Strategic Perspective Helps Drive Team Commitment

Commitment is something all organizations seeking an elite culture strive for. The challenge most executive teams face is how to inspire and maintain that commitment?

Recently, the Thought Leadership League conducted a survey of executives asking what factors lead to a good culture. When asked to pick the factors that contribute to a great culture, 86% of all participants selected as one of the most important Executive Team Commitment.

Zenger/Folkman , through their research, has identified gaining a “strategic perspective” as one of the 9 behaviors that will lead to full team commitment. All American Leaders dug deeper with the first two behaviors, “drive for results” and “inspiring and motivating others”, in previous blogs. Let’s take a further look at Strategic Perspective.

While the first two behaviors focus on getting activity to occur, the third behavior focuses on the direction of that activity. Leaders who provide their team with a definite sense of direction and purpose tend to have more satisfied and committed employees. Telling is not enough. The Strategic Perspective needs to be carefully and concisely defined.

These leaders need to paint a clear perspective between the overall picture and the details of day-to-day activities. The most successful leaders are constantly reinforcing where the organization is heading and the key steps that lead to success. Employees need to see how their hard work makes a difference, and how it helps get the organization closer to achieving success.

Great companies don’t settle for good culture. They strive to be beyond good, beyond great, they strive to have an ELITE culture. The challenge is to push beyond the typical outline of what is good and to achieve a “best in class” attitude and action that permeates the whole organization. Walk the walk of elite culture and your executive team will commit.