The Leadership Star

INTRODUCTION

‘But what do I personally need to do?’

There was a long pause, and the two human resources experts on the other side of the table stared back at me, blankly.

We had just finished reviewing the latest results of the annual staff satisfaction survey for my business. The results were okay, but not great.

It was a typical survey: staff had been asked to rank on a scale of 1–10 their response to statements such as ‘I enjoy my job’, ‘My manager recognises me for the work that I do’ and ‘I rarely think about leaving’.

The HR team had just finished presenting the results, organised in themes such as ‘communications’, ‘staff recognition’, ‘training’, ‘manager quality’ and so on.

Some areas had improved, most had stayed the same and a couple had declined.

But there was little in the way of practical suggestions about what we as a business leadership team could do to improve the results — let alone where I as the head of the business could intervene to improve things.

Hence my question — and the HR team didn't have any good answers.

This was frustrating because, three years into my role managing the credit card business of a large Australian bank, I was convinced that a strong culture and high staff satisfaction were critical to building a high‐performing business.

Although I was relatively new to leading a business, having spent the first ten years of my career as a management consultant, it seemed obvious that a strong culture was important. There were few true credit card ...