by Venchito Tampon | Last Updated on February 25, 2024
Leadership excellence plays a significant role in developing a healthy culture in the organization. Becoming an effective leader impacts business results and a solid foundation to sustain the organization.
In this article, I’ll walk you through the different topics on leadership excellence and how you can use it to create a healthy culture in your company.
What is Leadership Excellence?
Leadership excellence is the ability of a leader to develop his associates and create a healthy atmosphere where there is psychological safety, empowerment, and support.
Difference Between Ordinary Leadership and Leadership Excellence
Mediocrity won’t make it cut to success, which most starting managers and supervisors start their leadership career.
Ordinary leadership happens when you’re leading people based on authority and position. According to Dr. John Maxwell’s Five Levels of Leadership, ordinary leadership is similar to 1st level of leadership: leadership based on rank.
At this level, people follow leaders because “they have to.” It is part of their job, or requirement, to follow you as these people are promoted in the company. They achieve their leadership role because of their technical skills.
Conversely, leadership excellence includes having outstanding leadership qualities that allow the leaders to influence their people and make positive changes in their work and personal lives, so much so that they create a leadership distinction in the organization.
Executives, directors, and top managers suddenly recognize these excellent leaders for their service work and the value they consistently provide to their teams.
Benefits of Leadership Excellence To The Organization
Leadership excellence has a direct correlation with organizational success. The stronger and better leaders are, the higher the organization’s likelihood of success.
It is as simple as this: the people working for the organization are the main reasons the entity exists. So, if leaders effectively lead teams, you can see great and sustainable business results and success.
Here are more compelling importance of leadership excellence to any organization.
1. Builds trust.
Trust is the glue that binds people in the organization. When there is trust, it is easy for employees to work, as there is high regard for well-being and psychological safety.
Now, people go to the office with joy and enthusiasm. In one recent survey by Gallup, 22% of the employees trust their leadership, which has helped them increase employee engagement and business results.
If people trust their leaders, they can easily suggest ideas and room for improvement to benefit their work, teams, and the entire organization.
Stephen Covey, author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, once said, “Without trust, we don’t truly collaborate. We merely coordinate or, at best, cooperate. It is trust that transforms a group of people into a team.”
2. Improves business performance.
Leadership excellence isn’t hype. One of the benefits of effective leaders is their ability to drive results for themselves and their teams. In other words, they care as much about business performance as they care about their people.
There is a direct correlation between leadership excellence and organizational success.
Effective leadership enables vision to guide people into achieving their key performance indicators,
3. Creates a healthy work environment.
Excellent leaders help create a healthy work environment where people feel safe to suggest ideas and give feedback to their colleagues.
Most younger generations are looking for this environment – they want something they can learn from and better themselves.
Excellent leadership removes hierarchical issues, allowing top-down feedback among team members. This fosters internal growth and innovation, as employees can think of new ideas to adapt to the ever-changing needs of the market and business landscape.
4. Improves decision-making and problem-solving capabilities.
Putting up great leaders with solid ethics, skills, and attitudes can help your team improve their decision-making.
Autonomy is a vital factor in succeeding in any industry. When employees feel and know they can make decisions independently and have control over the task they’re into, they’re likely to solve challenging problems and provide excellent solutions for them.
Effective leadership helps unleash the capabilities of team members, giving them specific growth opportunities. One organization can experience a healthy work culture through autonomy and control, where everyone is creative enough to produce results.
5. Boosts organizational reputation and stakeholder trust.
As mentioned earlier, trust-building glues everyone on the team. Now, that translates internally and from outside people interested in the organization, including stakeholders, customers/clients, and potential investors.
There is also word-of-mouth, resulting in good public relations for the company when people inside are working harmoniously, not dragging everyone down. Instead, it helps everyone to achieve their individual goals and guides them to achieve work-life harmony for their personal lives.
All these will help boost the organization’s reputation and gain stakeholder trust.
6. Attracts and retains top talent.
Excellent leaders help attract talents, as internal employees become the go-to source of recruits from the outside. Given that they share their work experiences with friends, past colleagues, and networks, hiring great talents is now easier for the human resource department.
As we all know, great employees attract good company. That is very much applicable in retaining staff as well.
Leadership Excellence: 5 Steps To Develop a Healthy Culture
1. Think win-win-win.
The most extraordinary executives and directors who have made a massive impact on their community, even on a global scale, are the ones who have this triple-win philosophy.
Win-win-win philosophy: Win for the company, win for employees, and win for clients/customers.
It is a triple win for these three groups of people.
Excellent leadership is understanding that you can’t do great things alone. You need support from your employees and to earn the trust of your customers/clients.
And you can only make a considerable impact knowing that trust is built from these people. Earning it would take time, even years, to do so, but it will be worth it as you can experience a breakthrough when this triple-win philosophy becomes a reality.
2. Communicate the vision.
Vision isn’t just a statement you post on office walls. Vision must be communicated across teams.
The most outstanding leaders worldwide are the ones who can cascade their vision from top to bottom—knowing that this vision will make a difference in how top managers and employees will perceive their work as something that contributes to the bigger goal of the organization.
Vision must also be communicated by leaders regularly. Whether during town halls or one-on-one discussions with his key leaders, they should share the vision through a subtle conversation approach.
And when acted upon, vision becomes a reality when people see it happening in the lives of their leaders.
No one would believe vision is achievable unless the leader himself believes so.
3. Navigate change.
Changes are inevitable. Either you change, or you let the world change you.
In any industry, especially highly volatile industries, you would find changes in the market and niches daily.
With artificial intelligence (AI) advancements and technological innovations, people crammed every tool to help automate their routine work.
But what separates great leaders from the average ones is their ability to manage change.
Change management is a practical skill for top-ranked leaders that, if they can master it, can make a big difference in how well they can lead their people and achieve business results.
It requires emotional intelligence, problem-solving skills, communication skills, and various hard and soft skills that, in the aggregate, can help develop the leader’s character.
4. Promote holistic excellence.
We live in a generation where professionals aren’t just working solely for money. They are now working with purpose and with a solid inspiration they bring to the workplace.
In other words, if you are leading to push people to get results for the organization, it only takes some time before your people leave you.
Effective leaders promote holistic excellence. They demand it for themselves and teach and train the principles to their teams.
Holistic excellence includes reaching new heights in human beings’ career, personal, health, and social aspects.
By tapping into the holistic approach of leading people, you increase employee engagement and achieve work-life harmony. Now, this translates to lesser burnout in your team players and increased joy and happiness working in your organization.
5. Develop a second line of leaders.
Success planning is essential in any organization. When leaders know they need to develop new leaders constantly, they have an immense advantage over their competitors when someone (or a group of people) leaves the company.
They have someone prepared for the position they can replace for any vacant job at any given time.
Leadership excellence is developing second-line leaders through effective leadership training in the Philippines. It is understanding that things change, even the motivation of people change, so they have plenty of options whether to stay or leave the company.
And being ready for that is a leadership advantage.
Key Takeaways
Develop the kind of leaders you want to achieve, the type of organization that lasts for years. Leadership excellence brings tremendous results for those who know how to do it right for their people. Through coaching and relationship building, anyone can become a great leaders as long as they desire and take action to grow within the organization.
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