Leadership is arguably the foundation for all successful outcomes, whether it’s in your personal or professional life. In the business world, leadership is the most important building block in developing and maintaining highly productive teams. Leaders set the tone, communicate goals, and directly impact employee performance on a multitude of levels. In creating a high-performance company culture, leaders motivate and facilitate team execution by inspiring employees to perform their potential and excel on projects at hand.
What is a high-performing company culture?
A high-performing company culture is a set of behaviors and norms that leads an organization to achieve superior results. A company exhibiting such a culture routinely achieves better financial and non-financial results – such as customer satisfaction, employee retention, competitiveness, and innovation – than those of its peers over a long period. The aforementioned behaviors and norms are emphasized in the book “Leadership in High-Performance Organizational Cultures” by Stanley Truskie, which states that “enlightened leaders and organizations have abandoned the dated and ineffective top-down management approach in favor of a much more adaptive and engaging one that creates an energized, innovative, and results-driven company culture.”
How to become a better leader
Professionals striving to lead these progressive, high-performing company cultures can learn the framework needed to make a difference in their organizations with Ottawa University’s online Master of Arts in Leadership degree. The curriculum of OU’s MAL leadership degree delves into the human elements of business, such as communication techniques, leadership theory, multicultural workplace dynamics, and team development. By emphasizing more personal and creative approaches to management, Ottawa’s leadership graduate degree enables students to develop their levels of emotional intelligence and inspire their followers to reach their full potential.
Embarking on cultural development in the workplace must begin with a purpose, which can be derived by asking three key questions – where are we going, what do we believe in and why do we exist? To be effective, these questions need answers that connect with the heart of the company’s leadership.
Creating a high-performance company culture
The following five key elements need to be addressed to create a high-performance company culture:
1. Clarify and Communicate Values
Leaders committed to developing the desired company culture will work to establish the values that anchor it. These values will drive company behavior day in and day out, and will ultimately contribute to its overall success. It is important to note that goals should be aligned with the organization’s values and vision.
2. Reinforce Positive Behavior
Fostering a positive and resourceful attitude in team members is key, and leaders should reward individuals who represent the values of the organization because it increases their performance levels. When employees perform better, customers are more satisfied, and the overall success of the organization improves as well. The positive behavior of employees should be reinforced by leadership in a manner that motivates employees to work more productively thereby increasing their self-esteem.
3. Encourage Open Communication
When an organization’s leaders encourage open communication, it builds trust and creates a healthy workplace atmosphere. There should be a fluid line of communication with an unbiased and open conversation no matter the topic of discussion. Effective leaders will make sure the flow of information is smooth from the top-level to entry-level employees.
4. Empower Employees
Employees trust their leaders to make decisions that will positively impact them. However, leaders should give their employees a voice in decision-making. Employees are more engaged and perform better when they feel empowered. The most successful leaders work towards enabling employees to reach their full potential by communicating a clear vision, creating a culture of trust, and providing training for professional growth.
5. Collect Feedback
Promoting a feedback-rich philosophy is a key ingredient for creating a high-performance company culture. Transparent feedback will help company leadership learn how employees feel about the company’s culture and share opinions on anything that needs improving.
To review, effective leaders can create and maintain a high-performance company culture by clarifying and communicating values, reinforcing positive behavior, encouraging open communication, empowering employees, and collecting feedback. These key elements are interdependent and should be areas of focus for all leaders.
Developing leadership skills
Developing leadership skills that are germane to building a high-performance company culture can be achieved by earning Ottawa University’s online Master of Arts in Leadership degree. This competitive leadership graduate degree program holds esteemed accreditation from the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP), showing the high levels of business teaching within this degree. U.S. News & World Report has ranked Ottawa University and its online programs near the top of the best colleges in the institution’s adult markets of Kansas City, Phoenix, and Milwaukee.
Career advancement awaits with one of the best, fastest, and most affordable online Master of Arts in Leadership degree programs. Why not take the first step now? To learn more about earning your online MAL at Ottawa University, contact us today!
See Also:
Beginning Your Career in Leadership
Essential Leadership Skills for Career Advancement
Best Master of Arts in Leadership