Why Companies Need Strong Top-to-Bottom Leadership – From the Desk of Dave Liddell

High-performing companies all have one thing in common – they are good at developing strong leaders all the way down the org chart.

We spoke about this on our Office Hours call last week. Stereotypically, the CEO is usually top of mind when most people think of leadership strengths. But while solid leadership strengths and ethics start with your organization’s top leader, they must also be present throughout your executive team, function managers, managers of managers, and managers of people.

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Moderated by David Liddell & Ali Rayfield

“Every month we connect with our community, made up of leaders like you, to talk about leadership trends, best practices, and challenges – with a special emphasis on keeping our discussions timely. Ask us about our Monthly Office Hours.”

According to a study by Deloitte Insights*, only 13% of companies believe they are doing an excellent job at manager development at all levels of the company.

Many of you realize the need for strong top-to-bottom leadership, but you haven’t been devoting the necessary resources to the development of middle management. Developing quality leaders across your organization can help steer your company towards success.

Here are some of the reasons why:

Leaders Set the Standard for Culture and Organizational Performance

We talk about this all the time – leaders are responsible for setting expectations for company culture and organizational performance. Good top-to-bottom leadership strengths are required for companies to create a culture of accountability and trust. Setting clear expectations is key to driving results, and it’s the job of every manager in your organization to clearly establish goals around performance and conduct. When an organization doesn’t set clear expectations around performance, decreased productivity and unhappy employees quickly follow.

While the CEO may be responsible for outlining what a company’s culture should be, it’s all the organization’s leaders who actually create and reinforce that culture. Healthy company culture is created when leaders display the beliefs, attitudes, and practices that align with your organization’s values. When employees see you and all managers embody these traits, they will be quicker to adopt them in their own day-to-day work.

Poor Middle & Front-Line Management Can Inhibit Long-Term Growth

Good leadership at the top of the organization is critical to driving growth, but unskilled middle management or poor front-line leaders can drastically restrict scalability. You likely have even witnessed it at some point in your career. Insufficient management is among the top reasons talented employees leave a company. Middle managers that lack leadership strengths create adverse office dynamics, stir distrust and cynicism, and stifle employee engagement.

Allowing middle management and front-line leadership roles to be taken over by tenured employees or individuals who excel in their current positions isn’t always the best strategy for creating good leaders. Said another way, promotions should be based more on an individual’s foundational leadership strengths, and future role capacity.

A Lack of Core Leadership Makes It Difficult to Plan for the Future

Taking control of your company’s future can be difficult when you don’t have the right leaders in place at every level of the company. Organizational succession planning requires you to establish a clear direction, create a culture of accountability, track progress, and unite around a single objective. Each of these necessities is made significantly more difficult when you have unskilled individuals in leadership positions. Nearly every aspect of your business can be negatively impacted by poor middle management and a lack of foundational leadership.

How Companies Can Build Strong Leaders at All Levels

Successful companies invest in robust leadership training programs designed to increase core leadership capabilities. By developing leadership strengths across your enterprise, you’ll be able to set the standard for organizational performance, create a strong company culture, and take control of your company’s future. A good leadership development program focuses on forward-thinking leadership strengths, such as:

• Developing strategic insights
• Managing outcomes
• Understanding leadership impact
• Owning personal development

Top-to-bottom leadership strengths are essential to evolving with the business environment. By building leadership strengths at every level of the company, your business leaders will be better prepared to overcome challenges, adapt to changes, and ultimately drive the company towards success. To state the obvious, I believe that if you’re looking to develop leadership strengths across your organization, you should invest in solid leadership development program to help improve organizational effectiveness.

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OFFICE HOURS

Friday, August 14th @ 10-11AM Eastern
Co-facilitated by David Liddell and Ali Rayfield, our Monthly Virtual Office Hours are open to clients and colleagues, as well as those who are new to the Liddell Consulting community. These hour-long events focus on different timely leadership topics, which we announce as each date nears. Dave and Ali will lead the conversation, but encourage participants to come with personal experiences and questions to keep the conversation relevant and helpful. If you have a topic you would like to suggest, we would love to hear about it.

Past Office Hour Topics have included:

• How Leaders & Managers Can Keep People Focused & Productive at Home
• Delegation from a distance – Setting People Up for Success in a Virtual World
• Managing Performance – How to Give & Receive Feedback Virtually
• People, Tech Transformation & Unleashing Remote Work
• Employee Engagement – Connecting Between Screens
• Your Workplace Culture & the Quarantine – Evolving to Succeed & Thrive
• Leadership Lessons Learned – How Resiliency Will Conquer the Coronavirus

*A meeting link will be sent to all who register to participate.