The Seven Secrets of Highly Effective Leaders by Robin Stuart-Kotze

Author:Robin Stuart-Kotze
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tellwell Publishing
Published: 2018-01-15T16:25:31+00:00

Values drive culture

Values and the behaviour that results from them drive culture. Kathleen Redmond has studied and written extensively about culture, and says that a core element of values and culture is the concept of character. She says, “character is much more than what we try to display for others to see. It is who we are when no one is watching”. She says a character culture is centred on four central values: respect, integrity, compassion, and courage, and these values “are brought to life in the behaviours and actions (italics ours) distinctive to (that culture)”. 185

Research with more than 100 CEOs and 8,000 employees in 84 organizations, both profit and non-profit, shows that character isn’t just something “nice”, but that organizations led by individuals who clearly demonstrate integrity, responsibility, forgiveness, and compassion outperform those led by individuals who don’t by a factor of five.186 The CEOs who were rated low on integrity, responsibility, forgiveness and compassion were described as “self-focused”, and the negative effects of self-focus are hinted at by a somewhat disturbing piece of research about the behaviour of CEOs with MBAs.187

The research looked at the performance of CEOs who had been featured on the covers of Fortune, Forbes and Businessweek and their findings showed that those who had MBAs were more likely to engage in behaviours that were of benefit to them but had negative consequences for their companies. In addition, in the three years after they appeared on the cover of one of these publications the market value of their companies declined 20% more than the companies run by non-MBAs. (Full disclosure: The author has an MBA, but he’s never been featured on the cover of Fortune, Forbes or Businessweek, and for ratings about his level of self-focus he asks his wife, who is not known for shying away from the truth.)

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