Transformational Leadership is about building a high performing culture where people drive

performance because of the right behaviours. They have embedded these behaviours in their
everyday life. People in high performing cultures requires less supervision. They are empowered to
achieve goals that are consistent with the organisation’s direction.

As a leader, we need to understand how to build a high performing culture and our responsibilities
for making it happen. There are six components to building a high performing culture.

1. Define the culture. What is a high performing culture? What are the desired behaviours?
How will we know when we have achieved a high performing culture?
2. Set direction. What’s the purpose and vision of the organization? We have to be able to
articulate this to the team.
3. Communicating the culture. What are the communication techniques we are going to use to
reinforce every day culture?
4. Organize. We have to organize the team to support the culture. How will we build our
teams? What process are we going to create for recruiting and talent development.
5. Manage performance. What are the goals of the organization? How are we going to measure
people’s performance? How are we going to create the right behavioural incentives?
6. Live the culture. How are we going to capture culture moments and provide feedback to
people to reinforce desired behaviours and to get rid of behaviours that are counter to the
culture we are trying to build?

As a leader, creating high performing culture is something we can achieve. We just have to make
sure that we take the right steps to get our organization there.

Leaders who create a strong culture of outstanding performance will find that performance
strengthens their culture. By strengthening the culture, the likelihood of better results and
performance increases. This is known as vicious circle. We need to be careful, as the dynamic works
in the opposite direction as well.

Bad behaviour begets bad performance, which leads to more bad behaviour, and ultimately a bad
culture. A leader who only concentrate on daily sales number will transmit the same behaviour
through the organisation. Everyone focuses on financials, but it was at the expense of creating a
great culture. Creating a goal deployment process, and build the balance scorecard will make it clear
to the team on what is expected of them, both in terms of behaviour and performance and that was
tied into goals set for the team.

As the team hit their numbers and drive results, people embodied those principles and strengthened
the culture. They stepped up into bigger roles and hit bigger goals.

As a leader, we need to know what behaviours we want, how we link to results, and how to take
advantage of the positive virtuous circles we can build. When we see bad behaviour and
performance headed in the wrong direction, step in immediately before it spirals out of control.

A leader can be trained. “The question arises, can transformational leadership be trained? The
answer is affirmative. A number of successful training experiences in North America are described in
this article. These experiences form the basis for a prototype training programme now being
conducted in a large European conglomerate at the junior, middle and senior management level. A
general overview of these programmes is provided, as well as evidence that they are having strong
beneficial effects on the participants in the workshops, and in their performance back on their jobs”
(Bernard M. Bass and Bruce J. Avolio, Journal, 1990).
First, a leader needs to assess the existing culture. An assessment to our current culture gives us an
understanding of the starting point to our journey toward building a high-performance culture. This
assessment includes evaluating what our current culture stands for, how people behave, and the
incentives we have in place to drive behaviour.

To look into one of these cultural assessments, we need to ask several questions.

1. What descriptors best explain our culture? Get an answer from senior leaders, managers,
and the front line, are the answers given consistent? If they are not, we might have cultural
problem.
2. Is the organisation direction clear? Do people know how that direction is tied to the culture
we are trying to build?
3. Are goals and expectation clear? Does culture support those goals?
4. What communication channels exist for discussing and reinforcing culture? Are we using
those channels effectively?
5. What processes exist to support and reinforce culture? Are those processes effective? What
processes or platforms are we missing to be able to drive culture?
6. What behaviours do people demonstrate that are consistent with the culture, which
behaviours are inconsistent? Are incentives for positive behaviours tied to the culture? Are
there consequences for negative behaviours?
7. Finally. How well do we live the culture every day? Are those moments reinforced?

Once we go through cultural assessment, we will have a clearer sense for where we are starting and
where the major gaps are that we need to fill to drive a high-performance culture.

To build a high-performance culture, we have to define what high performance is and what does it
mean. How are we going to measure and how much definition hinges on hard business metrics, like
morale, engagement, and customer satisfaction? The way to define and measure performance will
dictate the practices we put in place to achieve it. If we define performance by hard business
metrics, we will get behaviours focused on driving those metrics, and that won’t always get us the
outcome we want in terms of building a high-performance culture. The focus ends up on driving the
number, and that can come at the expense of building a great culture. It has to be defined by
behaviours and soft metric, such as engagement, retention, morale, and customer satisfaction to get
those behaviours. The hard metrics like sales and profits to follow after that.

A company that was consistently ranked as one of the top 100 places to work defined their goals as
culture, quality, patient, satisfaction, and financial results as their balanced scorecard for measuring
performance. Three of these are people-driven measures that tie directly to culture. This
organisation views the financials as an outcome of those other three measures. They invest heavily
in leadership development, training, and coaching high performers. They see development as key to
performance, because that development builds and reinforces their culture. Their performance
reviews and rewards are based on this four-quadrant performance and they ended up building a
strong culture of people doing the right things for the right reasons. So, we have to be mindful of the
metrics we put in place, because the behaviours are going to follow.

The organisation’s vision and mission set the direction. They have a direct effect on the type of
culture we are going to have. The vision and mission need to be exciting and compelling. They
should give a team an understanding of types of behaviours required to love our that mission and
achieve the vision. They are about people and behaviours.
One critical thing we need to do is to link our purpose to our culture. Our mission is our purpose, it
explains why the organisation exists and how it contributes to the world. The culture we build is an
enabler of accomplishing our mission. High performance cultures stand for something, the vision and
mission represent an ideal or a goal that people can get behind. Leaders need to explain how the
culture we are building is linked to the mission we are trying to accomplish. We need to take time to
look into our vision and mission, break it down, look at every single element of those two items,
understand how each item link to the culture that we are trying to build. If the link is clear, we want
to emphasize that with the team. If the is no linkage, we need to reword our vision and mission
statement.

The organisation strategy is a set of initiatives and actions that we will take to achieve our vision.
Those actions and that overall strategy have to support the high-performance culture that we are
building. Choosing initiatives that are consistent with the culture and that reinforce it will help
people get excited about the work they do. As a leader, we need to show the linkages between the
projects we are working on and the culture we are building. This can be as explicit as having a
culture strategic filter for selecting initiatives. The more closely we can tie our strategy to building a
high-performance culture, the more excited our associates will be about pursuing the initiatives and
the faster we are going to build the culture that we are interested in having.

“The measures of institutional success are more meaningful through the further realization of the
institution's vision and mission and how the institution is supporting its declared values through
various initiatives and behaviours. Institutions and their leaders rely on these statements as
foundational pillars by which to launch new programs, services, carry out applied research, sustain
and enhance their operations, and to build a future capacity for change”, (Achieving an Institution's
Values, Vision, and Mission, Calder William B, 2014, p9).

Culture needs constant reinforcement. We need to communicate our culture through different
channels with different content. This requires a Content Management Strategy. Senior leadership
needs to be an integral content source. They have to speak with an authentic voice. Vehicles like
town halls, blogs, newsletter, conference calls, and emails require deliberate management to ensure
we are delivering the right content through the right channel. Creating this communication plan is
going to be a huge tool for us to be able to use to get our ideas transformed into daily culture that
everyone is aware of.

Stories are engaging and memorable. The pull people in. They are a great vehicle for conveying our
culture. Instead of using empty platitudes or cliched sayings or throwing a bunch of buzzwords,
communicate our culture with a story. Find and share stories that exemplify the culture we are
building. By taking our culture and turning it into story is going to be easier to disseminate across the
organisation and help people understand exactly the behaviours we expect to build a high-
performance culture.

Culture needs to be a conversation. Actively engaging people in culture conversations is a great way
to make culture come alive. These conversations should not be forced as culture sessions. Instead,
they should be natural questions, like how are our values the choices we make. Make this part of a
broader performance conversation.

People and teams are the true drivers of cultures. We should ensure cultural fit as an evaluation
criterion for selecting leaders or employees. When selecting someone for a leadership role, assess
their prior efforts and how they have strengthened or weakened the culture. When culture is part of
the promotion criteria, employees will adjust their behaviour to adhere to the culture. When
restructuring teams, it is important to mix the different experiences of culture to assist other team
members.

It is important to have good processes that include the development of culture. Building processes
to include culture include recruiting, onboarding, performance review and awards. It is also
important to manage performance when we are developing a high performing culture. Therefore,
we must set goals to measure results, and to tie goals to the strategy. One way of doing this is to use
balanced scorecards. It can be an effective way to tie culture to results.

People work for incentives. If we want our team to embrace our culture, we need to illustrate how
the culture is used to drive the performance. It is a good idea to highlight good behaviour in the
performance reviews, such as spot bonus and recognition programs. At the same, it is critical to
correct negative behaviours as soon as possible. Keeping someone in employment when they violate
cultural norms can be poisoning. Due to bad leadership, the employees may negatively affect the
company. Therefore, we need to decide how and when we are going to take correction action to
protect the culture of our organisation.

If culture is the sum of our daily actions, sometimes a small action can create a big result. Small
gestures will have a ripple effect. Obligation to descent refers to when someone has a different
opinion, they are obliged to say it. It is important to share stories that complement the culture. The
better we are able to gather cultural moments, the easier our team will understand what good
culture looks like and how it is tied to the organisation. Providing specific and actionable feedback is
a job of the leader. It is important that a leader must be able to explain their behaviour affects the
business culture. Behaviour must be identified and understood by the individual. A leader must offer
preferred behaviour. The reinforced behaviour must reinforce the culture of the organisation.

To build a high-performance culture, we need an effective plan as it is important to assess and

define the culture. A leader needs to develop a strategic business plan. It is important to build our
communication channels when adopting a new culture, and integrate our culture into our processes.
It is also imperative to set goals. A leader must communicate how culture affects decisions and
should always share the stories that show the culture. A leader should also reward good behaviour
and modify bad behaviour. Culture works well when the leader lives the new culture.

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Saffold G.S. (1988). Culture Traits, Strength, and Organizational Performance: Moving beyond
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