Cultural Conditions & Leadership Competencies

Conditions:  To what extent do you have a culture that upholds these core leadership competencies.

2. RESPECT: My opinions and points of view seem to count.

3. COOPERATION: Employees at all levels in the organization collaborate, working together as a team.

5. STEWARDSHIP: I have the necessary materials, tools, equipment and training … to do my work properly.

6. INTEGRITY: We are committed to doing quality work, direct communication, and closing any gaps between "walk" and "talk."

8. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: I receive adequate compensation, recognition and praise for my good work

9. CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT (kaizen): Mistakes are used for feedback and learning, not as a source of blame or as a sign of failure.

10. MENTORING / COACHING: There is someone at work who encourages and guides my development.

11. CONTRIBUTION: The mission of my organization make me feel like my work is important.

12. COMMUNITY: I have a close friend or someone that I can really talk to at work; generally, I like and respect my co-workers.

13. CHALLENGE: I have opportunities to contribute, learn and grow

14. LIFE BALANCE: My supervisor (or someone at work), seems to care about me as a person, demonstrates flexibility.

15. MOTIVATION: I have a compelling set of goals and targets that I feel are worthwhile.

16. ALIGNMENT: As I achieve the goals of the company, I am also achieving my own goals.

Leadership Success Factors is a tool based on these sixteen conditions to provide feedback about your culture's current capacity for organizational learning, harnessing and balancing the power of self-organizing systems with the need for structure and order.  This assessment tool offers safe and constructive feedback.  We hope it helps you and your colleagues gain additional awareness and skill mastery in the art of facilitative and collaborative leadership.

This style of leadership relies on excellent people skills, clear goals and agreements, and the ability to accept constructive criticism.  It also means being able to balance self-organizing systems with order, question assumptions, and being willing to make (and learn from) quality misktakes.  The following article series and courseware provide further details.

Leadership Out of Control: 

• Accessing Organizational Leverage Points (118)

• Self-assessment Questions (118, section 2)

Leadership in Action Series:

• Part 1:  Fail Often to Succeed Sooner (089)

• Part 2:  The Quest for Making High-Quality Mistakes (099)

• Part 3:  False Responsibility and Its Remedies (109)

• Part 4:  Fix Systems, Not People (129)

• Part 5:  The Nerve To Serve (030)

• Part 6:  Knowing When to Get Out of the Way (040)

• Part 7:  Measuring Mirth (050)

• Part 8:  Healthy Assertiveness:  Pushy or Passionate (070)

• Part 9:  Speaking Up about Put-downs (080)

• Part 10:  Four Steps to Handling Aggressive Impulses (090)

• Part 11:  Dealing with Aggressive Leaders - One Dirty Look at a Time (100)

• Part 12:  Control Isn't Even for the Birds:  Nature's Leadership Lessons (021)

• Part 13:  Dealing with Differences (081)

• Part 14:  The 'Grit' of Integrity (022)

• Part 15:  Working With Integrity – The Art of Being Your Word (042)

• Part 16: The Link Between Ethics and Culture (102)

• Part 17:  Business Ethics as Common Sense (122)

• Part 18:  Building an Ethical Workplace Culture (023) 

RELEVANT SKILLS & COURSEWORK:

• Coaching & Leadership Skills

• Leadership Development & Team Communication Skills

• Group Presentations & Facilitation Skills

Using the Success Factors Instrument

In just a few minutes, you can give and get constructive feedback, gain insight, set some priorities and help establish next steps. You will discover which areas represent existing strengths … and which are calling out your name for improvement. 

For each of the following sixteen items, pick two number from 1 to 10 (1 = low, 10 = high):

Satisfaction. A low score indicates that you expect much more than you are getting in this area. A high score means that your expectations are fulfilled.

Importance. A low score means "not at all important." A high score says "vitally important success factor."

Gap is the difference between these two numbers. Subtract the score for Importance from the score for Satisfaction (Gap = S - I). For example, if "cooperation" is a 2 (there’s lots of fighting and turf wars), but its importance is a 9, there’s a gap of -7. Positive gaps may reflect that you’re getting more than you expected in those areas, or that they're just not priorities.

The smaller the gaps, the more likely you are to do your best work, get results, and get fully appreciated for that work. The greater the gap, the more you might want to pay attention to that factor – it may mirror a difficulty or "problem area" at work. Ironically, a large gap doesn’t work for either you or your employer. In the long run, addressing any situation – a huge Grand Canyon-sized gap or a small one – provides the basis for a stronger win-win.

When you’ve completed all 16 questions, circle or name the factors with the largest negative gaps. In some cases, rather than trying to increase alignment with your present employer, you’ll simply clarify what you want and expect from your next employment situation. Either way, there are choices available for each success factor.  

Suggestion: Before you begin this survey, decide on the scope of your assessment – are you rating just yourself, or could you include your entire work unit, your division, or the entire enterprise?