Leaders very quickly establish the culture and climate of an organization. They can consciously or unconsciously convey messages to managers that encourages purposeful action and personal responsibility or not.
I recently met with one of my executive coaching clients who is vice president of marketing and advertising for a high tech company in Silicon Valley. She related to me that the CEO will often listen to the ideas of his managers, but offers ideas of his own as better. The unintended message as communicated to me by the VP is that managers are less likely to purposely engage.
The VP indicated that the CEO is likely unaware of the affect his behavior is having on his people. The VP and I are working on his becoming more assertive so as coaching homework he decided to give the CEO some feedback. Fortunately, the CEO is an enlightened leader and is open to receiving feedback and getting better. He wants to have a positive work climate and culture where people are fully engaged.
Are you supporting a work climate that unleashes the willpower of leaders at all levels?
Organizations That Support Purposeful Action
Leaders who make a serious attempt to foster managerial willpower must establish three critical working conditions:
1. Create space for autonomous action.
2. Build processes for providing professional, social and emotional support.
3. Develop a culture that celebrates the exercise of responsible willpower.
Managers must first have sufficient freedom to act, with leaders allowing enough autonomy to grant managers a sense of personal ownership.
Ideally, managers will have informal relationships with peers and mentors who can provide professional support, including the information and resources needed to accomplish their work. They also require emotional support to cope with stress and leverage powerful emotions. An executive coach can often provide support.
To unleash managers’ willpower, leaders must embed purposeful behaviors as a central element of the company’s core values and shared understanding of how it does business.
Developing autonomy, support and a culture that encourages willpower is not intuitive. Personal freedom and shared support are difficult to combine. Highly autonomous managers focus only on their own tasks, often neglecting to share knowledge with others or invest energy in helping them succeed.
Yet, leadership that is courageous, persistent and patient can reconcile these tensions. No quick organizational fixes will create a culture of sustainable, willful action. It results from a long journey, through which leaders continuously demand purposeful action and personal responsibility.
Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help you become a more purposeful and productive leader. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become happily engaged with the strategy and vision of the company.
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