Do you need to fix your culture so leaders can thrive?

If you have invested a lot of time and money into developing your leaders but are still not seeing the results you had hoped for then maybe you are focusing your attention on the wrong area. It does not matter how talented a leader is if they are working in a place where the culture towards them is negative. This may mean that you have to work on your culture in order to get the most out of your leaders.

How do you know if there is a culture in your workplace that is negative towards leaders?

Here are a few common signs:

• Staff have an “us against them” attitude with leaders and clearly view them as the enemy.
• Team members have not actually ever met their senior leaders and do not recognise them or know their names.
• Staff are often trying to catch out their leaders and belittle them
• There is often negative talk amongst team members about leaders
• Team members deliberately creating problems or testing their leaders to see how they will cope.

If you have noticed this kind of behaviour within your organisation then it might be time to work with your senior leaders to form better relationships with team members before investing any more time, money or effort into developing new leaders.

Here are a few ways to strengthen relationships between team members and leaders:

• Encourage understanding of shared goals and task. For employees to work together effectively, they must understand group and individual goals. When this understanding is poor, work inefficiencies, lower work quality and low employee morale often are the result. Lack of understanding over goals is often misdiagnosed as an individual performance management problem, when actually the team member is unsure of what the organisation expects from them.
• Provide team members with sufficient Knowledge and Resources. Managers can’t have a high performing organisation without capable and knowledgeable employees who are provided with the right resources and tools required to do their jobs. If staff are made to do work they are not qualified for, they will not be happy and their performance and the quality of their work will suffer because of it. Without proper knowledge and training, employees are likely to use resources inefficiently and become disheartened which leads to frustration and higher staff turnover.
• Communication. Ineffective employee communications lead to inefficient coordination efforts. Miscommunication causes poor information sharing and makes it difficult to get the right people involved at the right time to make the best decisions.  Effective interaction can encourage opportunities for combined learning for both manager and employee and greatly enhance employee job satisfaction. Effective interaction creates a culture of collaboration and encourages sharing of ideas and information.

Minimising Workplace Negativity

There is nothing more detrimental to workplace morale than unrelenting workplace negativity. It drains the energy from a workplace and steals attention away from work.

As a manager it is important to stay closely in touch with employees throughout the company as this will allow you to sense any workplace negativity in its early stages.

It is essential to pay attention to employee complaints, exit interviews and employee discussions and feedback to pick up any signs of negativity. This information will help you learn to identify the symptoms of negativity before its consequences damage your work environment. It will also help you prevent future negativity and cure any current workplace negativity.

Negativity is a growing problem in the workplace, it is often the result of a loss of confidence, control, or community. Understanding what people are negative about is the first step in solving the problem.

Communicating with employees will help you define the exact problems and the extent to which these problems are influencing your workplace. One of the easiest ways to do this is to identify the particular employee groups who are experiencing the negativity and the source of the issues that triggered their unhappiness.

Perhaps the organisation has made a decision which has negatively affected staff or staff are feeling threatened or neglected by management.

Whatever the reason for the workplace negativity, these issues must be addressed.
Here are a few tips for keeping your workplace a negative free zone:

• Give staff opportunities to voice their opinions about workplace policies and procedures. Acknowledge the impact of changes in work hours, pay, benefits, overtime etc. on your employees.
• Treat employees like adults with fairness and consistency. Do not create rules for all your employees to target the few people who are doing the wrong thing. Keep the number of rules directing the behaviour of adults at work to a minimum.
• Keep your staff in the loop with what’s going on within the organisation. Provide the context for decisions and communicate regularly and effectively.
• Give employees opportunities to grow and develop. Training and opportunities for promotion are visible signs of an organisations commitment to staff.
• Make sure you give your employees appropriate reward or praise and recognition for a job well done.  Reward and recognition are some of the most powerful tools an organisation can use to boost staff morale.
• Listen, often people just need a sounding board. Be present and available to staff. 

How our Emotional State Affects our Employees

Research is now discovering that emotions are capable of affecting memory, perception and cognition. All of these things can influence how an employee performs at work.

When people are influenced by the moods of others, especially those in managerial positions, it can impact their behaviour at work. This is called “emotional contagion”. How we feel can spill out and infect other people, essentially making us walking mood inductors.

We even have cells in our bodies called mirror neurons which allow us to be in touch with how other people are feeling by simply observing them. Neuroscientists have recently discovered that empathy is driven by these mirror neurons which are located in the frontal cortex of your brain. Mirror neurons fire in the same way whether you're watching someone do something or you are actually doing that same thing yourself.

At work, it is often the leader’s responsibility to set the mood for the rest of the team in the workplace. The emotions people bring to work are as important as their cognitive skills, and especially so for leaders. If you are a leader, consider that managing your moods is one of your chief responsibilities.

A good way to look at it is, your mood, positive or negative, will remain in a room long after you have left it and the mood you generate is directly related to how you make people feel.
There has been little research done on the ramifications of group emotions. If you consider the effects of emotional contagion, it is easy to assume that within the workplace groups are reflecting the influence of key emotional people within their team. Usually the leaders.

The key to stopping this emotional contagion is awareness, however often another person’s negative mood affects you unconsciously. If you realise that someone else’s bad mood is affecting you, you can control it. For this reason, making people, especially managers, aware of emotional contagion is vital. It is important to understand that when employees are exposed to the moods of leaders who are giving off feelings of anger or hostility, it can have toxic effects on their performance.

The same goes for feelings of confidence and enthusiasm. This is why it is so important for leaders to understand that they can utilise mood contagion to create a positive emotional climate for their employees.

When managers learn to control their own emotions and know the emotional triggers of their team, they can manipulate the atmosphere of their workplace.

Employers of Choice

In the past, employers looking to hire the best staff would offer higher salaries than their competitors. Now they are thinking out of the box in a bid to lure staff away from the competition with a range of perks. Some of these perks include paid parental leave and a day off for parents on their child’s first day of school.

A high salary is no longer the most important factor for many workers, many are now desiring a better work/life balance.

An employer who can offer an appealing workplace culture is more likely to attract and retain superior employees. The features of the atmosphere available at an employer of choice support the interests of employees and customers.

Here are some tips for becoming an Employer of Choice;

• Employ people with diverse backgrounds including indigenous and people from other cultures, women, gay and youth.
• Include all staff in management and leadership opportunities.
• Encourage high levels of satisfaction among staff.
• Strive to have a good reputation in the business and the wider community.
• Utilise reward and recognition programs.
• Flexible work practices.
• Career development programs.
• Involve employees in decision making.
• Family-friendly policies.
• Job Security. Employees are better able to concentrate on their goals and work if they are not concerned about losing their job.
• Respect: Your employees should always feel they are respected by their bosses and co-workers.
• Access to Information: Share information about the business with your employees, it will help to make them feel more involved and motivated.
• Work-Life Balance: work-life balance initiatives such as flexible scheduling choices, allow employees to work undistracted by family and life events occurring outside of the workplace.
• A recognisable brand – One which is associated with values that are supported by your company and employees. If a potential employee has not heard of you, they are less likely to consider you  their first choice for work. Ideally you want to attract employees with similar values to your business.
• Honesty and integrity - Treat everyone with the appropriate respect and professionalism that you would expect in return. Employers need to fairly develop and apply policies, treat all employees with the same regard and consideration, and make workplace guidelines clear and enforceable across the board.
• Create a community. Establishing a strong community in your workplace, which is positive and supportive, will provide a sense of belonging that will attract and retain the right people long term.