Culture is the shadow of the leader….

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a Leader” – John Quincy Adams

It’s primarily the leaders actions that inspire people to do more, to be more and to learn more. It’s the actions of the leader which leads to an organisations culture. In a nutshell, culture represents “the way we do things around here”. Culture is the shadow of the leader. Looking at your team or organisations culture you see the leaders reflection. The reflection we see can be a difficult for us to handle. If not careful, we respond by trying to defend or to rationalise away why what we see in others is not of our making. In this way, we fail to take responsibility for what has resulted from our actions. Without taking responsibility the first steps require to change the situation becomes impossible….!

As difficult as it may be, we need to face the reality the our team and organisations culture is a reflection of our leadership. Accepting this responsibility is the first step to change and as we all know, change begins ourselves. As Ghandi said many years ago we all need to strive to become the “change we want to see in the world“…. in this case we need to be the change we want to see in others…!

• What are your actions inspiring others to become?
• What are your actions inspiring others to do?
• What are your actions inspiring others to learn?

Technorati Tags: Action, Management, Leadership, Culture, Business, Quote, Responsibility

Related posts:

1. Leader: Are you purposely shaping your culture?
2. How leaders embed and transmit culture…
3. How leaders shape an organisation’s culture
4. Culture Drives Success
5. Netflix takes culture seriously

Tagged as: Culture, Quotes