The Gauntlet
The prime directive for leaders is to improve results. One way they accomplish this by nurturing a culture which understands what has produced success, challenges the status quo, and cultivates ashared commitment for embracing productive change that creates value for their customers and their business.
A key component of building this culture is recognizing their responsibility to develop those they lead. Their experience has taught that the most beneficial learning is accomplished by ‘doing,’ so these leaders encourage proactive change initiatives as learning experiences that produce growth opportunities. Realizing that their teams have minimal time available to pursue these initiatives, they counsel that an individual’s natural talents can only take a person so far, and encourage the expansion of knowledge and the strengthening of skills that are gained through these projects, clarifying that increasing knowledge requires study, while improving skills involves practice.
And leading by example, they carve out time to engage with their people as the process evolves, guiding them to hone abilities like observation, experimentation, and resolving differences while pursuing value-creating innovation and improvement, and sustaining focus on their company’s purpose, values and goals.
The outcome is a synergistic improvement of team development, collaboration, cross-functional awareness that increases business performance. Pursuing change initiatives clarifies how people can make a difference for customers, teammates and the organization. Team members gain awareness and self-reliance as their contributions become more visible and appreciated. And culture is strengthened as recognition grows that the company values its people and invests in them.
How are you challenging your team to make a difference and improve results?
