Becoming a culture accelerator: Understanding how to champion culture across the organization

Culture is key, and CEOs know it. Heidrick’s latest research into how global CEOs rate the impact of corporate culture shows that a third rank it as the single most important influence on financial performance. And almost twice that number (59%) view culture as a strategic business imperative. But they certainly don’t see it as a static element of the business – 83% are actively working on culture within their organizations.

Little wonder then that the proportion of CEOs taking an intentional, rigorous approach to culture as a driver of financial performance has risen from 11% to 35% in the last two years. These CEOs are the culture accelerators. They connect culture and strategy and put people first – not least because they recognize the influence of culture on talent retention. And it works: their companies’ financial performance is double that of the other CEOs we surveyed.

Leader’s shape cultures, whether this is done consciously or not. All leaders seeking to improve performance should consider how their leadership shadow is impacting the organization around them. The extent to which leader’s shape the culture can vary depending on their intentionality and influence in the organization. We have identified three levels of cultural leadership: The first level is as a culture role model, embodying company values and holding themselves accountable for leading by example. The second is becoming a culture shaper, a leader who enables others in their team to live by these values. And the ultimate goal is to evolve into a champion of culture who sets expectations for behavior across the entire organization—a culture accelerator.

Becoming the culture role model

Culture role models understand how culture drives the organization’s strategic aims and they intentionally embody the organization’s values and behaviors. They hold themselves to account, honing their awareness of how their words and actions influence others.

Self-reflection is essential, and culture role models seek feedback to help develop self-awareness. By addressing their own blind spots, they role model successful behaviors. This activity is authentic, overwriting old habits and implementing sustainable change. They also provide constructive and appreciative feedback to colleagues.

The rewards of being a culture role model lie in the trusting relationships developed with peers and the ability to inspire others to emulate positive behaviors. In time, a culture role model builds an influential reputation as someone who lives the values of the company.

The culture role model mindset: How do I best embody the organizational values?

• Practice self-reflection: Identify your leadership strengths and challenges and seek regular and in-the-moment feedback from a range of people to understand where and how you can improve.
• Develop an improvement plan: This should include specific actions with checkpoints to measure progress, taking personal ownership for your development.
• Be visible: Cultivate intentional and obvious habits in your communications, decision-making and interactions with others.

Becoming the culture shaper

Leaders who step up to become culture shapers create an environment where their teams are able to enact the organizational culture in their working lives. They are uncompromising in their standards, and hold others to them, but also focus on building trust and psychological safety. By championing a sense of belonging they allow people to do their best work, balancing the dynamics of the team to shape an inclusive environment.

Underlying these actions is the ability to create connections for their team between strategic goals and the culture in order to drive performance and results. By measuring and monitoring both, these leaders are able to provide regular, appreciative feedback and encourage a learning mindset. They actively seek evaluation from both peers and team members. And they do not shy away from calling out behaviors that damage the culture.

Culture shapers will reap the benefits of the inclusive, psychologically safe environment they create, where healthy debate and challenge lead to more effective decision-making. By fostering collaboration across teams, they break down silos and forge an enterprise mindset with unified goals.

The culture shaper mindset: How do I enable my team to optimally live the culture?

• Measure culture through the team lens: Identify goals and challenges with an improvement action plan which engages everyone.
• Create team targets aligning culture and strategy: Translate key culture behaviors into performance and results and continuously measure both.
• Encourage people to learn: Set clear expectations for seeking and giving quality feedback, enabling people to own their development. Reflect on how you can also learn.

Becoming the culture accelerator

The difference between culture role models or shapers and culture accelerators is that the latter shifts culture at scale. They create an ecosystem which enables everyone to live the company’s values, communicating a clear vision of current and future performance which aligns purpose with strategy, culture and structure.

Culture accelerators create momentum for change, inspiring broadly and redesigning systems and processes to reinforce culture and desired behaviors. They consciously leverage assets at their disposal to inspire and shape the culture of the enterprise.  This includes utilizing data at scale to identify challenges and create initiatives to overcome them, employing the macro environment to shape the cultural ecosystem.

Through self-reflection, they learn to communicate a compelling vision, setting clear expectations and celebrating success alongside constructive performance reviews. They also hold all other leaders and employees to the highest standards of behavior.

Culture accelerators drive success by clearly demonstrating to the entire organization how culture impacts performance. This inspires employees to maximize their potential, while making the organization a magnet for talent.

The culture accelerator mindset: How can I shape culture across the whole organization?

• Set a purposeful vision: Demonstrate how changes in behavior can drive performance and results.
• Create structures to enable: Reshape areas of the employee experience to allow people to live and reinforce the culture.
• Utilize macro context to shape systems: Identify and apply assets, both internal and external, to inspire cultural change in mindsets and behaviors.