Recently I executed an employee engagement survey across a client organization. When I compared the senior executive team with the blended front-line results I discovered a very troubling outcome.

The senior executives were almost unanimous in the belief that they had done an excellent job of communicating the core values of the organization — yet results from the front-line indicated exactly the opposite.

Even worse, some of the comments indicated that the values the front-line were observing were inconsistent with the “advertised” values.

Too many organizations believe that the values are clear in their organization. However, all too often, the values that are communicated are coming via actions rather than words — or the actions speak louder than the words.

Here are few questions to ask yourself.

• Have you crystallized your values and written them down?
• Does everyone at the senior level of the organization agree and commit to live by these values?
• Did you involve your employees? Were they involved in establishing the organizational values? Do they feel ownership?
• Did you solicit buy-in across the organization and give them an opportunity to discuss them and what they mean in their daily lives?
• Do you regularly communicate the values? Do you explain your decisions in the context of your values so everyone understand how the values come to life?
• Do you live your values? Actions speak louder than words — are your values being demonstrated on a daily basis in your decision-making?

My Perspective: If you don’t have clearly defined core values, this is a missed opportunity to influence and engage employees. Too often organizations have a communications plan — but it doesn’t do a very good job of communicating internally.

Having a clear set of values also let’s people know what kind of organization is being built and they have an opportunity to decide whether they want to belong to that kind of organization. And in return, you have the evaluate people for a good fit with your team.

Clarity is key.

Many people are familiar with the expression, Start, Stop, Do Different from personal evaluation processes — those regularly scheduled reviews by our supervisor. They will often use this outline to give us feedback of our performance.

But I also think it should be used more regularly, both personally and with colleagues.

No leader improves without feedback and personal introspection.

So rather than waiting for a formal review by a supervisors, consider asking your colleagues these questions.

1. What should I start doing? What activities or behaviours should I add into my daily activities to provide more leadership to my team?
2. What should I stop doing? What behaviours are unproductive or are interfering with my ability to positively influence others?
3. What should I do differently? What can I do differently to lead my team to achieve greater success?

Lastly, don’t forget to ask what you should keep doing — what behaviours are working and should you continue to demonstrate? In your effort to improve don’t forget to reinforce the positive attributes and behaviours that are working. So be sure to confirm those as well and make sure they don’t get lost in the quest for improvement. After all growth is about building on top of versus replacing.

My Perspective: Whenever I am asked to speak, at the end of every presentation I ask the question, “Beginning tomorrow, What will you Start, Stop, Do Different, as a result of what you have heard today?”

It might be worthwhile asking yourself and others these questions on a more regular basis if you want to become the leader of your dreams.

Have you ever worked with someone who seemed to have a negative viewpoint about everything? Of course you have, we all have.

They find negative in everything. They don’t see the glass half empty — they assume it is filled with poison.

So how do we gather value from a person who seems bound and determined to undermine even the most positive initiative.

First we need to override the natural tendency to filter out and ignore everything they say to prevent being dragged down by their negative attitude.

Then we create a modified filter that allows us to sort their comments. Even the most negative person often has some basis for their negativity and if we simply discount everything they say we might miss some important and valuable insights.

By learning to filter and sort their comments we avoid the negativity but still remain open to the nuggets that are worthwhile.

My Perspective: If everyone in your team is positive then you need to make sure someone takes the opposing viewpoint to avoid the pitfall of “group think” and make sure all ideas are challenged and bullet proofed.

This may be someone you designate to play this important role of devils advocate or it may simply be that you already have a negative thinker in your team. Let them play that role and then as you utilize their input to improve  — you might even see a genuine change in their overall attitude.

Strong leaders find value in even the worst performer and coach that person into even greater capacity for contribution.

You have just established a new team. Maybe a small work group, or possibly you have moved to a new department in a leadership role. How do you set the foundation for a strong team to achieve their full potential?

There are 4 things I like to keep in mind.

1. Create a Strong First Impression: Make sure that you start out strong. Come to the first meeting/introduction prepared to make a good first impression and establish expectations. How the team initially starts their working relationship has a huge impact on their long term interactions.
2. Establish Expectations: Set expectations early. Don’t assume people have shared values on expectations and don’t wait until things are below and then try to rise them up. Starting high and keeping them high is easier than trying to raise expectations after they have settled in too low. Set ambitious goals together and then work hard to achieve your potential.
3. Create a Sense of Importance: People perform better when they believe that what they are doing is important and will have a positive impact. Create some urgency with a specific delivery date or milestones so the team has a concrete target and the opportunity to see the successful completion of their assignment.
4. Deliver a Challenge: Decide to do something that isn’t easy, but requires something extra. Set goals that will challenge the team to exceed expectations and will engender a sense of pride in the team. When faced with a challenge, people are willing to step up and achieve more.

My Perspective: Successfully leading a team is a complex task. By keeping these 4 thoughts in mind you can motivate, inspire and lead any team to greater heights.

In the past I have written about the importance of guidelines versus rules when empowering employees. The same philosophy can be applied to leaders when they interact and provide direction to their team.

As a leader it is your responsibility to set the direction for your team. However, if that direction is always expressed as directives about what you want and how you see things — the team quickly starts to lose any sense of ownership in the process.

Instead, think about how you can engage their interest in the process by including their thinking and contribution in developing a direction. Rather than “here’s how we need to proceed”, try something like “I have been thinking along these lines — what do you think?” Then encourage the team to share their thoughts and ideas to brainstorm alternative ways or bullet-proof the way you have suggested.

As a leader you will continue to shape the direction and encourage and challenge people to think deeper in different directions to ensure that all the facts and options are considered before a decision is reached.

My perspective: A number of benefits accrue from this method.

First, you often hear great ideas from people who have a different perspective on any given situation. If you have truly hired great people to be part of your team, you can expect great thinking from them. This approach encourages debate and gives people permission to voice concerns.

Secondly, when members of your team have legitimate input on direction, the team feels a stronger sense of ownership with any project — so they have a deeper level of engagement with the process and the outcomes.

Lastly, you are building the capacity of your team to think. Lots of good ideas often lead to great ideas — and when you encourage your team to to think — you will more often get great ideas.

Of course, as a leader, you must also be willing to give up total control over projects, or modify your own hypothesis if someone comes up with a better solution.