CHAPTER 13
Foster a Community of Leaders Across Your Organization

My team and I have had the privilege to work with many kinds of organizations with very different leadership cultures. I’ve seen cultures where leaders were accountable, shared an aspiration to be great leaders, and supported one another to execute the company’s strategy. Unfortunately, in my experience, these leadership cultures are the minority.

I’ve also worked with many organizations where leaders were at war with one another or caught up in petty politics, power struggles, working at cross-purposes, or protecting turf. These kinds of leadership cultures distract leaders and employees, erode engagement, and create a significant barrier to strategy execution and achieving extraordinary results.

Through all these experiences, I have learned that you don’t have to settle for an ineffective leadership culture. Change is possible. It’s not an easy journey, but an organization can transform its leadership culture. It starts by making leadership accountability a priority, defining clear leadership expectations, and doing the hard work to sustain momentum.

The last area of focus is to foster a community of leaders across your organization. Four strategies that we will explore are in Figure 13.1.

The figure shows four strategies to build a strong community of leaders across your organization. These strategies are as follows: 1. Assess your leadership culture. 2. Be on the lookout for leaks in your leadership culture. 3. Enable relationship-building among your leaders. 4. Evolve your leadership culture as your company changes.

Figure 13.1 The Four Strategies to Build a Strong Community of Accountable Leaders

Assess Your Leadership Culture

The first step is to know what the current state of your organization’s leadership culture is. You can use the Community of Leaders Survey to help you with this.

Set up some time to have your executive team or extended leadership team complete the survey (see Figure 13.2).

The figure shows an example of the community of leaders survey.

Figure 13.2 The Community of Leaders Survey

The results from this survey will generate an important discussion that will help align the senior executives on how they see the leadership culture of the organization. As you review the responses from the completed survey with your executive team, reflect on the following questions:

  • What overall patterns do you observe?
  • Do any findings surprise you?
  • What areas of strength exist? What are some of the weak areas?
  • Do the results worry you, or are you encouraged by them?

The 10 Characteristics of a Strong Community of Leaders

Let’s now spend some time discussing each of the 10 items. I will share some of the patterns I have seen in other organizations. You may find this context valuable for understanding your own organization’s results.

  1. Leaders are clear on the strategic direction of the organization. Without strategic clarity, it is hard to align leaders and drive their commitment. If your survey revealed a very high score, congratulations; now focus on keeping it at a high level. However, if this was rated low for your organization, you’ll need to understand what might be happening. First, you may find that the leaders are unclear whether it has a strategy in place. This may sound strange, but I can’t tell you how often leaders are unaware that a strategy even exists. Second, you need to understand whether the communication of the strategy is clear and done effectively. At times, senior executives “communicate” the strategy without actually ensuring that anyone understands it. They may use a lot of financial terms, talking about operating margin, earnings per share, and so on. Many other leaders struggle to appreciate what this language means, and more importantly, what they specifically must do to drive the strategy. Ultimately, clarity is not a communication challenge; it’s a translation challenge. Senior executives must translate the strategy so that leaders can understand it and in turn explain it to the people they lead.
  2. Leaders create excitement about the future. If this rating is low, then there may be engagement issues taking place with your leaders. Connect this finding with results from your employee engagement survey to see whether there are parallels between the two sets of data. The real risk here is that if your leaders are not excited about the future, every employee will know it. That will impact their engagement and excitement about the company and its future. If you are fortunate to have high scores on this item, make sure you leverage the excitement of your leaders to engage your employees and accelerate efforts to deliver results.
  3. Leaders share a common aspiration to be great leaders. When this item is rated low, I generally find it’s because the organization has not communicated a clear set of leadership expectations. Once you do, you will see this item get stronger. It’s critical to not just communicate your company-specific leadership contract but to also provide a road map for how the organization intends to support the development of leaders. If they do not see a plan and do not feel the company is investing in them, this will impact their aspirations and willingness to step up.
  4. Leaders lead with a united front and a one-company mindset. When this item is low, you may find you have a “stable of thoroughbreds” type of culture (as we discussed earlier in the book), where leaders are focused on their own business, department, or function. You must help your leaders understand how the business operates as a whole, how departments come together, and how they must act as ambassadors of the entire organization, not just their functional units.
  5. Leaders hold each other accountable by calling out unproductive leadership behavior. As we’ve already seen, this was the lowest-rated item in my global research. In fact, it’s the lowest-rated item at an individual, team, and culture level. It is always the lowest-rated item in every organization where we have conducted this survey. I believe this happens because we haven’t made this an expectation of leaders. Many have been trained to stay focused on their work, team, or function. They also may believe that calling out unproductive leadership behavior is the responsibility of senior executives or the HR department. You may find it valuable to equip leaders with the skills to be able to have tough conversations with one another. You may also need to address those leaders (bullies, brilliant jerks) who don’t play well with others and are not stepping up in their roles.
  6. Leaders celebrate success and key milestones. When this item gets a low rating, there is a risk that leaders do not know whether they are winning or losing. This item is, in many ways, the easiest to implement, and yet it’s the one most neglected. Leaders get busy focusing on delivering results, and they do not take time to pause and celebrate their successes. This undermines efforts to drive the engagement of employees. If they don’t see their leaders acknowledging key milestones, they begin to disengage.
  7. Leaders break down silos and collaborate effectively. When this item is low, leaders are stuck in their functional areas. Many may not feel empowered or feel they need permission to break down silos. If this is critical to your success, then you need to set this as an expectation. You also need to highlight examples of leaders who have busted silos and driven stronger business outcomes as a result.
  8. Leaders keep internal politics and personal agendas to a minimum. If this item is low, then you may have a highly political culture on your hands. There are always politics in companies, but if it becomes the primary focus of leaders, then you have problems. The work here is to ensure you make your expectations clear—particularly the expectation to have a one-company mindset. You may also need to keep your eye on individuals who may be highly political. When you address this behavior head-on, you will find that drama and distraction decrease and productivity rises.
  9. Leaders demonstrate resilience and resolve in the face of adversity. Whenever we conduct the Community of Leaders Survey, this item gets the highest rating. In most organizations, leaders find a way to come together in the face of a crisis. All the issues, frustrations, politics, and drama that occupy them during regular periods tend to disappear in a crisis. Unfortunately, once the crisis is averted or resolved, they go back to internal bickering, infighting, and politicking. A crisis can create a false sense of community. Leaders need to come together in good times and in bad. Otherwise, you create an organization of “crisis junkies,” where leaders believe the only time they need to lead is in the face of trouble.
  10. Leaders support each other—they have each other’s backs. If this item is rated low, then you have some serious work on your hands. Without a sense of deep trust, it will be hard to create community. There may be a few things going on. First, the expectation has never been set for leaders to support one another. The second is that leaders may not know each other well. It’s hard to build a sense of trust and community with strangers. The focus here is to foster relationship-building among your leader population.

Use the Community of Leaders Survey as a 360 Assessment of Your Leadership Culture

Consider using the Community of Leaders Survey as a 360 assessment of the leadership culture among the senior leaders in your organization. I have had clients do this, and it is a valuable exercise. They have their senior executives complete the survey based on their perceptions of how they demonstrate the 10 characteristics. Then the next level of leaders (usually VP or director level) complete the survey based on how they see the senior leaders stepping up as a community of leaders. This makes for a robust discussion and clearly will show you whether the senior team is setting the right tone for the rest of the organization.

Look for Leaks in Your Leadership Culture

The Community of Leaders Survey gives you a baseline of where your organization stands. Once you have that level of insight, then you must be hyper-vigilant and even unrelenting in looking for what I call leaks in your leadership culture. Think of a stainless-steel drum filled with precious oil. If the drum is in good condition, it will retain the precious oil and preserve its value. On the other hand, imagine if the drum is neglected and over time begins to decay and even develop holes. What will happen? The precious oil will start to drip out. If the holes increase in number and size, then the oil will begin to gush out and spill all over the place.

It’s helpful to think of your leadership culture like this oil drum. If you neglect it, leaks can happen and weaken your leadership culture. Misaligned behaviors demonstrated by your leaders are the leaks that erode your leadership culture. The good news is that you can leverage the 10 characteristics of a community of leaders to help you be vigilant and spot the leaks. Let’s start by having a look at Figure 13.3. You will see the 10 characteristics of a community of leaders. I have also identified some key behaviors that are both aligned and misaligned behaviors for each of the 10 characteristics. Think about your organization as you review the table. You may identify other behaviors that you have seen as you read through the list.

The figure shows a three-column table illustrating the aligned and misaligned leadership behaviors.

Figure 13.3 The Aligned and Misaligned Leadership Behaviors

Ideally, you want your leaders to be demonstrating the aligned behaviors consistently. But if you identified many misaligned behaviors, then you have “leaks.” These leaks are weakening your ability to build community. One of the ways to spot leaks is by seeing leaders in action. The other is by looking at employee engagement data or themes emerging from exit interviews with employees leaving your company. When an issue starts surfacing with regularity, then you need to nip it in the bud before it becomes entrenched in your culture.

Enable Relationship-Building Among Your Leaders

As I’ve said many times to leaders I work with, “You can’t build a sense of community and a strong leadership culture among a group of strangers.” That’s why some of the most important strategies for sustaining your efforts are ones that connect leaders. Mike Fucci, chairman of the board for Deloitte, stressed this in a recent article. He said companies today need leaders who can create leadership ecosystems that help move strategic priorities forward. He continued: “This means building diverse leadership alliances through inclusive relationship management. Leaders who are effective in developing the organization’s ecosystem often spend a great deal of time and attention reaching up, down, and sideways internally and externally. Leaders who are able to build relationships on this scale are able to act more decisively and efficiently.”1

Some of your leaders may already be doing this on their own, especially if they put into practice the strategies I presented in Chapter 9. Other leaders will need to be nudged along and supported. While you need to make your expectations about relationship-building clear, it’s also important that you support relationship-building at an organizational level. Let’s explore some strategies.

Hold Regular Leadership Forums

All my research and client experiences have taught me that regularly bringing leaders together in forums (in-person or virtually) is a powerful strategy for relationship-building as well as establishing and reinforcing a strong leadership culture. These forums or leadership conferences provide leaders with the opportunity to come together to network and build relationships. These forums help counter the isolation that many leaders experience day-to-day.

When done right, leader forums can help clarify your business strategy and reinforce your leadership expectations. Over time, you will find your leaders are better able to collaborate, innovate, and hold themselves and one another accountable for their performance.

So what makes for a great leader forum? Here are some lessons gathered from working with many clients around the world:

  1. Decide who needs to attend. First, it’s essential to be clear on who needs to participate. My clients usually convene the top two or three layers of leaders and selected high potentials. These people should be in leadership roles and have a key mandate for advancing the strategy of the organization. This doesn’t always mean that a leader must have direct reports. At times, leaders play critical integrator roles or possess deep subject matter expertise vital to the company. These leaders are not often invited to these events, which is a missed opportunity.
  2. Determine the best frequency for your leader forums. The frequency is an important decision you need to make. I’ve seen some organizations hold leader forums annually, biannually, or even quarterly. Gathering your senior leaders is costly and requires a commitment. I find it’s important to determine the frequency that works for your organization and be consistent.
  3. The senior executives must set the context and be engaged. The event should begin with opening remarks, usually from the CEO to provide an update on the state of the business, a review of the corporate strategy, and a reinforcement of the leadership expectations. It’s helpful for all the senior executives to have some exposure when it makes sense. It is also critical for them to demonstrate passion and excitement for the company. It’s also essential for them to remain actively engaged throughout the event.
  4. Bring the voice of the customer. Some of the most compelling sessions happen when customers are invited to talk about their experiences in working with an organization. Don’t just invite customers who like you and who have worked with you for years. Bring in customers who will challenge you and your leaders to step up in new and different ways to create enduring value for them.
  5. Tackle tough business issues. Don’t fly leaders from around the world or the country just to put them in a dark meeting room and subject them to talking heads and PowerPoint slides for three days. This is a surefire way to suck any energy, passion, or commitment out of every single leader in attendance. Instead, the agenda should include a balance of brief presentations with lots of opportunities for leaders to discuss and debate critical business issues. Usually these are not divisional or operational priorities, but challenges facing leaders across the enterprise. These discussions can’t just be about empty talk. Ensure that leaders can drive to actions that will form the basis for personal commitments.
  6. Build in some fun. The best leader forums find a way to build fun into the agenda. Every organization needs to define for themselves what this means. For some it’s talent shows, golfing, tours of the local city, or activities to support charitable organizations. The key is to ensure the event fosters relationship-building and networking among your leaders.
  7. Wrap up with a call to action. Finally, I find the best leader forums close out with a compelling call to action by the CEO. Set the bar high for your leaders. Reinforce the importance of individual and collective leadership accountability. The call to action should include the responsibility of leaders to cascade key messages back to their teams. Too often, these events happen and little information gets back to employees, which is a missed opportunity.

Ultimately, great leader forums achieve two critical outcomes: clarity and commitment. First, they should drive increased clarity about the company’s strategy and leadership expectations. Second, they should deepen the commitment of leaders to execute the strategy and work together to build a strong community of leaders, which in turn will help you build a strong leadership culture.

Build Community During Leadership Development Programs and Other Events

Leadership development programs offer another powerful opportunity that helps leaders to connect and build relationships. This can be in several ways. First, you can use a cohort approach to leadership development whereby your leaders experience your programs as an intact group. Over the duration of the program, they get to build relationships with one another. You will find these relationships can become quite strong. The positive effects can carry over into the workplace, as leaders start working more collaboratively with one another. We had one client who also reported that the relationships carried over to their leaders’ personal lives, many of whom became friends.

Another strategy is to embed social tools in your leadership programs that are delivered virtually. While the physical face-to-face element may not be present, a social platform can still yield positive outcomes with respect to relationship-building, learning, and mutual support.

Hold periodic events for leaders to come together to discuss the organization’s strategy and leadership expectations. These events are shorter in duration than leadership forums, but also serve as a way for leaders to connect and get to know one another. These events can also be held for targeted groups of leaders such as front-line and middle managers. Many clients I have worked with hold regular events for women leaders to give them their own space to connect, build relationships, and learn from one another.

Evolve Your Leadership Expectations as Your Company Changes

In August 2018, I was in South America to promote the launch of the Spanish translation of my book The Leadership Contract. During my time there, I was in Peru, Chile, and Panama. I spent about two to three days in each country. I did 20 presentations and meetings with senior leaders. In one of those meetings, I spent time with the Latin American team of a global company in the agricultural products industry. As we arrived at the head office, we saw banners throughout the headquarters emblazoned with the words “One Company.” They were hard to miss.

As we started our meeting with the executive team, we quickly learned that the day before was their “Day One.” You see, their company was acquired 18 months earlier by another company. It took all that time for the acquisition to gain approval by regulators and various governments. By chance, we happened to visit the team on day two. How lucky was I?

We learned during our conversation that each of the executives was deeply involved in crafting the new strategy of the combined companies. It also became evident that all of that work hadn’t prepared them for how they should lead. They had questions for me about how they should show up as leaders. They also wanted answers because their teams were asking them the same questions. Could they drive ahead on priorities as they always had? Did they need to seek permission for specific actions? Should they be proactive in reaching out to colleagues from the acquiring company? Some openly acknowledged that they were not fully embracing their new organization. The culture of their old organization, which some had spent 10 to 15 years with, still coursed through their blood. Despite all the banners and posters, their loyalty was still to the old company and its brand. Now what I didn’t tell you is that these two companies were fierce competitors before the acquisition. You can imagine how much work they had ahead of them to integrate the two cultures and create a new unified leadership culture.

Despite all the integration work they were doing, they hadn’t spent much time discussing the desired leadership expectations and culture for the leaders and the new combined company. They asked me to explain how they might do this, and I told them a lot about what you have read in the previous four chapters of this book. They got excited about this work. They then discussed how they were going to reach out to their colleagues to start having meaningful discussions. They were aligned around a goal to bring clarity to their leaders and drive their commitment when it mattered most.

In my experience, there are several triggers that will push you to reexamine the expectations of leaders in your organization. Like the example above, a merger and acquisition should initiate a company to review leadership expectations, determine how to build community, and create a strong leadership culture. Bringing two companies together after a merger or acquisition isn’t easy. I know this through my client work. I also know this through my own leadership experience with 13 acquisitions (both in acquiring other companies and in being acquired). The key lesson is that the sooner your company can create a new set of expectations for leaders, the better and even easier things will be post-merger. Failure to move on this quickly leads to internal confusion, conflict, and an “us versus them” mentality among leaders. This, in turn, will erode progress and undermine success.

Here are some other triggers that a company can face:

  • A new CEO joins the organization. Typically, when a new CEO joins a company, the person comes in with an agenda to drive change. I’ve never worked with a CEO who was appointed to maintain the status quo. Driving change will mean a shift in strategy, and that will likely translate into a change of leadership expectations.
  • Poor company performance. If a company is experiencing poor performance lasting several quarters, then change is required. As you know, doing what you’ve always done won’t get you to a different place. This will result in a shift in strategy, which creates the need for leaders to step up in new and different ways.
  • Drive accelerated growth. Sometimes companies experience an opportunity to drive accelerated growth due to market demand or the chance to expand globally or into new markets. This, too, increases the expectations of leaders and requires you to evolve your leadership culture.
  • Transforming business models. Many companies find they have to change their business model in response to external changes, whether those changes come from regulators, technology, competitor threats, or evolving industry dynamics. These days, many companies are transforming their business models due to digital technologies, AI, and machine learning. Again, new business models will also create new expectations for leaders.

Final Thoughts

As you might appreciate by now, this work of making leadership accountability a priority, defining clear leadership expectations, tackling the hard work to sustain momentum, and building community among your leaders is an ongoing effort. As we discussed in Chapter 1, the future for leaders will continue to be a challenge for them. They will need to continually be thinking about how to drive strong leadership accountability to help everyone to step up, take ownership, and deliver results.

Gut Check for Leaders: Foster a Community of Leaders Across Your Organization

As you think about the ideas in this chapter, reflect on your answers to the following Gut Check for Leaders questions:

  1. To what extent do you and your organization regularly assess your leadership culture?
  2. Do you regularly look for leaks in your leadership culture?
  3. Do you implement practices that foster relationship-building among your leaders?
  4. To what extent does your organization evolve its leadership expectations and culture in the face of key changes?

Note

  1. 1Mike Fucci, “Addressing the Leadership Gap: Diversity Is an Essential Ingredient to Development, Succession,” Huffpost, December 2017, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/addressing-the-leadership-gap -diversity-is-an-essential_b_5a2fe4bbe4b0bad787127018.
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