In my previous blog, I focused on organizational transformation and the acceleration that values-based cultures experience in driving successful transformation. This topic is so pertinent and imminent in today’s business environment that it warrants further discussion.
To achieve the transformation that enables organizations to thrive, we must abandon survival mode and status quo thinking. Many leaders proclaim themselves “change agents” – the problem with change is that change merely fixes past mistakes, or at best, marginally enhances existing operations. Change is about surviving.
Transformation is necessary to enable sustainable positive results in this uncertain world of rapid market adjustments, quantum leap technological advancements, fickle consumers, and large demographic shifts. Merely changing what we do to maintain the status quo is not an effective strategy for growth. To thrive tomorrow, leaders must act today to transform their organizations into cultures that challenge and replace attitudes of complacency, entitlement, and incrementalism.
Transformation, by necessity, must be from the inside out. It must be widely embraced, and it must be accomplished in a meaningful timeline. True and successful transformation is best led by Values-Based Leaders. It is through their character, commitment, personal values, and vision that they create and accelerate high-trust organizational cultures that are equipped and committed to accomplishing aggressive goals.
Values-Based Leaders (VBL) establish cultural environments that clearly articulate how and why. How establishes the foundation for clear, widely accepted organizational values and behavioral norms. Why maintains outward focus on the organization’s purpose, on its customers, its clients, or its patients.
Values-based cultures profit greatly from the power of diversity, capitalizing on differences among genders, experiences, creeds, and nationalities Values-Based Leaders effectively engage, motivate, and develop all of their people, cultivating specific, predictable behaviors that lead to increased productivity, more innovation, and increased operational excellence which generate results that enable an organization to thrive.
Is your leadership about surviving or thriving?