Leadership in a corporate setting: what is it and how do you execute it?

When you begin your career, usually in a junior level role, you are not necessarily given a large responsibility over many critical elements. Therefore, you are able to concentrate on your specific role and the related expectations. Most companies will invest in whom they consider employees with potential by providing training sessions and/or sending them to seminars. The result; these individuals become very skilled in their area of expertise and because of this wealth of knowledge are promoted to a supervisory role managing the new individuals in their previous role. The problem with this, is that they have never learned the skills necessary to lead people – they have merely learned how to execute an isolated task extremely well. Thus, the Micro-manager is born. When a project is in danger, that manager will jump in – with best intentions of course – and save the day. However, without the use of successful leadership tactics.


In my opinion, Leadership is equivalent to Corporate Culture. The corporate culture within your organization, and how the organization is led by its managers and executives from the top down, is decisive on the Leadership Philosophy an organization lives and breathes.
 
Employees and talent are a corporation’s greatest asset and should not be overlooked as the “working bees” of the founder’s vision. The roles in a business should be defined as:

Senior Management - sets the frame that aligns the company to achieve its vision and mission

• Mid-level management and employees - who can act more freely within this frame.
  

When a business empowers its employees and sets them up for success, it will yield highly motivated and passionate individuals who not only strive to achieve the requested quotes or targets, but also are willing to go the extra mile. Below you will find the ingredient list I deem imperative to create a successful corporate culture:

• Inclusiveness

Amid digital transformation, A.I. and globalization, one critical component, paramount for a business' success, must not be forgotten: people! People will work best when there is a strong relationship that will allow them opportunities to feel respected and included within the company and their team. One-on-One, cross-divisional team meetings or team-building events are one way to build stronger relationships.

• Collaboration

Sharing and collaboration among team members is as basic as working morale and ethics but often undervalued. When a team works together, rather than competing against each other, productivity and efficiency will increase. In team meetings, share project successes, but also failure stories in order to promote a safe environment.

• Empowerment & Support

An employee who has a personal development goal should be supported to reach these goals. An engaged and ambitious employee who is allowed to venture outside their role responsibility will be higher motivated than an employee who is continuously working on the given problems. Send employees to training sessions or seminars, so they can add to their skill set; 80% of a companies innovation comes from 20% of the employees time, when they can be creative.
 
To summarize, Like an SPA and sauna treatment, when applying the ICE Leadership Philosophy principle as your corporate culture, esp. during the sizzling phases of corporate growth and day-to-day operations, you will have a fresh and healthy environment that people want to be a part of to achieve anything.

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