Management Block: You haven’t created a strong, healthy culture!
One of My Favorite Topics: Team Culture
If your team is experiencing some problems such as:
They don’t know that they need to come to you when they need help
A lot of gossip
Complaining and negativity
All of these things reflect the culture of your team. It is your responsibility as the leader to recalibrate the environment your team is working in day-to-day.
You are the person who has to hold people accountable to behavior you want to see on your team in order to create the culture you want.
When you have the culture you want, you are more likely to:
Get great results from your team
Hit goals
Increase revenue
Inspire innovation and growth
All things that your boss will see and celebrate!
Other things that you may see when your culture is struggling are:
Due dates being missed
People behind on their work
Prioritization challenges
Apathetic or a little too comfortable
Not hitting goals.
So what do we need to do about that?
Maybe you're stressed out because your boss is asking questions about why things are late or why goals are not met. It really feels stressful, you may even feel like a failure. Sometimes managers feel like they're not getting the results they want from their team. They can feel like either “it's all my fault,” “I'm terrible,” “I don't ever want to be a leader again.”
All of this goes back to culture.
Last week, someone told me that’s exactly how they felt.
They said the last thing that they led failed, and it even ceased to exist. Guess what? She blamed herself. She was the leader for the first time and had high expectations… and now she doesn't want to have any more leadership positions. She thinks she’s a terrible leader.
She doesn't want to consider herself a leader ever again. Why? Because things fell apart. She was missing a key piece of building a team that is really the secret sauce to success.
She was missing the leadership mindset.
Mindset is one of the biggest issues you have to hurdle. When you are building a strong, healthy culture and navigate out of a stressed environment, you have to focus on your mindset.
Sometimes the issue is that you’re stressed. Leading isn’t turning out to be what you thought it would be - it’s so much harder. You start assuming the worst about yourself or your team members. You get irritated and impatient. You might start thinking:
My whole team is the problem. And I'm a great leader. They're just lazy. They're entitled, they're the wrong people in the wrong positions.
You know that the wrong people in the wrong positions could be the case, but you have to work with the team that you have. But also, you must ask yourself: What am I doing to make sure that they are set up for success? What am I doing to make sure that they are not struggling? That they are not living up to their potential?
There are two camps:
I'm not the problem and everybody else is the problem
I'm terrible, and I'm a failure, right?
WRONG!
Your first step is to overcome the negative and undesirable mindset you’re having and instead - work on your mindset.
So what does that really mean? What is mindset?
Mindset is controlling your thoughts and attitude. This includes internal self speak: What do you say to yourself? What is that voice inside your head? Do you try to control it? Do you take hold of your mindset, and make sure that you are controlling it and making sure that it's positive and productive? Or are you just letting your thoughts run wild?
You have to take your thoughts captive. You have to control what goes on in your head.
The second step is to model the behaviors you want to see.
I can only model the behaviors that I want to see when I take my thoughts captive.
So if you want:
Things turned in on time
Your team members to come to you when they are behind on something
Communicate with you any struggles they're having
You need to be modeling those behaviors for them. You need to be turning things in on time or early, you need to be setting that standard, and you need to be on time to meetings. You need to keep your word. You need to show them the grace you expect them to show you and the rest of the team. You need to create the culture you have always dreamed of - even if it felt far-fetched.
Being a model for the behaviors you want to see is going to be a lot easier to do when you have already worked on your mindset.
If you're reading this and thinking, “wow, I don't know where to begin with mindset,” book your free call with me.
We can do this specific Zoom coaching call, “The Management Breakthrough.” Where, as a manager, we will go through your mindset and processes as a roadmap to clarify, “What do we need to get clear on with? What does my team need? What resources do we have? What holes are there that need to be filled?”
The third most important tip to take away about building a great culture is having sense of psychological safety.
What is psychological safety?
Psychological safety is a sense that a team feels they can appear vulnerable in front of each other. This includes taking risks, asking tough questions, giving feedback, and receiving feedback- all without fear of retaliation, retribution, humiliation, or opportunities being taken from them.
One thing that's bothered me a lot recently, is that people describe culture about the perks that their company offers.
Its people, not perks.
Perks are not what makes the culture. It is just one percentage of everything in the environment. You may have a pizza party sometimes or maybe there's a company picnic, but what culture really is comes down to this: How do you treat your employees? Are people treated with equity? Are people treated with respect, with clarity?
Do you have leaders on your leadership team? Do you have a management team that looks like they care about the people around them? Do they have integrity? This means that they do what they say they're going to do and their actions reflect their values.
If diversity, equity and inclusion are talking points for your company, but nothing's ever done for equity… it’s just lip service. That is not leading with integrity. That's not creating great culture. It is not modeling the behaviors you want to see. It's not creating psychological safety.
Remember that building a healthy culture is about controlling your mindset, modeling the behaviors you want your team members to have, and showing psychological safety.