David Mead, speaker, listener, and consultant, is passionate about teaching and coaching trust as the core to building a strong culture, establishing a healthy leadership team, and developing a healthy leader. He joins to share his insights on a concept he brings to his clients and coaches every day called “culture congruence” and discuss how it applies to a healthy organization.
Truth You Can Act On
1. Understand the Reality of How Employees Feel about Culture
I think it can be a real challenge at work where a leader, especially one in a higher level of authority, believes everything is going fine because nobody’s complaining. Nobody’s giving negative feedback. Everybody seems to be happy. They’re all smiling when I show up. But what they don’t know is that that’s a facade people are putting up because they don’t want to look dumb in front of you. So one of the things I’m exploring is using some technology and some survey tools to really get at the heart and give people the ability to anonymously share what they’re feeling about trust in human connection on their teams.
2. Emotional Intelligence Is Necessary
It’s tough because everybody’s at a different place on the spectrum of being open to feedback. Some people say they are, but when they see the feedback, it causes that wall to go up. And they’ll blame other people or the circumstances to deflect any responsibility off of themselves. The one thing I watch for before I even start working with a client on a deeper level is their ability to receive feedback, their emotional intelligence and ability to take feedback or to look at themselves in the mirror. Nobody’s perfect at it, but if they’re already well along that path, then it’s going to be better received when that feedback comes in.
3. Coaching is the Core to Helping People Make Change
When you think about the people who have been that person for you, who have recognized your gift, who have seen the value in you, it’s powerful. I always try to make it personal for my employees. When they can think of that person, all of a sudden, they come up with their own solutions. I would never come up with the unique solutions for them, but they come up with them themselves because they internalize what that feels like to be on the receiving end of human leadership.
Book Recommendation:
Learn more about David: https://www.davidjmead.com/, https://linqapp.com/davidmead
Listen to the full episode: 148: Culture Congruence with David Mead
