Topic: Leadership & Management Skills

Why Managers Need to Be in Charge of Driving Change

1 min read

Oct 22, 2016

Work environment Take a step back for a moment and think about company culture as though it were a garden. A beautiful garden is something that you have to keep tended. With just the right amount of water, fertilizer, and sunlight, it’ll flourish before your eyes. And the perfect garden has the right complement of plants and flowers that makes it come together.

But a once-great garden can get overrun without constant attention. Or it can wither away if you forget to give it water or the right nutrients.

Without a thoughtful, dedicated gardener, the garden will never reach its full bloom. The same can be said for any organization. Without tuned-in leaders committed to promoting a positive culture and fostering employee growth, a work environment will never enjoy high levels of employee engagement. Whether they be CEOs, department heads, human resource groups, or team leads, only those in leadership positions have the position to effect cultural change.

Consider this, according to HRZone, engagement programs initiated by senior management are twice as successful as those not introduced by company leaders.

So before you jump into the process, take a step back and make sure you have decision makers involved who can incorporate positive change. If not, get their buy-in to start pulsing employees, review results, acknowledge opportunities, and take action based on feedback. And if you have the authority to undertake changes based on feedback, make sure you have the time, bandwidth, and dedication to follow through.

Of course, individual staffers contribute to improving company culture; however, successful, long-term improvement starts with managers.