Lead by example
Creating a winning culture starts with you. Beauchamp wants to give people the respect that he would want them to give him. It’s a simple concept, but it takes a lot more work to actually exemplify it on a day-to-day basis.
“Implied in that is that you are honest and you are going to deal with them straight,” he says. “You’re going to make sure your own self-interests are not anywhere close to the top of the priority list on how decisions are made, that they see your priorities are the right priorities and you are making decisions in the right order.”
If you simply say that you want everyone to respect each other and care for each other, some might think it’s only lip service.
“I think it’s the way you behave every day,” he says. “As a leader in a company, people watch and report and record what you say and do to each other.”
For example, Beauchamp was invited to two days of meetings with midlevel managers. Since he was there to be a participant and not the boss, it would have been a major mistake on his part if he walked in and immediately tried to take charge. If you’re in this situation, remember you are a participant and not the leader, and listen to what is said. It will go a long way with those in the meeting who can see you are open to new ideas just like everyone else.
“It’s just how you interact with them, how you respect their decisions and how they see that sometimes when they say, ‘This is what I see,’ [that] they see you actually change your opinion based on what you heard from them, that you are actually respecting their opinion and that you are really there to learn and to serve them,” he says.
You can be proactive in leading by example by introducing yourself to people who are lower in the organization and who you may have not met before.
In addition, make it a point to show others in the organization that everyone’s opinion counts no matter where the person is on the organizational chart.
“For instance, if you are in a meeting and you have a whole set of people in the meeting from executives and midlevel management … if there’s somebody I don’t know or somebody in that room that is furthest from the top of the ‘org’ chart, I try to make sure that person gets special attention,” he says. “I want everybody in the room to see that I am giving that person special attention.
“It will mean a lot to that person. It will mean a lot to their family. They’ll go back and talk about it or to their co-workers, and you let them know that ‘You matter.’”
You can drive your point home better if you ask for the opinion in front of other senior leaders.
“It’s important to let the organization know that every level of the organization matters and, in fact, the most personal respect is owed to those people closest to the customer,” he says. “The people that are not at the top of the org chart but the people that are at the widest part of the org chart.”
You can’t just do this once or twice and then everything will fall into place. It is going to take time before your message and examples sink in across the organization.
“You do that all day long, every day, over the course of years, and the organization develops an understanding of what matters to you,” he says. “Whatever matters to you as the boss, it’s amazing how often the organization begins to mimic those same characteristics. If they see me do it over and over again, and they know it’s what I like.”
You can also show employees they matter by responding to their requests in a timely matter. If you get an e-mail or a phone call from someone, do your best to get back to them as soon as you can.
“Particularly if it’s an employee I don’t personally know, who is remote from my day-to-day work, then I think it’s just incredibly important that I be respectful and responsive to those people quickly,” he says.
