Leading a Team to a Great Cause

Just having personal commitment to a great cause is not enough for a leader. The vision for “something beyond” must be successfully transferred to the entire group, whether it be a small staff, a department, an entire organization, a state, or a nation.

Image source: Erich Ferdinand, Creative Commons

No Dark Boxes Please

People do not like to be put in boxes, and just as important, people do not like to be in the dark, outside the door where company values and vision are shaped. People are less energized and tend to drift when they are unsure of how they should be operating within an organization. People need to see their leaders’ commitment to values, and they want a part in helping to shape their organization’s core values and vision.

Many companies start with the right motivation. They talk about their values and they create high aspirations, but these same companies don’t really live by them.

The Australian Institute of Management and Hong Kong Management Association found that when leaders worked hard to develop consensus around shared values people were more positive. They also discovered that leaders who engage in dialogue around common values develop a stronger sense of personal effectiveness in their people than leaders who do not.

A Vacuum Will Suck the Air Out of You

Leaders who form corporate values, vision, and strategy in a vacuum or just in the executive suite lack the humility and commitment to move beyond themselves and include others who have solid ideas and opinions on what should define the company’s values. When leaders don’t talk about the company’s values and vision, people feel alienated and less energized.

John Kotter and James Heskett found that firms with a strong corporate culture and a foundation of shared values (values developed together with employees) significantly outperformed other firms in revenue, stock value, and profits. Who wouldn’t want those results?

When working to plant a vision and sense of a greater cause in a team, you must first ensure that values are understood and owned. This is accomplished initially by cataloging the personal values of individual team members. When the personal values of individuals are understood, team values begin to emerge.

Participation Leads to Loyalty

The following story illustrates the steps that one dynamic business leader took to win support for a great cause in his organization.

After agreeing with his executive team on a set of core values, the CEO of this large firm got so interested in employee input on team values that he asked a consulting team to go to six different locations and determine the values of the two hundred to three hundred employees at each site. In team settings, it is often easy to agree on the first five to seven values; however, discussions get very interesting as teams round out the full list of values that will govern their individual behavior and business practices. Using an audience response system, the consultants asked each table-grouping of employees to discuss and develop team values. Next, they worked on “room” values.

Upon completion of the six-city tour, the employee list of values was compared to the executive list. The two lists were surprisingly similar. After some final discussions and some tweaking of the list by the company’s leaders, a final list of values was issued.

Although the operative values came down from on high, every employee who had participated had a personal stake in and loyalty to the list. The company-wide discussion had galvanized the organization not just to a set of core values but to a gigantic something-greater goal pursued by the company’s CEO. This company desperately needed to reverse a quarter-century of declining market share for its products. The CEO used this exercise in determining values as well as a great amount of day-to-day, hands-on involvement with key personnel to successfully “sell” his organization on the dream of a huge reversal of the company’s fortunes. The entire company bought into the dream and now shared his passion for something greater.

As we’ve discussed in previous blogs, when everyone understands and shares a company’s values and vision, that team’s success follows.