Sustaining Leadership Excellence for New Leaders

In our blog series discussing new organizational leaders, we last left off with 5 Tips for Establishing Leadership Expectations. This blog served as a great checklist for organizations to take inventory on how to re-start and re-set their expectations in the midst of having a new leader or an entirely new leadership team.

Now, let’s take a deeper dive into some of the specific actions that new leaders within an organization can take (following their first 100 days in action) that can help to build and sustain a more cohesive leadership team.

Five Ways to Sustain Leadership Excellence

Consider utilizing some or all of these highly effective examples for establishing and sustaining the leadership structure within your organization and team:

1. Hold your team responsible for their actions:

“Be accountable and responsible for success and failure. Own up to mistakes and move forward.* Ours is not a zero defects leadership environment. Take calculated risks, not gambles. Learn from your errors, share those lessons, and make necessary adjustments transparently.”

2. Collective Problem Solving and Leadership Responsibility:

“When you have a problem to discuss bring me a solution.* We are a team that contributes collectively through our diverse excellence to the success of this company. Everyone has a corporate responsibility to assess problems and then help to resolve them.”

3. Integrity is fundamental.

“I will be honest with you. Be honest with me.* Trust based on mutual respect and integrity is absolutely essential to the success of this enterprise. I trust you. Together we will operate in a values based climate of openness and transparency.”

4. Improve your organization and develop your leaders.

“Keep looking for ways to improve the organization and to develop your subordinates. There is always a better way to achieve our bottom line, improve the quality of our product or service, and tell our story. Never be content with current levels of output. Attendant to this is the critical leader development of our subordinates. They are the future of this company, and you must always plan for their development in new areas of responsibility.”

5. A balanced work force makes a successful company.

“Create balance in your own life; in your work, your family, and in yourself. Profit or loss also generate corporate stress. Learn coping mechanisms to deal with that stress. Be alert to the stress on your team and find ways to resolve it. Always keep your sense of humor.”

*From Company Command – the Bottom Line, John G. Meyer, 1990

Leadership Exercise from David H. Huntoon, Jr.

Journaling (the keeping of a journal) allows many leaders to “download” their thoughts, activities of the day, and strategic ideas for an organization and its personnel.

Imagine having to remember all of the activities from your first 100 days as the leader of a new company? Could you?
As you try out and “try on” the five examples above consider which of them work the best for your organization and why. Document the results in your journal.

Documenting successes, failures, ideas, and events builds a chronology for an organization. When this happens outside of the business world, historians and archeologists have regularly referred the process as an integral part of building a “culture”.

What is your culture?

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