Today is the second and concluding part of last week’s article titled ‘beyond influence and result, leadership is behaviour’
All leaders want to influence their followers and produce results. The results are either short-term with or without links to the long term objectives of the company or sustainable results which meets the expectations of the stakeholders all the time.
Daniela (a pseudo name) recently changed her role from being a Director of one of the top fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies to be the Country Director of a new company in a different sector. The new company is like a start-up but with enormous potential to match competition. Daniela wants me as her executive coach to discuss and guide her on how to establish footprints in the company focusing on bottom-line results and market share. She read last week’s article, and she wondered if what I wrote is relevant to her as the start-up director for her new employer.
Given her previous experience and level in the FMCG industry, she has both the technical competence and relationship skill to influence and achieve results. Her new role is an opportunity to make things right at the beginning, go beyond influence and achievement by ensuring that the behaviours of her team leaders are in sync with and towards the objectives of the company. When the foundation is right in terms of attitude or culture of the organisation, achieving a sustainable result through and with quality products or services will be a pleasurable ride. What should be Daniela’s priority as a leader? Is it influence, result or behaviour?
The foundation for leadership influence and result is behaviour. A leader is the one who knows the way of the appropriate behaviour that set his or her team on fire (influence) to get the work done for the expected outcome (results) with bye products of self-fulfilment of the team members and commitment to the process and the brand that connects the team.
The last paragraph is what the rest of this page will be on with a focus on business entities, though the principles can be applied to any organisation, be it political, voluntary or institutional.
What connects or disconnect the team, breed commitment or lack of it to the common objectives and foster the loyalty or disloyalty to the brand is the culture of the company. I have defined culture as the attitude and behaviours allowed and exhibited by the company’s leadership.
For Daniela, the starting point is ensuring the culture allowed and exhibited by her inner circle aligns with the business objectives concerning the customers and the market. Behaviour that gets a market share but violates the relationship with the customers or consumers will erode the brand and its power to attract repeated patronages in the future. For example, if the internal competition among your regional sales teams leaves the customers to wonder if the company is orderly or not, then the behaviour of secretly selling to the customers of another region by one of your teams is internal cut-throat competition. Internal cut-throat competition is a behaviour that is synonymous to the fight between two brothers which helps the strangers reaps the harvests. The behaviour that achieves results but violates the core values of the company, or the processes meant to support the vision or mission of the business will endanger the entire company if allowed to thrive.
The rampant harmful behaviour in the workplace is the use of vulgar or abusive languages by the supervisors or leaders. The question is what to do to a person who is achieving results but with no respect for the value and the culture of the organisation. I have been asked this question time without numbers, and my answer is without repentance. For example, a leader that uses vulgar words on his team will deflate the team members’ emotions. The implication of negative emotions in the workplace is the creation of a toxic environment with disengaged staff waiting for the next offers to exit and becoming competitors to the company. I have advised companies to exit people who are not changing the behaviour that is anti-culture and against the core values after receiving private coaching to mend their practices with the culture of the company. My position is with no respect for the results they are delivering. It is highly probable that the results they are given are rooted with personal egoism and will never be sustainable after their exit from the company. It is; therefore, better to lose a disoriented leader and his result for a moment than to create a lousy workplace which takes longer time to cure than achieving positive results.
To Daniela, she should not tolerate the use of abusive languages in the name of achieving the result. The most dangerous effect of celebrating achievements without value for the culture is the tendency for the upcoming leaders to emulate the style of manipulating or abusing people to get temporarily but not sustainable results for the company.
Where self-fulfilment and commitment of the goose that should lay the golden eggs for the company is destroyed, the influence and the results of the leaders will be a mirage and an achievement that will be eclipsed within a short period. Therefore, the starting point for Daniela is to ensure the accomplishment of the company’s objectives without destroying the commitment and fulfilment of her team and the culture of the company. She must entrench a result or performance oriented culture which harbours self-respects for all the team members and fairness by punishing with people who are either not contributing to the result or are achieving results with destructive processes or behaviour.
The most important behaviour that guarantees the combination of influence, result and the creation of the best place to work is respect for people. Leaders that respect his or her people will do all that is practicable to ensure changes in policies that are inhibiting the performance of his or her team, and give them the appropriate supports knowing that the outcome of the teams’ efforts is his or her result.
When the team is performing, a behaviour that recognises and give credit to people will ensure continuity of excellent performance that enables the organisation to remain the north of the cardinal direction. Where the team’s performance is in the ‘south’, when the results are completely down, the ability of the leaders to communicate without disrespecting the team is the turnaround catalyst to changing the outcome of the game. In such a situation, the leader must be and act like a catalytic improver rather than being a bulldog that causes emotional damage to his tools.
My final advice to Daniela is to show and entrench behaviours that breed trust, inspire, build and bond her team. Action that is customer-centric, legacy-oriented and ensures the accumulation of her practices creates a world-class institution where people are proud to be the employees or the ex-employees.
Babs Olugbemi
Babs Olugbemi FCCA, the Chief Responsibility Officer at Mentoras Leadership Limited and Founder, the Positive Growth Africa. He can be reached on [email protected] or 08025489396.
