Servant Leadership is often used to describe how people lead internal teams. Leadership that inspires, enables and encourages success. That focuses on removing obstacles. That promotes collaboration. Providing people with what need to be successful and achieve their best outcomes.
Collaboration actually enables ownership rather than erodes it
In a truely collaborative culture, people are able to freely ask for assistance and feedback at the moment they need it, receive feedback free of criticism or opinion, and then decided what to take on board or not. With everyone doing the same type of sharing, we each individually move the whole forward.
Do different teams in a company have different cultures?
Does it then present a challenge to create a shared culture across the company that everyone can buy into while still supporting the individual needs of each team? Part of the solution can be to do more cross-functional projects where people can focus on shared outcomes together. These need to be strategic, prioritized and must also be useful.
Millennials are the grown-ups in the room too!
Millennials are adults in the workforce, even if at times they are sometimes tentative about stepping into their own power. The rest of us, who have been here longer, should remember the old management adage that if you treat your team as if they are children, they will act like children.
Is your company culture live or words posted on a wall?
In honesty, even though they might not want to admit it, there are often gaps in organizations between best intentions and execution. So how do companies make sure that the actual day-to-day culture aligns with it’s values. How do they fill any recognizable gaps.
Is Culture at odds with Diversity
I’ve been struggling with whether or not to write a post on culture. I usually try to make my posts be positive and forward looking. And yet, I can’t write an article on culture without first doing a small rant on what I consider the dark side of culture. The sometimes use of culture to exclude people that don’t “fit”. Even when they might have relevant skills and can add value. As a woman in technology, and now an older woman in technology, on the surface I don’t always look like I “fit”. Though, I guess I’ve been lucky. The teams and environments that I have worked in have been diverse, just by virtue of me being on them. And now, I’m at a point and level in my career, where I can positively impact a culture, not just “fit” into one.
