3 Costly Mistakes CEOs Make When They Fail Their Company Culture

Its work CEO Never been more difficult. CEOs are under unprecedented pressure to navigate their businesses through the thick and thin indefinite time. For many CEOs, they have reached a breaking point. They are failing to reinvent their companies, they are facing extraordinary reputational problems or at worst they are facing bankruptcy. Many CEOs succumb to this pressure—losing sight of the priorities that matter most. Company culture It is one of the neglected priorities.

We’ve all heard the saying that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” For those who haven’t, this saying highlights the crucial role of organizational culture in achieving business success. It suggests that even the best plans and strategies can fail if an organization’s culture is not aligned with its goals and values. For CEOs, this proverb illustrates the need to prioritize and invest in building strong and building A positive culture which enables the organization to execute its strategy effectively.

So why don’t many CEOs take company culture seriously? Too often, CEOs view culture as a set of initiatives that are too “soft” and not a business priority next to other important issues such as growth, mergers and acquisitions, product development, or business performance.

Below, we explore three common ways CEOs fail their company culture and the steps needed to overcome them.

Related: 7 Reasons Why Creating the Right Culture Should Be a Leader’s Top Priority

They become charismatic leaders rather than conscious leaders

It’s amazing how many CEOs lead their organizations just for glory and status. This kind of Influential leadership Which can damage the culture of the organization. Performance leadership focuses on the appearance of leadership rather than people and results. It is characterized by a leader who prioritizes his own image and ego over the needs of the organization and its stakeholders. This style of leadership is often criticized for being superficial and lacking in substance, and can ultimately be detrimental to an organization’s success.

On the contrary, Conscious leadership is an approach to leadership that emphasizes self-awareness, empathy, and a commitment to ethical and sustainable business practices. Being a conscious leader means that the CEO is prioritizing people and values ​​and striving to create a positive work environment that promotes employee engagement, innovation and collaboration. To be a conscious leader, CEOs need to be motivated by a sense of purpose and strive to create long-term value for all stakeholders, including employees, customers and the wider community. By practicing conscious leadership, CEOs can build trust and loyalty among employees, drive business success, and contribute to a more sustainable and just world.

Here are three top tips for becoming a more conscious leader:

1. Practice self-reflection and awareness: Awareness is the foundation of great leadership. A conscious leader must regularly reflect on their own actions, biases, and decision-making processes to identify areas for growth and improvement. This can include getting feedback from colleagues, getting involved Mindfulness Practice Or even journaling.
2. Empathy and Emotional Intelligence: Leaders can cultivate empathy and emotional intelligence by actively listening to their team members, considering different perspectives, and prioritizing the well-being of their team. This may include creating a culture of psychological safety where employees feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and feelings.
3. Know when to make a decision from your head, heart or gut: CEOs face multiple decisions every day, and many of these decisions are often head-based, meaning they are analytical or rational. While making rational, head-based decisions is important in business, it’s also important for CEOs to know how to make intuitive gut-based decisions, or emotional ‘heart-based decisions’, even when logic or logic isn’t stacked. Moving between the three types of decisions will ensure that leaders are not only making decisions based on results, but also on people and culture.

Related: How to better manage corporate culture in times of transition

2. They think great communication is enough

Some CEOs define great communication as consistently sharing vision and purpose, being transparent with results and company direction, and turning to town halls, hosting question-and-answer forums, writing in monthly newsletters, and presenting on panels. While this type of communication is important, because it is visible, Great communication Goes beyond appearance. It’s about being a good one The human connector.

A CEO must learn to be a good human connector, which means prioritizing Build relationships at all levels of the organization. This includes being approachable, empathetic and actively seeking opportunities to connect with others on a human level. And it doesn’t stop there – CEOs must be genuine in their engagement. They should show kindness and show that they care. When you know a leader is committed to operating from a set of values ​​based on kindness, they set the tone for the entire organization. In fact, a study is showing that leader kindness and generosity are strong predictors of team and organizational effectiveness.

Here are three top tips for becoming a great human connector:

1. Focus on being present: Many CEOs are transmitters when it comes to communication, constantly sharing information, facts, data or insights. Being present as a CEO means you’ll have a greater awareness of when to transmit, when to receive, and when to keep space or silence.

2. Complete the stakeholder matrix: A CEO affects 100’s, 1000’s and even millions of people. While it is impossible to complete a stakeholder matrix for all of these people, it is important for CEOs to understand their direct stakeholders and be able to assess the quality of relationships and consequently the extent of their impact. If CEOs don’t constantly evaluate relationships and seek to improve them, the conversation will fall on deaf ears.

3. Trust the new business currency: As a CEO, it’s important to recognize that focusing on performance, profit, and hard results isn’t your only form of currency. With large numbers of employees currently being laid off in organizations globally, CEOs must now examine how to use trust as a currency and be diligent in measuring it in their organizations. a Leadership Trust Index is a good tool that many organizations are currently using.

3. They prioritize professional performance over team performance

Too often, CEOs overemphasize their leadership efforts over business results. While creating business success is the foundation of the CEO’s role, many CEOs become overly rational and left-brained, and often lack the actual skills or awareness. Drive team performance. Too often, they think the answer is to hire A+ individuals who, collectively, don’t actually work well as a team. This can create all kinds of problems, such as silos, infighting, and team dysfunction.

recent Study The Kellogg School of Management explains how teams do not always succeed with A+ players and that teams have a collective team intelligence that is separate from the individual intelligence of team members. Building a team’s collective intelligence is critical for CEOs to master. This includes being socially skilled and subtle in understanding individual motives and drives. A CEO who invests in building a talented and diverse team sets the company up for success. The recruitment process should be rigorous and focused on finding people who share the company’s values ​​and vision. Diversity and Inclusion Recruiting should also be a priority, as diverse teams are better able to solve more innovative and complex problems.

Related: How to create a culture of gentle accountability in 3 steps

Here are three top tips for prioritizing team performance:

1. Highlight the key facts: Too often, CEOs are disconnected from the realities of their teams. While one team member may think the business is performing well, another team member may have a different opinion. It’s really important for CEOs to ground our current realities and establish a shared vision when it comes to key business goals and metrics. This can be difficult on their own, so using a skilled coach or facilitator can help with this process.

2. Take the time to set clear expectations and goals for teams’ performance: CEOs should prioritize team performance by setting clear expectations and goals that prioritize clarity of strategy, execution, collaboration, communication, and interpersonal ways of working. This may include creating metrics that measure team effectiveness, such as employee satisfaction and engagement, rather than focusing solely on revenue or profit.

3. Hire the right team coach: While leaders may have personal coaches, it’s really important for CEOs to hire a team coach. Just as sports teams have coaches, so should leadership teams. A team coach must focus on individual goals versus team goals and work consistently with the team to reach those goals.

Creating a positive work culture has never been more important to the CEO role, and it starts at the top. They have a fundamental role in driving a positive culture that will ultimately drive strategy, engagement and performance. taking Responsibility Because individual leadership is key, and recognizing where they are contributing to the problem. Taking steps toward being a conscious leader, a strong human connector, and developing team performance is a good starting point for any CEO looking to turn around their culture.