Leaders are the Keepers of the Culture

It is impossible to understate the importance of leaders to sustaining culture. Leaders are the face of the organization to numerous internal and external constituencies. The larger the organization, the more critical the role of its leaders.

Author and speaker Peg Neuhauser's first and now classic book draws parallels between organizations and tribes.  "Tribal Warfare in Organizations" depicts corporate departmentalization - what many of us have come to call silos - as warring tribes in action.  The organization's leaders, especially its senior leaders, are akin to tribal elders. 

Neuhaser subsequently expanded the concept in a later book, "Corporate Legends and Lore," which emphasizes the power of storytelling as an underpinning of corporate culture. In a tribal environment, the stories are handed down from elders to junior tribe members.

Consider these concepts in tandem. The organization possesses a culture, which is supported or undermined by the "tribal" sub-cultures within departments or divisions.  Every organization has unwritten rules, or stories. These strategies for survival are passed along to new employees, who must quickly learn them in order to meld and ultimately succeed.

The role of the leader includes responsibility to carry out the organization's policies and protocols, set the tone for a specific operating division and guide a group of employees. In many organizations, especially in larger ones, leaders operate with a great deal of independence. Leaders are entrusted with tremendous power, whether or not they or the organization realizes this. 

Leaders set an example that employees follow.  A strong, positive leader encourages company loyalty by nurturing staff and modeling core organizational values.  Less skilled leaders can quickly cause staff to become disengaged by verbalizing displeasure with initiatives, criticizing senior leaders and second-guessing decisions.

There are certain strategies that organizations can deploy to ensure that leaders understand and effectively execute their all-important role in cultural preservation.

1. Assess and evaluate leaders based on key organizational metrics.  If employee engagement is critical to the organization, an engagement metric must be included in the leaders' evaluation and reward system. A bottom-line driven organization should reward leaders, at least in part, on profitability. This strategy-aligned approach to leader rewards supports cultural alignment in an objective and measurable manner.
2. Sharpen the focus on leadership quality.  Some organizations display greater leniency toward leaders than toward their staff-level employees. Leaders often have long tenure and may have deep relationships across the organization. But these factors cannot be allowed to enable a leader's substandard performance.  Leaders who are not performing to standard must be addressed in an "up or out" manner. Performance improves (moves "up") or the leader moves out.
3. Identify and articulate core leadership competencies.  The organization must pinpoint and communicate the qualities and behaviors expected of all leaders.  Appropriately developed competencies will be linked to the organization's culture and provide a common framework within which all leaders can operate.
4. Invest in leadership development.  Good leaders can become great through education, experiential learning and best practice sharing. Organizations with strong cultures consistently invest in leader development, because they understand that sustaining the culture depends largely upon skilled, knowledgeable leaders.

Leaders and tribal elders share a common bond. They model desired behaviors, pass along the stories and sustain the norms of the group.  They are the keepers of culture, empowered with responsibility to preserve the past and nurture the future.