In a Leadership Culture everyone takes accountability for their own performance, and everyone participates in leadership at the level appropriate to their position. A Leadership Culture is a culture of promise management. People are skilled at making clear requests and promises to one another, holding themselves accountable to fulfilling their promises, and managing broken promises quickly and effectively. People express emotions honestly and use them to guide conversations rather than allowing them to derail conversations. In a Leadership Culture situations that would otherwise lead to resentment, finger pointing and diminished performance instead give rise to collective learning and overall performance improvement.

In a Leadership Culture:

• Leadership throughout the organization consistently engages the broader community and inspires energetic commitment to a shared vision

• Teams form quickly, coalesce around a shared vision of what the team will achieve, innovate and take accountability for outstanding execution

• People adapt quickly to changing circumstances, accepting change as part of life and a source of opportunity

• High trust levels are the norm; when trust is broken the tools are in place to restore it

• Customers feel they are the center of the universe for everyone in the organization

• Projects are completed on time and within budget

• Accountability is pervasive at all levels of the organization; people pride themselves on innovating and personal ownership

• Team orientation and holistic thinking prevail over siloed and hierarchical mindsets

• The Performance Unlimited Cycle of Leadership is the foundation on which you can build a Leadership Culture.

Click here to read more about the Cycle of Leadership and how it builds a Leadership Culture.

We believe that the most effective way to develop a sustainable culture of high performance is to begin at the top; develop core practices, standards and language that establish high performance; and propagate those throughout the organization. Starting at the top is important for several reasons:

• It sends a strong signal to the entire organization that the practices, standards and language are to be taken seriously

• It ensures that the top leadership of the organization understands, embraces and lives by the practices

• It establishes a context in which the rest of the organization can learn and adopt the practices, standards and language faster

Our Cycle of Leadership and Leadership Culture models are foundational to our approach.