Many CEOs and CHROs list “culture change” as a top priority. They know their organizations need to become more agile and adaptable to rapid transformations and they want to be able to make good decisions and execute them quickly. Furthermore, they especially want to attract and retain the biggest stars. Building and maintaining a good corporate culture is key to all these aspirations. Yet many CEOs and CHROs ignore the most important factor in building the culture they want: managers.
If Your Managers Aren’t Engaged, Your Employees Won’t Be Either
You can’t change a culture without great managers who themselves are having an exceptional employee experience. This means they need to have challenging experiences where they, themselves, are engaged and developing through their strengths. They need to be coached, as they progressively become more effective coaches themselves. Managers at all levels — whether they are team leaders, managers of other managers or executive leaders — need a well-defined and well-articulated mission and purpose that everyone can easily relate back to the work they do every day — their contribution. They need clear expectations that are continually redefined with the ongoing, often changing, corporate strategy. And they need continual coaching and accountability so that they can see their progress and potential. Finally, managers are much more likely to inspire big-picture, cross-team cooperation in their employees when they themselves are engaged. The teams they are on are made up of other managers who are either on the same page or not. They see other managers as either allies or enemies. How connected your teams of managers are as a group will determine whether the teams they manage will support other teams or not.