17. Seven Tough Questions to Ask About Your Leadership Culture

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Hello and welcome to this episode of Ways to Change Your Workplace with myself Preenasha, where we uncover today how you can find ways to optimize your organizational cultures. Today I am asking you seven tough questions to ask about your leadership culture. Now, why am I asking that? Because of the fact that I have supported many CEOs on enhancing their organizational cultures. But I've been told by some of these CEOs that they've invested heavily in leadership development, but they're still not seeing the results. So these CEOs were not happy with their leaders for some of the reasons that I'm going to start to discuss. You see, there was something amiss. We uncovered that there were two factors at play. Number one, the CEO had not clearly articulated their vision of their culture and therefore their expectations of the leaders. And number two, therefore, the leaders created their own habits. So today I'm going to ask you seven questions that will help you determine whether your leadership culture needs a refresh. And after each question, I have a tip or some ideas for you. So let's get into it. Question number one: Do your leaders empower and trust their staff or do they deploy the more directive style where what they say goes? So my question for you is have you articulated what management style will suit your culture? Are you aware of your leaders' management styles? Did your leadership development program contain a 360 assessment or a work style behavioral profiling tool? There's some amazing tools. So if you're going 360, human synergistics is a really good one. Or if you're looking at work style behavioral profiling tools, I can highly recommend DiscAvanced or Print, finding out people's unconscious motivators. So that's question number one. Do your leaders empower and trust their staff or do they deploy the more directive style where what they say goes? Question number two. Do your leaders actually get on with each other and work constructively with each other? You see, a diversity of leaders and a difference of opinions are needed. What I'm asking here is do your leaders have a good working relationship with each other? So a tip for you I have is have you observed how your lead team meetings operate? Do your leaders bicker or are there genuine healthy disagreements that result in good outcomes for your organization? So question number two was Do your leaders actually get on with each other and work constructively with each other? Do they respect each other's varying, differing opinions? Question number three. Do your leaders have the full picture or are they working in their own patches or in their own silos? Now, if they're working in a siloed approach, have you asked them why this is? Have you sought to learn the underlying reason for this? You see, patch mentality happens for many many reasons. It could be due to insecurity, lack of knowledge, a need to maintain control, and the list goes on. A culture survey or a quick culture audit or pulse checks as I like to call them could be what you need to better understand what is happening. So that question number three was do your leaders have the full picture or are they working in their own patches, in their own silos? Question number four. It's a tough question. Are your leaders on the same page about the organization's strategic direction? Or do they have their own versions of it? See, if you were the CEO or on the executive team, have you clearly articulated the strategic direction? Do you have clear communications yourself as the executive team? And for HR professionals who are listening into this that work closely with the CEO, have you delivered a workshop or information sessions for your leaders and employees to understand the strategic direction of your organization and how their role fits into the big picture? When a leader or an employee has a clear line of sight, not only does productivity increase, so does morale. Because hey, I know what I do and I know how it fits into that bigger picture of that strategic direction. Increases my morale as well as my productivity. So understanding your why assignment cynic espouses is crucial in the end result to your employees and the flow on effect essentially to your customers and stakeholders. So that question number four was Are your leaders on the same page about the organization's strategic direction or do they have their own versions of it? Question number five: Do your leaders share information freely or do they hold on to it with a mentality that knowledge is power? So it's really good to ask the 2IC, the second in command, to act in your leader's role next time when they are on leave. That's going to be really telling to see what kind of handover is conducted. I recommend that they CC or blind copy their handover to you if you're the executive or you know the manager once removed, or you even attend a handover meeting to see what is being shared. So you see, one of the biggest pain points and costs for organizations is poor knowledge management, and this can be easily managed. So question number five for you to reiterate is do your leaders share information freely or do they hold on to it with the mentality that knowledge is power? Penultimant question number six Do your leaders inspire their teams? Hello. You will know the answer to this immediately. How is your organization's productivity? How is your turnover? What are your unplanned absence stats saying? The sick leave stats? Have you conducted a culture or engagement survey and done something about it? I have many clients who conduct such internal surveys than don't know what to do with the results when the results come out. I can help. Guaranteed there'll be celebrations, quick wins, and more longer-term measures. So question number six is do your leaders inspire their teams? It's a big one and one that you're gonna know the answer to. I think pretty quickly. And then the final question. Are your leaders emotionally intelligent? Do they have the capacity to be aware of, to control, and to express their emotions? Can they handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically? That's question number seven. So, engaging in a leadership coach for the managers who are not so emotionally intelligent is really handy. Or, like I said earlier, 360 assessments or a work style behavioural profiling tool. Fun fact: a study by Deloitte has stated that more than 80% of the jobs created between now and 2030 will be for knowledge workers, and two-thirds of those jobs will be strongly reliant on soft skills. So, what are you doing to develop the soft skills of your leaders? Question number seven was Are your leaders emotionally intelligent? Do they have the capacity to be aware of, to control, and express their emotions? And can they handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically? So those are seven tough questions to ask about your leadership culture. Now check out the show notes because I've listed all of the questions in there, as well as the article that I wrote on this topic. It's full of useful material. Ciao for now.