The Empowered Business » emotions

Unleashing Your Leadership Presence …

Denise Corcoran — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 22:18:00 +0000

Even Before You Speak

In 1987, I flew to LA to a women’s leadership conference for one reason only. To meet Anita Roddick, founder and “then” CEO of multi-billion dollar franchise,

Photo by David Niblack

The Body Shop, and asked her to write the forward of my book (to which she did say yes).

When I met her, I was stunned how amazingly small she was (even smaller than myself J). Yet her commanding presence was so powerful, 30 years later, that memory is still vivid in my mind.

Leadership presence includes character, charisma and self-confidence YET is much more. People with large presence actually exert a magnified energy field or aura. You feel it. You know it. You are impacted by it.

The BIG question is … How can YOU develop your own leadership presence?

It all starts within, even before you speak. Let’s look at the 3 most important how to’s.

Presence Factor 1: Own Your “Space”

I learned about the importance of owning my space from 3 completely unrelated interests — dancing, professional speaking and Qi Gong.

I learned, for example, to own my space as a speaker by claiming the stage as my “home.” Mentally, saying to myself “This is my place. I am home here. I own it.” It also meant pausing before I spoke … as I stood centered and grounded on the stage … connecting silently with every single person in the audience. It meant utilizing the entire stage – not just one area – to move and connect with my audience.

Owning your space is not physical nor visual. It is kinesthetic, energetic and spatial. It’s mindset, attitude, personal power and congruent physiology/tonality all wrapped up in one.

Owning your space is absolutely crucial to become a powerful, influential leader. Practice these 2 steps and you are on your way.

Decide you belong …

whether it is on the dance floor, on the stage, at the head of a conference table or leading an entire nation. Know you belong. Claim it. Step into it fully. It’s your space, your place. And no one else’s.

When you own your space, you are letting your organization know that you believe in your value … that your voice and contribution matter.

Are you a leader that owns your space?

Or do you do everything you can to take up as little space as possible?

In your role, do you tend to shrink back from shining? Uncomfortable with attention? Feel insecure about yourself?

Your feelings about yourself and your ownership of space are directly correlated. The question is: how do you change one or both?

That brings us to the next step for owning your space.

Clear your space and make it your own.

According to quantum physics, every living creature has an energy field or space. The problem is that you are bombarded continuously by the demands, thoughts and emotions of others to the point that their energy is in your space. That’s right … their energy is in your space. And you are not even aware of it.

Many of the fears you experience are not even yours. They may be your parents’, spouse’s or colleagues’. They may be the media’s fears about the economy or other social ills. Or any other person for that matter.

The solution … you must clear your inner space of other’s “emotional clutter.” Here’s one simple exercise to do so.

Take a few deep breaths. Now simply observe your self-talk, emotions and thoughts. Are you replaying a conversation in your head? Are you feeling resentful because of another’s actions? Are you anxious about any specific area of your life?

Now set an intention to claim your space, mind and thoughts only for you … no one else. It’s time to clear your space. Imagine a giant magnet or vacuum cleaner – bigger than you – clearing out the “garbage” from your space. Give yourself a minute or so to pull out as much as you can.

Notice how much more space and freedom you now experience. Fill your space with an empowering color that signifies who you are and what you want to project to the world.

Guess what? You now own your space. Keep doing the above steps till owning your space becomes a part of who you are.

Presence Factor 2: Get Into Your Zone (aka “flow state”)

Like it or not, your imagination drives both your leadership successes and failures.

What you rehearse in your imagination, you tend to get. If you imagine yourself going on stage and forgetting your lines, guess what? That’s what will happen

If, on the other hand, you see yourself giving a confident, mesmerizing performance (assuming you prepared), you will likely get that.

Mental rehearsal is a process, using your imagination and 5 senses, that puts you into your flow state. Every Olympic athlete uses it. That’s what got Michael Phelps 18 gold medals!

Phelps would lay in bed, eyes closed, and mentally rehearse the entire race. The start, diving into the water, and every detail of every stroke as though it was happening in real-time. He imagined even his warm up routine, possible mishaps and his responses to them, over and over again.

NOTE: Mental rehearsal is NOT the same thing as visualization. There are 2 main distinctions.

The focus of visualization is on the end result – such as, making a certain income. The focus of mental rehearsal is on the experience and execution – such as feeling confident, your movements and gestures, etc.

Visualization just includes the visual sense or images. When I teach mental rehearsal, I want my clients to use at least 3, ideally all 5, senses to have a powerful internalized “memory” of how they want to show up.

To use mental rehearsal to develop your commanding leadership presence, you need to:

Step 1: Describe how you want to perform

Identify a specific situation where you would like to exhibit leadership presence. Describe in detail … what will you see, feel, hear, smell and taste when you experience presence? For example, I am smiling and energetic. I exude confidence yet remain calm and authentic. I notice the audience engaged and present.

Step 2: Mentally rehearse as though watching yourself in a movie

Imagine you are watching yourself on a movie screen. See yourself showing up with presence in a specific situation. Include rich colors and images that are large and close to make real. See yourself acting decisively and without fear. Now include all sounds – eg., your voice exuding authority and background noises in the room. Include all feelings – temperature, mood, your body moving effortlessly. Who else is with you? What are they doing?

Step 3: Mentally rehearse as though you are in the movie

Now step into the image of yourself and run through the scenario again. This time you are seeing, feeling and hearing it as if it is happening NOW. Allow your imagination to create even greater details, more vivid colors, feeling exactly as you want to feel.

Repeat these 3 steps a number of times before your designated event or situation.

Presence Factor 3: Cultivate Your (Life Force) Energy

Knowing how to work with life force energy – yours and others — is key to successful leadership. According to the book 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership,

“We have found that conscious leaders are masters at managing energy. When they allow energy to flow, they are alive, engaged, passionate, on purpose, creative, innovative, intuitive, clear, visionary, playful, relaxed and refreshed. Energy flow is our natural state, but when it’s blocked or interrupted, the life force so essential to great leadership is dampened, and effectiveness wanes immediately and drastically.”

When you learn how to work with and control your life force energy, your leadership presence, influence and performance will skyrocket. Where you put your mental attention can actually change your physical body and emotional energy. Here’s an exercise to demonstrate that. Do it with a partner.

Cultivating Inner Balance

First, put every ounce of your attention on your right ear lobe. Make sure your thoughts are on nothing else. When there, ask your partner to gently push you on the shoulder from the front. You will discover that the slightest touch will put you off balance.

Next, imagine there is a large golden sphere of energy in your belly area, just below the navel. Now put all your attention on this sphere. (In QiGong, we call this your energy center or dantian.) Once all your attention is there, ask your partner again to push your shoulder. Notice the difference. While the shoulder may move toward the back, you spring right back and don’t lose your balance.

Just 3-5 minutes a day, focusing on a golden sphere of energy in your belly is all you need to cultivate mental, emotional and physical balance, as well as build your life force energy. Even YOU can afford that little time for such a high payoff.

Now It’s Your Turn

The 3 strategies above – owning your space, mentally rehearsing and cultivating your life force energy – will put you on your path to a commanding leadership presence. These strategies only take a small investment of time and daily practice.

As you increase your presence, you will find yourself closing more deals, wowing your audience and/or employees, achieving your vision and igniting passion in your organization. Not to mention you will feel happier and at ease within yourself.

MAY PREVIEW:

Want to know the leadership secrets for building a climate of trust with your employees? Stay tune for part 3 of our article series — How To Unlock Your Leadership Influence Instantly — in May.

Want to learn more about leadership influence? Check out the following articles.

The post Unleashing Your Leadership Presence … appeared first on The Empowered Business.

Are You Addicted to Codependent Leadership?

Denise Corcoran — Fri, 17 Oct 2014 23:06:06 +0000

7 Clues You Are.

Note: This post was originally published on August 25, 2014 on SmartBlogs.com.

If you are a sucker for great leadership movies like I am — Invictus, Coach Carter and Moneyball just to name a few, it’s easy to assume that all leaders embody the same qualities as those in the movies.

Afterall, who hasn’t idealized business leaders to be strong, confident, make tough decisions and stand their ground no matter what?

While those leaders do exist, they are a minority. In working with leaders for 30 years, I have found that the reality is shockingly different.

Most leaders take on their roles with the greatest of positive intentions. Yet, along the way, they get lost. Not by conscious choice. Rather they are derailed by an underlying dysfunctional pattern called Codependency.

Codependency is a set of beliefs and behaviors that prevent individuals from having healthy, mutually beneficial relationships. At first glance, the term “co-dependent leader” seems like an oxymoron, yet this dysfunctional behavioral pattern is rampant within the business world.

The question is …

Why does leadership codependency go undetected?

Let’s look at the top 3 reasons why.

1. Codependent behaviors get masked by a company’s values and practices.

On the surface, these values and practices seem healthy – such as, teamwork, employee engagement and customer service.

It’s not the values or practices in themselves that are the issue. It is the thinking and beliefs driving them that determine whether the values are healthy or a cover-up for codependency.

2. Leaders tend to focus on the tangible, at expense of the intangible, aspects within their organizations.

The “hard” aspects of business — strategy, systems and metrics – often trump the intangible aspects. Yet the intangibles – beliefs, emotions and values — drive the “bus.”

They drive every action, behavior and decision that impact results. Because codependent leadership falls within the realm of the intangibles, it goes undetected.

3. Leaders feel the pressure to maintain a strong, “have it all together” façade for credibility with employees and customers.

Doing so prevents leadership awareness about unhealthy behavioral patterns and the underlying factors driving them. Plus codependent leaders stuff down their insecurities, fears and anxieties. This perpetuates the codependency cycle.

7 clues you could be a codependent leader.

At the heart of all codependent leadership is a weak sense of self developed in childhood. That weak identity manifests in 7 classic ways at a leadership level.

1. Low self-esteem

Leaders with healthy self esteem feel in charge of their outcomes. They take responsibility for the consequences of their choices and behaviors, positive or negative.

On the other hand, codependent leaders have others esteem. Their sense of worth comes from what others think and feel about them. It’s painful for codependent leaders to take responsibility. As a result, they resist “owning” their leadership role, delegating and holding themselves and others accountable.

Values masking low self esteem: Humility, selfless/servant leadership

2. High need for power and control

Healthy leadership power means having choices and the ability to influence one’s environment and others toward a common goal.

As a codependent leader, however, that need for control and power can go into over-drive to feel secure and safe. Bossiness, blaming others and stifling others’ ideas are telltale signs.

The paradox is that over exertion of power stems from a leader’s sense of powerlessness with outside forces.

Values masking over-control: Discipline, order, rigor

3. People-pleasing and inability to say “no”

It’s normal for a leader to want to help peers and team members because you care about them.

However, as a codependent leader, you need others to think of you as a “nice person” because your sense of self depends on it. You go out of your way to accommodate others’ needs and sacrifice your own to feel good about yourself.

It’s an attempt to protect yourself from painful consequences. The thought of being rejected or abandoned by your “work tribe” is terrifying to your sense of self.

Examples of people pleasing behaviors include a high tolerance for under-performance and giving into customer demands at the cost of your own profits, values and performance needs.

Values masking people pleasing: Customer service, employee engagement, teamwork

4. Boundary Issues

Boundaries are critical in healthy relationships. They are like imaginary lines between you and others. Leaders with healthy boundaries know where responsibility and ownership end and begin for a problem, goal or outcome.

For codependent leaders, those imaginary lines are blurry — either non-existent or too rigid. Without “external” boundaries, a leader’s identity becomes enmeshed with others — such as feeling responsible for employees’ happiness.

Without “internal” boundaries, a leader will experience an out of control schedule, excessive negative thoughts and emotions and lack of self care.

Values masking poor boundaries: Sense of family, customer satisfaction, trust

5. Reactivity

A consequence of poor leadership boundaries is that you react to everyone’s thoughts and feelings. As a codependent leader, you take responsibility for others’ emotions, yet don’t take responsibility for your own.

If a peer, employee or customer says something that upsets you, you take it as a personal attack. You either believe them or become defensive. Either way, you go into victim mode.

Values masking reactivity: Agility, speed, responsiveness

6. Caretaking

“Caring about” others is healthy leadership. “Caring for” is dysfunctional and disempowering.

When you engage in leadership caretaking, you are doing for your employees what they can do for themselves. You feel responsible to take care of their problems and save them from pain.

You put employee needs before business needs, have an exaggerated sense of responsibility for them and prevent employees from growing into empowering successful contributors of the company.

Values masking caretaking: Concern for employees’ welfare; caring

7. Avoiding conflict

Self-esteem is essential for leaders to assert their thoughts, feelings and needs while welcoming others to do the same. For such leaders, conflict is a normal part of relationships.

In contrast, codependent leaders avoid conflict at all costs, resulting in emotionally dishonest relationships with their team and peers. Because of poor role models in life, such leaders grew up believing that conflict is bad, painful and traumatic.

The end result is status quo thinking, compromised decision making and a false sense of team work.

Values masking conflict avoidance: Harmony, collaboration, trust

While we all have exhibited the above behaviors to some extent, for the codependent leader, these patterns are all consuming. They don’t know how else to be.

Growth, profits and a healthy culture can be yours by addressing codependent leadership

Because codependent leadership has been so prevalent in my clients’ companies, I developed exercises for leadership teams to see for themselves the high cost of this dysfunctional pattern within their organization.

For example, I have had each leader identify one situation where they said “yes,” when “no” (or setting boundaries) would have been healthier and more profitable. They must include hard and soft costs and then give an estimated total cost to the bottomline.

Even for a single situation for one leader, the costs went as high as millions. Multiply that across every leader and every situation when this dysfunctional pattern has shown up and the costs to the company become staggering.

What symptoms do you identify with? Which are prevalent within your company? What is codependent leadership costing your company?

_________________________

Denise Corcoran helps growth-seeking companies develop game-changing leadership teams and organizations that drive double and triple digit growth … by design. Her company — The Empowered Business^TM — is one of the few companies providing whole brain, strategic solutions for unleashing leadership and organizational potential that conventional methods can’t achieve. Learn how to master your Inner Game of Leadership, by downloading our free report – Wired to Win Big. Connect with Denise at her Blog, LinkedIn, Twitter or contact her via email.

The post Are You Addicted to Codependent Leadership? appeared first on The Empowered Business.

The Secret to Rapid Leadership Breakthroughs

Denise Corcoran — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 18:39:10 +0000

Does any of these sound familiar?

You aspire to achieve great things, yet stay “small” for fear of failing.

What about the thousands of dollars you’ve invested in leadership books and training, yet still find yourself stuck in the same rut and don’t know how to get out?

Are you continuously swamped by the endless hours that your role demands, yet get diminishing returns from all your efforts?

You are not alone. Most leaders harbor fears, negative thoughts and emotions that seriously undermine their achievements. Here is one such story.

How One High Performing Leader Was Sabotaging His Own Potential

About 10 years ago, I worked with a leader being groomed to become President of a fast growing company. He was ambitious, smart and a quick learner. He thrived on achieving big goals and was the high performing potential that every CEO dies for.

From outside appearances, there was nothing stopping him to take the company to the next level. Or was there?

The CEO asked me to coach this new leader around becoming a team player. His behaviors at executive meetings gave the appearance that his personal agenda was more important than the team/company agenda.

The truth was … his personal agenda was more important at that time. In his mind, sacrificing his desires for team goals meant not achieving personal success. He was stuck in “either-or” thinking and that was preventing him from gaining the trust and credibility of his team.

While your limiting leadership beliefs may be different, what you do have in common is that nothing will change unless you change on the inside first. External change by itself – ie., behaviors, actions or skills/knowledge — is never the solution.

While change is a multilevel complex process, this leader needed to change on the belief level to realize a rapid breakthrough.

Because beliefs are powerful thought patterns that drive your emotions, behaviors and action, this article will focus on belief change, although it’s not the only type of change that may be needed.

No leadership or organizational goal can be achieved without the right beliefs in place. First, let’s take a quick look at the basics of the inner change.

A Simple (but not easy) Formula for Leadership Change

When addressing limited beliefs, the goal is to move you from your present state (problem) to your desired state (goal). However, inner interference – your internal terrorists — hijack your best efforts to achieve your desired outcome.

Present (Problem) State + Resource = Desired Change

↑ ↑ ↑

Interference

(Limited Beliefs or Inner Conflicts)

For you to achieve your desired state/change, the following conditions must be present:

You must want to change.

This condition relates to desirability and confidence. You must be 100% congruent with the change or goal you are seeking.

You must know how to change.

You must believe that you have the capability to produce desired results.

You must believe it is possible for you to achieve your desired state and that you deserve to achieve it.

You need to be willing to give yourself time for the change to happen and to integrate the learnings. You must also believe you are worthy of achieving this outcome.

When these 3 conditions are present, leadership breakthroughs can happen … in an instant. When one or more conditions are absent, then you must change some aspect of your mental map to achieve a breakthrough. That’s where belief work comes in.

How Changing Your Leaders’ Beliefs Changes Company Results

Beliefs are not innocent things. They are unconscious strongly held convictions that you believe are true and fact, yet they are neither. They are judgments about yourself, about others and about the world. They are the lens through which you view everything. They …

Influence your perception
Skew your perspective and decision making in positive and negative ways
Direct an/or limit your actions
Shape your character in effective and ineffective ways
Create the boundary conditions of your thinking
Drive all behaviors, emotions and subjective experiences

“If you want to uncover your beliefs, just look at your results. “

Your leadership beliefs are the power source for your company’s results and for the culture you’ve created in the present.

The question is: are those the results and culture you really want?

You say you have a compelling vision. Do you believe it is possible?

You say you have core values. Do you have beliefs conflicting with those values that drive different choices and actions?

You say employees matter. Do you make them feel appreciated, recognized and heard?

You say that you put customers first. Do they believe it?

Are your results matching what you say you want? If not, it may have nothing to do with the words you are saying; it could be that your employees may not believe them.

In the end, you have one of two choices.

Either you can keep going as you are and live with your current problems OR you can kick those sabotaging beliefs to the curb for good. If you chose the later, read on.

Types of Beliefs Every Leader Needs to Know About

All beliefs can be categorized into one of three types. Knowing how each type effects you and your organization is crucial to the change process.

Beliefs about Cause

We all have beliefs about cause. They are reflected in your goals, plans, actions and decisions.

Beliefs about cause are implied in the form … “X” causes “y.” Let’s take a look at examples.

What do you believe …

Are the traits of great leaders?
Drives high performance in an organization?
Motivates employees?
Is the reason for your unrealized goals?
Makes your company successful or not successful?

Whether you realize it or not, these are all beliefs. Not facts. Not truth. Simply beliefs.

They may not even be your beliefs. Many of your leadership beliefs, especially about cause, come from books, workshops, other leaders, etc. Taking on those beliefs may or may not serve you and the results you want.

The point is … as a leader, you must challenge every belief about “what causes what” to realize different outcomes.

2. Beliefs about Meaning

Our brains are meaning-making machines. We give meaning to past and current experiences, behaviors (ours and others’), communications (words and non-verbal), etc.

Beliefs about meaning are implied in the form … “x” means “y.” Let’s take a look at examples.

What does it mean that your profits have declined for the last 3 months?
Does it mean you have to cut staff?
Does it mean you’ve failed?
What does it mean that an employee has not met your expectations?
Does it mean they are unmotivated?
Does it mean you did not communicate clearly?

Beliefs about meaning result in behaviors congruent with that belief. For example, if profits fell and you believe it was from a bad decision, you will hold back in future decisions or taking necessary risks.

3. Beliefs about Identity

Beliefs about identity include cause, meaning and boundaries. When you change beliefs about your identity, it means that somehow you are/will be a different person.

Changing beliefs at the identity level is one of the most profound breakthroughs you can experience. It transforms who you are at your core and every aspect of your life.

Let’s look at examples.

What causes you to do something as a leader?
Do you see yourself as competent leader?
Do you believe you don’t deserve to succeed?
To hold your employees accountable, do you believe you have to become a dictator or control freak?
Do you fear that you won’t be liked by your employees if you take tough actions or make tough decisions.

To summarize … beliefs may be beliefs of cause, meaning or identity. They may be about the world around you (eg., experiences or other people) or about yourself and your identity.

Beliefs are unconscious habitual thought processes that either undermine you or enhance you and your desired outcomes.

Nest step … Read the companion article — How Leaders Breakthrough Sabotaging Beliefs … With Velocity – to learn how to detect limiting beliefs and simple ways for changing them to experience a rapid leadership breakthrough.

The post The Secret to Rapid Leadership Breakthroughs appeared first on The Empowered Business.

When Great Company Cultures Go to the Dark Side

Denise Corcoran — Thu, 02 Jan 2014 21:19:43 +0000

7 Signs Your Organization Is Headed in the Wrong Direction

Has the obsession to create a happy, engaged workforce gone toxic in your company?

Is over-emphasizing positive thinking in your company’s culture, actually creating negativity without you even knowing it?

Is having 0% employee turnover actually a good thing to sing high praises about, or is it overshadowing another truth?

These are just a few examples of how companies, even with great cultures, can go to the dark side.

The REAL Truth About Your Company Culture & Its Hidden Shadow Side

Most great cultures are driven by handful of sacred values. They have the clarity, discipline and consistency to make those values deeply embedded into their organizations, often outperforming in growth and profitability by as much as 150%.

Yet many great cultures have also gone toxic AND the leaders don’t even realize it. The factors that drive a company’s greatness – when taken to an extreme or at the expense of other factors – can actually become the organization’s hidden “shadow” side. When that shadow is not brought to light, it can actually lead to the downward spiral or a company’s demise.

A past client company with a strong people-oriented culture – one that I deeply admired when I first started working with them – is one such example. That strong people culture ignited rapid growth and became their competitive advantage in a high commodity industry. However, when the recession hit, financial fear took over, its once strong culture went toxic and revenues and profits plummeted.

How is it possible for a great culture, like that, to go to the dark side and not realize it?

7 Blindspots That Can and Will Drive Your Company’s Culture to the Dark Side

Below are 7 blind spots and clues that your organization’s culture – no matter how successful in the past – is possibly headed in the wrong direction. Be rigorously honest how these blind spots are relevant to your organization. Otherwise, your company’s future could be in jeopardy.

Blindspot 1: You fight for your espoused values at all costs, without realizing the unintended consequences on your organization and business results.

Any value taken to an extreme actually becomes a company liability. A good example is the obsession with positive thinking within organizations.

Don’t get me wrong. I am in favor of developing a mindset and culture that focuses on positivity, as long as it is authentic.

Yet being in blissful denial of the “real” emotional climate, politics or stress levels within your organization only creates a culture that hides its deepest worries and avoids the cold hard truth that can cost your company dearly. Excessive positive thinking also results in artificial company behaviors and attitudes, triggering employee resentment, resistance and frustration.

Remember … any value – even the seemingly positive – taken to an extreme in your organization becomes your liability and “shadow” side.

Blindspot 2: You focus mostly on the overt, tangible aspects of culture, while ignoring the covert drivers of your culture.

A company’s culture consists of overt and covert factors. Overt factors involve what is tangible and observable – such as, strategic processes and behaviors within an organization. Overt aspects of culture often utilize the reasoning, intellectual parts of our brain — the dominant focus of today’s leadership teams.

Covert aspects relate to the intangible, unconscious (ie., below your ordinary awareness) assumptions, social, emotional and political patterns, organizational taboos, etc. Every organization has covert aspects driving its culture – such as, fears, insecurities, friendships, trust, jealousy, ambition and many more.

These hidden aspects of your company’s culture are driven by the emotional parts of our brain – that is, the underlying motivations, beliefs and “actual” values — determining your actual culture.

For example, one of my company clients has a strong “respect” value — an asset in many work relationships. Taken it to an extreme, however, prevented them from speaking their truth and having honest conversations about critical organizational problems.

Their covert “agreed upon” behaviors for respect were translated into a belief that conflict or disagreement were to be avoided at all costs. This covert aspect of their culture drove unintended behavioral consequences for which they paid a high price, till we eliminated the unhealthy aspects of this value.

Blindspot 3: As a leader, you have a strong internal bias how well your culture is doing that does not match reality.

It has been found in behavior-related studies, that human beings think they are better than they really are. This phenomenon is called in psychology a “self-serving bias.”

The same is true in the world of leadership and culture. My term for this is “cultural inflation.” There are many ways this self serving bias can blind you into thinking your culture is doing better than it is.

For example, when a company grows and changes, it is not unusual for its culture to erode at the bottom levels of the organization. The leadership team is no longer involved lower levels and often becomes oblivious to the atrophy now monopolizing its culture.

Even when a leadership team recognizes issues within their culture, such leaders often don’t see themselves as “part of the problem.” They don’t recognize that their actual behaviors, decision-making, communications, etc. are a major contributing factor to the dysfunctionality in their culture.

Blindspot 4: Your strategy and culture are working at cross purposes with each other.

A common issue at a leadership level is not understanding the interplay between strategy and organizational culture. As a company, you cannot sustain growth, profitability and your competitive edge without harmony and alignment between business strategy and culture.

So many companies fall short in their goals because they overemphasize strategy with little/no attention to the cultural aspects that drive it. The most ingenious strategy in the world will never come to fruition without creating the right culture to drive it.

Strategy can be imitated by your competitors. Your unique, well-entrenched culture cannot.

Blindspot 5: You put too much weight on the strength of your company’s culture, not its fit.

There is the mistaken notion that great company cultures are the byproduct of its strength. That is, the more entrenched an organization’s core values, the greater the culture.

While there are advantages to strong cultures over weak ones, the danger is assuming that it is the “right” culture, given your organization’s environment.

The best cultures are those that continuously adapt to succeed in their market and competitive environments.

A manufacturing company in a price competitive environment may do best with an efficiency-based culture. While a service business may do best with a people-oriented or customer service driven culture.

On the other hand, as your company’s environment experiences disruptive change, your culture must change accordingly to succeed. When a company’s culture does not fit and/or adapt itself to its own environment, employees will have a hard time knowing how to respond to and serve the needs of its marketplace.

Ignoring the importance of culture fit and adaptability is one of the biggest reasons why great cultures go bad.

Blindspot 6: Your organization is plagued with double binds, conflicting values and competing demands.

A hidden threat to great cultures are unresolved double binds and conflicting values. A double bind, by definition, is an unresolved dilemma where the victim feels trapped, no matter the course of action. That is, the victim deems the situation as lose-lose.

For example, a leader may be put into a double bind situation about the future status of a loyal, although under-performing, employee. If he/she fires the employee, the leader is giving an unspoken message that loyalty is not valued. If he/she keeps the employee, the unspoken message is that underperformance is tolerated, which impacts morale and demotivates your best performing employees.

Conflicting values are 2 or more values in conflict – perceived or real — with each other. That is, either-or thinking. For example, growth driven companies often over-emphasize growth at the expense of other critical factors, such as profitability. A company will never be able to sustain growth until the underlying values and assumption conflicts are identified and resolved.

When either double binds or conflicting values go unresolved, the end result is paralysis, a polarized culture, victim thinking and compromised performance.

Blindspot 7: You fail to assess the health and fit of your current culture and any possible signs of erosion or dysfunctionality … from the outside.

Because so many aspects of a company’s culture exist “below the radar screen,” it’s easy for business leaders to have a skewed perception about the health of their actual company culture.

Or they rely on their own internal assessment of culture which can be just as misleading. In my experience of assessing company culture, employees rarely tell all for fear of consequences, so the real truth never fully comes out.

What are the alternatives?

Use an outside culture assessment tested for high validity and significance … AND only use it as a starting point, not the end all.

Find an outside consultant that can facilitate open-ended interviews and discovery processes to uncover a leadership team’s understanding of culture, its relationship to strategy and how well the two are aligned. It is also important for the outside expert to observe your “culture in action” in meetings, everyday activities and through casual interaction with employees to uncover your actual culture.

Why such an indepth assessment? Because company cultures, even the best, can become lulled by their past success and ignore the warning signs of a culture gone bad. Some of the most once admired companies in history – Enron, Worldcomm and Arthur Andersen just to name a few – have been unfortunate proof that even purported great cultures can go to the dark side.

For low cost tools to assess your actual culture landscape, click here.

The key is not to fear or avoid the shadow or dark side of your company’s culture. Rather to learn from it. Your culture’s shadow side actually holds the gift of transformation for your organization’s future growth, success and distinctive advantage in the marketplace.

What warning signs or blindspots do you need to heed from your culture’s shadow side? What will it cost your organization if you don’t?

___________________________________

Denise Corcoran – CEO, The Empowered Business^TM – helps growth-seeking companies develop game-changing leadership teams and organizations that drive and sustain profitable growth by design. Denise can be reached at denise@empoweredbusiness.com or www.empoweredbusiness.com.

The post When Great Company Cultures Go to the Dark Side appeared first on The Empowered Business.