Building A High-Performing Team In A Values-Driven Company

5 strategies for women leaders

From a human resources perspective, gender should always be regarded as irrelevant to performance, in all positions and at all levels. It begins at the top. Although none of us can magically erase centuries of gender-focused behavior, women in leadership positions have a unique opportunity and important responsibility to break with dysfunctional aspects of the past and set new standards for their businesses and industries.
 

The objective is neither to defend nor to celebrate being a woman in power, but to turn away from gender altogether and focus instead on leading with authenticity and integrity. Do this, and most gender biases, whether implicit or acquired, will have the best chance to recede into irrelevance within an organization.

Here are five strategies women leaders can use to create a high-performing team in a values-driven company.

The “new” workplace environment is a real thing. In starting or running a business these days, leaders must understand the current reality. Today, over 80% of the American workforce is millennial (born in the early 1980s to the mid-1990s) or GenZ (later 1990s to early 2010s). The impact this has on the “social contract” between employers (including top management) and those they employ has been both swift and profound. 

What held true, even as recently as two years ago, concerning the focus on purpose, mission, and belonging has changed. While you, as a leader, may derive your authority from a title on an organizational chart, what really counts is your legitimacy, which flows upward to you from your team. Today’s workers value culture, social responsibility, and an authentic commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). They want to be proud of the company and team in which they work, and they want to feel that they belong to an enterprise both productive and good. 

To attract and retain the top talent, today’s businesses must embrace their responsibility to the communities they serve. Fairness and equity to women, minorities, and other special classes are now table stakes. Executing on DEI requires explicit goal setting and monitoring. What you and your company do cannot carry even the slightest whiff of cynical pro forma compliance or outright dishonesty. Motivating employees in the right way, with fairness and equality as genuine company values, demonstrably delivers market- leading results.

We all know the importance of setting goals. But even the most worthwhile goals do not matter unless they are grounded in a compelling set of core values. The same holds true for recruiting, motivating, and training. Absent values, we just spin our wheels—or worse.

Job 1 of the founder is to establish the core values of her company. These are articulated in a values statement, which is an expression of foundational beliefs: what you and your company stand for. The values statement is real and present, not an aspirational wish list of what you want someday to become. Core values need not be elaborate or grandiose. In fact, the simpler, the better. 

As a company grows, its initial values may have to expand so that they infuse the policies and processes you or other leaders, including successors, establish. “Infuse” is the right word to apply to core values because they permeate every aspect of the business, in product development and testing, customer service, employee performance programs and benefits, marketing campaigns, financial reporting, internal communication, and competitive positioning. Moreover, your culture over the long term is based on how you and your leadership team act and behave—where you go for drinks, how you manage through a crisis, the quality of the people in your network, even your office decor. 

You model the values that create the culture of your organization. As a leader, you must be mindful in all that you say and do, always ensuring that your behavior and words communicate the core-value identity of the company. You must make explicit that you and everyone else in the organization are required to honor and protect its culture, regardless of position, gender, or any other criteria. 

Many companies, from start-ups to the most established, are breaking ground in new systems that not only encourage diversity, equity, and inclusion but help enforce it. DEI is built on a foundation of values, but its implementation starts with measurement. Companies need to deliberately manage and monitor DEI by tracking exactly what their current organization looks like and precisely how it manifests culture and diversity goals. Measurable dimensions of DEI include how the company hires, pays, and promotes. 

Fortunately, the technology of DEI measurement exists. Companies such as Zenefits and others offer software to track DEI activity. To empower women in particular, available technology makes it possible to ensure compliance with local, state, and federal regulations while giving the organization the flexibility to create policies on childcare, maternity/paternity, homeschooling, remote work, vacation and sabbaticals, job sharing, and so on that are suited to its unique culture. Other companies, such as Frontier Signal, make DEI employee-sourcing software that connects thousands of candidates who may not know how best to articulate their capabilities with companies that may not know how to find them. 

The values and culture you choose to nurture have a greater chance of success when empowered by technology.

Being an entrepreneur or top executive attracts many descriptors, exciting, exhilarating, rewarding, difficult, stressful, and challenging among them.

Lonely is probably the last word that comes to mind—unless you sit or have sat in the CEO chair. “It’s lonely at the top” is a cliché precisely because it speaks the truth. Leadership can be isolating, and the isolation can whup you pretty good. Female executives are especially susceptible. Being a trailblazer and breaking the glass ceiling comes with its own set of challenges and emotions, not least of which is loneliness. 

Ignore your feelings at your peril. The loneliness of leadership, unacknowledged, can chip away at your confidence, degrading both judgment and performance. If you begin doubting yourself, feeling like you’ve lost your mojo or are somehow unworthy of your success, the Imposter Syndrome can come knocking on your door.

Address loneliness by turning to your leadership team. Yes, your best ideas will always be better with their input, and, yes, you want them to present diverse points of view and solutions. But above all, your team must consist of people you trust and among whom you can be vulnerable. Build a leadership team of people who complement you and are committed to your values, business purpose, and the promise of your brand. Hire a team for where you believe your business is headed, not just for where it is today. 

Beyond the leadership team, establish a strong personal advisory network of mentors. A true mentor is someone you’ve known for a while and with whom you have a strong personal history. Often, this is a former boss or a retired executive. Each mentor has a vested interest in you because they’ve been in your shoes, have watched your professional ascent, and care about your success. They are the people who tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear—especially when you have lost your way and find yourself faking it. Ten minutes with a person like this is food for your soul and can boost you out of a rut by helping you keep it real. 

There is nothing less inspiring than listening to an ineffective speaker. As a leader, you are required to engage with a variety of stakeholders at different levels, often communicating difficult and complicated messages in periods of exceptional opportunity or crisis. 

Some say that women are at a disadvantage as communicators because they come to the podium with less perceived authority than men. In fact, women tend to value communication—interactive, empathetic communication—more highly than men do. True, being a charismatic and authoritative communicator is always powerful. But these qualities are even stronger when coupled with empathy. Nevertheless, regardless of gender, the presence and skills required to communicate effectively are both learned and teachable. They call for coaching and practice. 

Execute these five strategies and lead with greater resilience and authenticity.  Leading by example, women leaders can build and run values-driven companies for long-term success, and continue to move the needle toward greater diversity, equity and inclusion.

Sabrina Horn is an award-winning CEO, C-Suite advisor, speaker, and communications expert. Her book, Make It, Don’t Fake It, Leading with Authenticity for Real Business Success aims to help all leaders achieve business success with integrity. Visit https://sabrinahorn.com/  Connect Sabrina Horn