Accountable Leaders

CHAPTER 13Foster a Community of Leaders Across Your Organization

My team and I have had the privilege to work with many kinds of organizations with very different leadership cultures. I’ve seen cultures where leaders were accountable, shared an aspiration to be great leaders, and supported one another to execute the company’s strategy. Unfortunately, in my experience, these leadership cultures are the minority.

I’ve also worked with many organizations where leaders were at war with one another or caught up in petty politics, power struggles, working at cross-purposes, or protecting turf. These kinds of leadership cultures distract leaders and employees, erode engagement, and create a significant barrier to strategy execution and achieving extraordinary results.

Through all these experiences, I have learned that you don’t have to settle for an ineffective leadership culture. Change is possible. It’s not an easy journey, but an organization can transform its leadership culture. It starts by making leadership accountability a priority, defining clear leadership expectations, and doing the hard work to sustain momentum.

The last area of focus is to foster a community of leaders across your organization. Four strategies that we will explore are in Figure 13.1.

Figure 13.1 The Four Strategies to Build a Strong Community of Accountable Leaders

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