadership strategies you may think will work, but culture eats strategy for breakfast any day. A great culture makes a difference as these norms exude influence…and that’s leadership defined.