The impact of good leadership on company culture

For years now, company culture has been gaining importance and becoming more of a priority. There’s a good reason for that. Company culture directly impacts your employees’ happiness, and studies say happy workers are harder workers — like this study, where economists at the University of Warwick found that happiness led to a 12 percent spike in productivity.

In short, happy companies have more fun and make more money.

So the professional world sees the impact company culture can have on success. Now it’s time to explore the impact a company’s leadership has on its culture. Because company culture — good or bad — starts up at the top.

Here are some of the benefits of strong company cultures, as shaped and maintained by smart leaders.

1. Turn the pressure down and the productivity up

Many bad leaders think, for some reason, that work will turn out better if their employees are afraid of making mistakes. While it’s hard to say if an environment of fear and intimidation actually leads to fewer mistakes, it definitely leads to delays — because workers who are afraid of making even the smallest mistake tend to do things over and over, triple- and quadruple-checking their work.

• How good leaders do it: Allow breathing room

Workers who feel micromanaged (not to mention intimidated) leave companies. Workers who feel trusted and empowered stay at their companies, and do a standout job. So I work with leaders to help them reduce the heat, so to speak, on their teams or in their companies and reduce the pressure their employees feel to be perfect.

On the occasions when errors are made, good managers give their employees the time and the opportunity to make up for it — to fix the mistake, to learn from it and to get things right next time, without fearing how it will affect their standing.

2. Reduce the bad vibes

Photo by Amanda Jones on Unsplash

Photo by Amanda Jones on Unsplash

People talk. And when there’s a negative undercurrent at a company, the lower-level employees especially talk with each other — corroding trust in their managers and the company as a whole. And when unhappy employees leave, word gets around in a way that affects a company’s external perception and its ability to recruit.

• How good leaders do it: Build a culture of win-win

The best leaders are all about embracing inclusivity and showing everyone their worth. Those leaders believe that if anyone in the company is losing, the whole company is losing, so they commit to prioritizing the satisfaction and success of every employee.

I empower leaders to establish a win-win culture in two key ways. First, I help them foster communication and embrace feedback, to make their employees feel more valued. Second, I give leaders and their employees a safe forum to vent frustrations, so they’re not venting to each other in a toxic way.

3. Streamline the decision making

Meeting after meeting after meeting, with no decisions made. That might sound like a sitcom parodying corporate culture, but it’s a reality in all too many companies, where the leaders — the ultimate decision makers — can’t reach consensus and maintain momentum, making their teams feel rudderless.

Those are what we call unconscious leaders.

• How good leaders do it: Be conscious and inclusive

I create conscious leaders. Those are the leaders who first ask: Is there a decision to be made? And who will make it? I give them effective techniques for striking a very delicate but important balance: welcoming broad input and numerous voices and doing everything possible to reach consensus — but also knowing when it’s time to be decisive and make the call.

Shifting and shaping your company’s culture can take time, especially if you’re starting from a place where there’s lots to address and lots of room to improve. Luckily, there are easy steps you can to start making improvements right away — the kind that will make sure your company is a place where employees love coming to work, feel valued and heard, and want to stay for the long haul.

Brian Kaplowitz