How is your leadership shaping your culture?
In a recent conversation, a colleague asked me how executives can execute to improve outcomes across a four metrics — people, planet, purpose and profit. I replied, through deliberate development. Create a learning culture where people anticipate (look forward to) growth and challenging conversations. Normalize the messy aspects of personal development.
The goals of profitability and personal development are no longer an either/or decision for companies who want to flourish in the new business economy.
Business growth and human growth are part of the same whole. Each depends on the other. When executives fully embrace this philosophy they will invest equal interest in how profit spurs development and how development spurs profit.
Let me be more specific in answering the question - how can a company execute to improve outcomes across four metrics - people, planet, profit and purpose? Embed a holistic developmental approach into the company infrastructure -- peer coaching, effective 1-1s, dynamic team meetings, check-ins, gatherings, strategy, execution -- to increase transparency, eliminate takers, establish reciprocal mentoring, improve psychological safety, bolster people’s ability to deliver and receive candid feedback and develop a shared language to update old narratives.
Let’s get more granular. Research from Harvard shows that psychological safety -- the belief that the work environment is safe for interpersonal risk-taking - is the most powerful predictor of team performance. To improve psychological safety, organizations must intercept implicit biases and successfully reframe them. A frame is a mental model or a hidden assumption about a situation. A frame directs our attention. Imagine that we’re both looking through a picture frame at an image of a skydiver, you might see fear, I might see fun. We’re both looking at the same frame; our interpretation -- our framing -- is radically different.
“Psychological safety is the most powerful predictor of team performance.”
Frames come from prior experiences, then we superimpose this lens on situations past and present. The problem is that we’re often blind to our frames and almost always blind to others’ frames, therefore, we assume our frames are the truth and that others see our truth too. Frames are blind spots and we encounter dozens at work every day without our knowledge. In my work as a positive psychology coach, I intercept frames frequently. Today, while coaching an executive, an implicit frame was stated without guile, arrogance or blame, “I encourage people to speak up in my meetings, I should be hearing more from my bench.” Spoken with sincerity, and wanting the best for their team, the executive could not see their own blind spot.
A Holistic Developmental Approach
How can a person or team see through their blind spots? Through a holistic developmental approach. Create a pervasive ecology of interpersonal learning in your organization, and your company will experience a force magnifier of business and human capital. Collective intelligence will emerge.
1+1 will equal 10
Executives with this developmental mindset approach business growth and human growth as one woven rope -- me < > you < > we -- each strand as necessary as the next to create the interconnected whole. These executives understand that when they take care of their people, their people will take care of the business. The moment they consider sacrificing one for the other, they lose it all; the whole rope unravels, and the organization becomes a group of indispensable experts.
Now, more than ever, people are looking to their employer to help meet their individual ‘me’ needs (financial, emotional, cognitive, psychological) and the team’s ‘you’ needs (relational, trust, connection, inclusion, diversity) and the organization’s ‘we’ needs (purpose, performance, profit) so that we can collectively begin to meet the universal ‘us’ needs (justice, peace, equity).
Execution to improve outcomes in purpose, planet, people and profit are, largely, the same. Like boats in a harbor rising together at high tide, when you elevate your people, you will lift your business.
Executive coaching creates the conditions where candid conversations will intercept your blind spots and elevate your leadership. Let’s talk about how your leadership is shaping your culture.
Leslie is a seasoned positive psychology executive coach who has counseled leaders at Google, Lyft, LinkedIn, Verizon and other leading corporate clients. She works side-by-side with conscious executives seeking to make a real impact.
Leslie holds an advanced degree in positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. She has spent the past decade studying personal and organizational impediments to change. She has personally helped hundreds of individuals unpack and understand their challenges then break free of unproductive habits in order to achieve personal and professional goals.
Her expertise lies in the areas of positive psychology and change leadership. Leslie is a certified executive coach and has more than 1000 hours of one-on-one coaching experience. This gives her deep insight into individual motivation. She weaves her vast knowledge into her coaching technique helping her clients initiate positive change and maintain it long-term.
With Leslie, you will get a professional, completely personalized, and multi-layered coaching experience that will address your needs, whether new to a company, new to a role or to re-energize your contribution for the long term. She is committed to helping you rapidly reach your goals through regular check-ins, direct and candid feedback, and a collaborative approach that will enable you to take an active role in your development.
