How To Become A Generous Leader
Last week we talked about the benefits of creating a culture of generosity in your organization and how that can pay big dividends in your business. Not surprisingly, many people have asked us what they can do to become a better leader in their own company. Our answer is always the same. It’s not what you do, but who you are “being” as a leader that ultimately delivers results.
The Generous Leader embeds generosity in every touchpoint of their organization. That is especially true in how they approach their relationships, whether it’s an employee, customer, supplier, factory worker. As a leader, you need to ask yourself: How can I set up my organization such that I am delivering positive contribution to people, the humans in my supply chain?
Once you can do that, you’re going to be part of a real community that delivers impact; a community that is going to reward you if you are a smart business person. But it has to start with, “What is the benefit to everyone else?” If you can’t figure that out, then you are just a commodity play and you’re not going to be a mega brand.
Think of any well-loved mega brand. Apple, lululemon, Starbucks: these brands are the result of an emotional connection. And how is an emotional connection established? It starts through a relationship. That’s the foundation of it all.
Make Your End Game Emotionally Tangible
A culture is basically ensuring the right conversations happen along a path to an end game. The key is making your end game emotionally tangible. Instead of saying, “We will achieve $200 million in sales,” it should be more like, “When we’re done, the world will be left a better place” or “A group of people will be impacted in a better way.”
Tom’s Shoes - as much as its been criticized for decimating shoe industries in developing countries - had a vision of saying that no child in a developing country will have soil borne disease. We want to eradicate soil borne disease. That’s a pretty noble gesture and a rallying cry that can bridge people together. The culture that follows, if it stems from that desired outcome, that vision of the world, that legacy, is created by articulating your values and understanding who everyone in the organization needs to be in the context of that.
Be Your Company’s Chief Why? Officer
Embedding generosity is basically asking yourself: How can I contextualize an outcome? It’s becoming the Chief Why? Officer, giving everybody an ability to understand why they’re doing it and what values they’re aligning around. Then defining the behaviors that are consistent with those values. As a leader, you need to ask yourself: Who do I need to be and what do I need to do – everyday - to live along this way?
Generous Leaders Connect the Dots
There is a well-known anecdote that is related by Tom Peters about a hospital in the US that treats cancer. During a series of staff interviews, an interviewer asked the housekeeper what her job entailed. She responded, “I help to cure cancer.” Somewhere in that hospital, a leader connected the dots for this individual and made her feel that she was an integral part of the hospital’s mission.
Are you doing that for the people who do the work in your company?