Leadership team behaviour is a complex interplay of various factors, with values at its core.
Your organisational core values may include honesty, transparency, integrity, innovation, accountability, respect, loyalty, equality, teamwork, customer or results focus, and more.
Values are the principles that guide leadership team behaviour and decisions to significantly shape organisational culture.
When your leadership team role model your core values they will to foster an environment of trust, collaboration, and shared purpose with their peers and with those that they lead.
For instance, a leadership team that values transparency will likely communicate openly with their teams, ensuring that important information is shared promptly.
Yet leaders are fallible, and sometimes their behaviour can appear incongruent with your core values.
Let’s explore three examples:
- An organisation that espouses the values of collaboration and creativity, yet, at times their leadership team have an abrasive management style towards their team is misaligned to these values. A demanding and sometimes harsh leadership style towards employees can contradict the very ideals preached by leaders about fostering a creative and collaborative culture.
- A organisation that champions work-life balance might inadvertently find some of their leadership team working long hours or during their holidays to meet their leadership responsibilities. This misalignment could lead to burnout and negatively impact both their well-being and their ability to set a healthy precedent for their team members as a role model.
- Another example is an organisation who values inclusivity, but faces a situation where quick decisions are necessary. Leaders might, in such instances, make decisions unilaterally, appearing incongruent with their values.
These examples highlight how contextual pressures can sometimes lead to behaviour that appears contrary to your core values.
The link between leadership behaviour and values is undeniable, shaping the very essence of an authentic leadership teams and organisational culture. While leaders strive for authenticity by aligning their behaviour with your core values, the occasional incongruence serves as a reminder of their human susceptibility.
As leadership team development specialists, we work with leadership teams to facilitate these important conversations, to bring congruency by exploring how leadership team behaviours align with your core values. These sessions build both clarity and alignment, so that leadership teams lead with more conscious awareness of your values, to emulate role models of your organisational culture.
Reach out to learn more about how we can support your leadership team development to build an even more authentic culture.
