From WeAreTheCity’s Future Leaders blog
Do you remember the ‘Bad’ and the ‘Good’ Culture Shapers from last week’s Future Leaders’ post?
If not, check it out before you continue reading. Thanks!
The reason leaders are such major culture shapers is that leadership behaviours are contagious. A study by Zenger & Folkman where 51 leadership behaviours were tested for their contagiousness, showed that these are the most contagious behaviours, in order:
- Developing self and others
- Technical skills
- Strategy skills
- Consideration and cooperation
- Integrity and honesty
- Global perspective
- Decisiveness
- Results focus
Where do you think you are at with these behaviours? What behaviours would you like to make contagious where you work? What behaviours could you develop and display more to shape the kind of culture you want to embed in your team or organisation?
Culture is created through the experiences we spark in others. Some experiences are positive and some negative and it can be describe as making deposits in people’s “positive and negative bank accounts”. For a team to be effective, trustful and collaborative, people need to have 3,5 positive experiences for every 1 negative experience with their colleagues. What this means is that we need to create enough of those positive encounters to make up for the inevitable negatives – and we can probably all do this more; praise others, give credit where credit is due, listen with interest, and recognize strengths.
Next week, we’ll explore the concept that Leadership = Impact = Culture even more by asking the question what Executive Presence is and why it matters to you even if you’re not (yet) an executive.
Until then, have a great week – and more great impact!
