How would you define the culture of your office, your church, or the team you serve with? Is it a fun place to work? Do you like the people you work with? How about problems versus solutions- are the people you work with driven to find solutions or do they campout and critique the evidence of the problem? Do they dream about what's possible? Do they get excited about what could be? Do they celebrate when their coworkers succeed?
These questions and many like them will reveal if healthy leadership is present within your team or office. It is because of good leadership that people learn to discover solutions to problems, find satisfaction in their work, persevere through difficult assignments, and enjoy working with the people on their team.
In small teams, the leader has direct access to the team, and they to him. The leader can develop relationships, help them grow in weaknesses, develop them as leaders themselves.
Large organizations with multiple layers of management and leadership are different. Someone with 100 people under their care cannot foster a leader/learner relationship with each person. Not only is it impossible, but to attempt to do so discredits the authenticity of their attempt while stunting the growth of the people he leads.
If you want to lead your people well, lead your leaders well. Leaders who are led well will lead well.
The leaders within the organization are the culture shapers. They are intimately familiar with the issues and concerns of the people. If the leaders don't have vision and drive and and desire to improve, to create, do do the impossible, if they don't enjoy what they do, then neither will their team.
A leader can only lead as high as the leadership he reports to. If the leadership above him is strong and leading him well, then he will rise to that level of leadership with his team. If the leadership above him is poor, then the leader will either resign his will to lead, or more likely, he will simply leave and go to a place that has a higher level of leadership.
If you are frustrated with the culture of your organization, then start leading your leaders well. Leaders who are led well will lead their leaders well. And as the leader goes, so does the culture.
The right leadership at the wrong level is the wrong leadership for all levels. If you want to lead your people well, lead your leaders well.
