Leadership behaviour wins over values or mottos!

Whilst it's certainly good for a businesses to have a set of corporate vales and provided they are adhered to and lived by the staff then they are an excellent statement of intent or marketing tool. However they are notoriously difficult to act out. Instead see if you can define behaviours. These are specific things that all members of the team can physically do. They are not a conceptual ideal but a physical reality of the team behaves and interacts.

With some thought and time see if you can take your organisations values and turn them Ito a set of specific behaviours. A simple example might be that the value is; support at all levels the behaviour is that you never walk past a job. If you walk into reception and there is a dirty coffee cup on the table you pick it up, clean it and put it away. You don't walk past the job!

Behaviours are actions and therefore witnessed and experienced. Humans are a pack animal, we respond to the examples set by those around us. It's an intrinsic behaviour. Inevitably junior members of a team will observe the way senior members of the team treat others. Regardless of the narrative they are given it's the actions or behaviours that are responded to.

Perhaps one of the most miss quoted studies of all time is Albert Mehrabian's study into body language, stating that 80% of all human communication is non verbal. This is not entirely true, there is critical piece of context often missing. The study was looking at the conveyance of emotion when there is a disparity between verbal and non verbal communication. In other words, if someone tells you they are fine but their body language tells you otherwise you will believe the body language. In a commercial context if a leader says one thing but does another their actions will be what the team responds to. Therefore its behaviour that builds trust.

There is a common misconception that culture needs to be soft or in some way fluffy. It doesn't, it can be but it doesn't need to be. What culture has to be is a consistent set of behaviours. People should be joining an organisation because of its culture rather than an organisation bending its culture to fit the latest trends. If the organisation is softer, with the emphasis on work life balance and staff well being, then the behaviours should be consistent with that. If an organisation is performance orientated at all costs, a modern F1 team, then they are the behaviours that you should expect to see. If the culture and behaviours are consistent you will attract people who want to work in that environment. The problems arise when the narrative, culture and behaviours are miss aligned. If someone is attracted to the softer people orientated organisation but then find they are expected to sleep under their desk and work rigid long hours they will be demotivated and trust is eroded. However if the job description was hard core, hard hitting front line organisation you will attract people who want to operate in that environment.

Be honest, be consistent and ensure the behaviours reflect the culture.

Above is the original advert placed by Ernest Shackleton in 1914. Over a thousand people applied. Shackleton's ship Endurance was to become stuck in the antarctic ice flow leading to one of the most amazing tails of resilience in history. The expedition didn't lose a single member. You wonder whether this was in part due to the type of person this advert attracted?

It's a good thing to have strong corporate values. It's a good thing to have a defined culture.They must be aligned and authentic. Regardless of values or culture it's behaviours that will dictate whether or not a leader is trusted and therfore followed when the going gets tough.