Performance Matters - The Healthy, High-Performing Cultures Issue - 16

Leaders make the story real
Employment is a relationship
Aligning on the desired experience is
not the same as enabling leaders to
create it. That's a much bigger effort
that is best accomplished through
high-quality, thoughtful, customtailored
leadership development.
From frontline supervisors to the
C-suite, every leader in your organization
should understand their responsibility
to deliver an engaging, retention-driven
EX, particularly in the moments that
matter. So, if your company narrative
represents a people-centered, highperformance
culture that's desired by
today's workforce, your leaders will
need strong social-emotional skills.
Great leaders know themselves well
and can regulate their own feelings
and emotions. They're also skilled
at knowing others well and helping
them regulate their feelings and
emotions. When sharing a vision of the
future, offering clarity, having difficult
conversations, offering feedback,
supporting someone through a failure,
discussing compensation, or addressing
interpersonal team dynamics, leaders
are called upon to have a deep reserve
of psychological capital they can tap into,
as well as strong relationship-building
skills. That takes training and practice.
(Want more insights on how leaders
create great teams? Go to page 21.)
Effective leadership development
programs strategically support people
in shoring up those social-emotional
reserves, while also enabling them to tap
into the needed actions and behaviors in
the moments that matter. That step-bystep
" how it should show up here " is
the critical piece that's often missing
in off-the-shelf leadership offerings.
Healthy interpersonal relationships
help us thrive, individually and
collectively. They are difficult and
challenging; they require deep work,
resilience, and adaptability; they are
built on collaboration, compromise,
struggle, and growth. Yet, engaging
in a healthy relationship makes us
better. It enriches our lives, creating
new possibilities within us and between
us. Healthy interpersonal relationships
are a source of joy, and a healthy
employment relationship is no different.
Today's workers are wary of being asked
to bring all their energy and talents
to the table for the benefit of their
organization, only to be rewarded with
stress, long hours, and emotional strife
for themselves. They're looking for mutual
value creation-meaning everyone gets
more out of the deal than what they put
in, realized in fair, equal measures.
When the organization's leaders and
employees all show up at their best,
putting in the hard work for each other
and investing in each other's needs and
goals, we make each other better. It's a
collaborative creation of mutual value
where the needs of individuals and the
organization are understood and served.
Creating an environment where this
is the norm is not only possible-it's
imperative for organizations to thrive.
Healthy, high-performing organizations
inspire and enable their leaders to create
conditions that engage everyone in this
kind of relationship. They intentionally
design for the moments that matter
to their employees, transparently
communicate a unique and authentic
company narrative, and actively equip
their leaders with support tailored to
their needs for managing an engaging,
mutually valuable, joy-inducing EX.
about the author
Laura Hoppa is a Principal Performance Consultant at TiER1. She's known for activating strategies that truly
move organizations forward. With decades of communications and marketing experience, Laura has helped
design moments that are meaningful, important, insightful, celebratory, surprising, fun, and results driven.

https://tier1performance.com/author/l-hoppa/

Performance Matters - The Healthy, High-Performing Cultures Issue

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Performance Matters - The Healthy, High-Performing Cultures Issue