When you stand up for a leadership role, you do not only influence the direction of a group, an organization or a country, you also consciously and subconsciously influence the culture where interactions take place.
This cannot be seen most of the time apart from its physical manifestation in that environment.
Culture in many ways is like personality of a person made up of values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviours shaped by a group of people. The key influencer of it is the leader of a group or an organization, and the person’s values, beliefs and behaviour. So, the personality of a leader can tell you a lot about the culture where the leadership takes place.
In a sense culture is a set of unspoken and unwritten rules for acting together. You can experience the culture in different formats – in spoken and unspoken languages, decision making process, daily activities, or reactions to crisis in any environment. People learned the cultures through interactions with others in the same environment.
Your leadership as a leader either builds up the culture for better, or deteriorate it which would be very costly exercise for everybody. As changing a culture is not as easy it sounds. When you really begin to understand your unconscious mind and its influence on the culture and the direction of the organization then you become more aware of your accountability with your success.
Transformational leaders are aware of their good and bad influence on others and the culture in general. Therefore, they work on their belief systems, values, behaviour and attitudes, and become conscious of their unconscious – autopilot – mind. In doing so, they build such a culture, and articulate it to the followers that exhibit a sense of vision, and purpose to move together in the same direction.
When leaders in an organization or group realize and recognize that their current culture does not serve any more therefore, needs to be transformed to support the whole group’s success and progress, then change can occur. However, it would not be that easy. It requires understanding, commitment, and tools.
To change any culture as a leader, you need to understand the existing culture, your personal values, beliefs, behaviour, and language and decision-making process very well first. This can be done, however you must
- have a coach working with you to help you find the ways to access your subconscious decisions, and manners in a way to get to understand yourself better
- try to be objective observer of the culture in action. Look at the people’s behaviour and interactions with each other in the environment with the eye of an outsider
- watch for people’s emotions. Emotions are the great indictors of people’s values, belief systems. Observe to also see if there is any conflict between people
Once you get a clear understanding of current situation, then you can make plans on where you want yourself and the group, or organization to be. You might want to discuss on this matter, contact Halle.
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Halle Yilmaz is a financial adviser and business consultant. As a business consultant she works with business owners and leaders on their culture and performance optimisation in their organisations. She uses very effective tools to help leaders and teams create deep emotional engagement and profitable business results. Follow Halle on