Positive Leadership Behaviours: At every level of your organisation

Positive leadership behaviours should not just be confined to those in leadership roles; it’s everyone’s business and includes behaviours such as proactivity, accountability, ownership, and emotional intelligence. When these qualities are embedded at every level of an organisation, you move towards a culture of high performance.

But what do you need to consider when looking to embed positive leadership behaviours across your organisation?

The “Leadership Shadow”

The “Leadership Shadow” represents a leader’s encompassing influence on an organisation’s culture and the collective behaviour of its employees, acting as an unseen force that moulds attitudes and practices within the workplace. This metaphor highlights the necessity for leaders to practice self-awareness and intentionality in their actions, decisions, and communication, as these elements collectively cast a ‘shadow’—positive or negative—across their teams and the broader organisational environment.

Leaders must recognise that their leadership shadow can unconsciously guide the behaviour of others and, therefore, must consciously engage in behaviours that promote a positive culture and drive the organisation towards its vision and values.

Intent-based leadership

Intent-based leadership is based on the belief that giving team members control over their decisions nurtures engagement and encourages innovation. By doing so, leaders not only empower individuals to make decisions but also encourage a collective sense of ownership and accountability. This model effectively turns every team member into a stakeholder in the company’s success, driving performance and satisfaction.

By being accountable, employees feel a stronger commitment to their tasks and outcomes, leading to higher levels of performance. Leaders can foster this environment through clear communication, setting expectations, and building trust.

You can learn more about this leadership approach here:

The Five Dimensions of Curiosity

Todd Kashdan’s curiosity model underlines the importance of fostering an environment where questions are encouraged and learning never stops. This mindset is critical for adapting to change and for personal and professional development. Leaders who prioritise curiosity and learning ensure their teams are always evolving, keeping pace with industry innovations and staying ahead of the curve.

To read a summary of this model and how it can apply to your organisation, click here https://toddkashdan.medium.com/what-are-the-five-dimensions-of-curiosity-7de73684d53a

When these models are combined, they create a powerful ripple effect across the entire business. Positive leadership behaviours can improve team dynamics, enhance productivity, and lead to better business outcomes. By implementing these practices, leaders can transform their teams and cultivate a high-performing, growth-oriented company culture.

Tribus People and Sarah West Recruitment Announce Merger

Tribus People and Sarah West Recruitment are delighted to announce our merger, marking a natural evolution that will enable both organisations to support clients throughout their full talent and development journey.

With recruitment and development needs as two sides of the same coin, by combining forces, Tribus People and Sarah West Recruitment are united in our commitment to providing comprehensive solutions that address the evolving needs of businesses in today’s competitive market.

While the two companies will retain their individual brands, this merger represents a shared vision of offering an integrated approach to talent acquisition, development, and support. Recognising that recruitment and talent development go hand in hand, our focus is on helping organisations grow and succeed by delivering an integrated range of services.

Key highlights of the merger:

Comprehensive Talent Solutions

The merger will create a full-service talent offering, including recruitment, executive search, talent management, and team, leadership, and culture development solutions. This approach will support our clients in building high-performing teams and developing their talent pipeline to ensure long-term success.

Talent at Every Level of Your Organisation

Tribus People are passionate about fostering ‘Leadership at every level of your organisation’. We believe that leadership behaviours can be demonstrated by everyone in your organisation and that creating a culture of ownership is a powerful enabler of success.  This merger allows us to be ideally positioned to help find and develop exceptional talent at every level of your organisation.

Collaboration at the Core

We will prioritise collaboration, leveraging the collective expertise and resources of both organisations. We will drive innovation, share best practices, and deliver exceptional service, ultimately enhancing the client experience.

Full Talent Journey Focus

With an overarching view of the full talent journey, organisational priorities, and growth plans, we will offer end-to-end support, from identifying top external talent through to nurturing and developing future leaders. By integrating recruitment and development efforts, we will support organisations to unlock their full talent potential and drive sustainable growth.

What does this mean for you?

Rather than engaging separate entities for your recruitment and development needs, you can now enter through a single door, where you will be provided with a comprehensive and joined-up service that understands your leadership journey does not just stop once you have someone in a position. 

Hear from Dave and Sarah!

David Chamberlain, Director of Tribus People, added, “Our merger with Sarah West Recruitment signifies a significant step forward in our commitment to delivering end-to-end talent solutions. By combining our individual brands and expertise, we are creating a unique service that will cater to the full spectrum of our client’s talent needs.”

Sarah Knight, Founder of Sarah West Recruitment, stated, “This merger is a natural evolution for us, by joining forces we are able to support our clients in providing a seamless and comprehensive talent and development journey. We believe that recruitment and development are interconnected, and this merger allows us to have a greater impact when supporting our client’s growth and success.”

About Tribus People:

Tribus People exists to help organisations level up their leadership potential, gaining real clarity and direction. They support growing SMEs to build high-performing teams and tackle key challenges to unlock greater performance in pursuit of an organisation’s goals. Tribus combines extensive experience and expertise with proven tools and technologies to drive businesses forward. Their work to support organisations along their leadership journey comprises three fundamental aspects: Find, Develop and Align.

About Sarah West Recruitment:

Sarah West Recruitment is a leading recruitment provider, specialising in permanent placements and temporary solutions across a range of industries. With a focus on personalised service and a commitment to excellence, the company has established a strong reputation for connecting businesses with top talent for over 20 years.

Leadership Mentoring: The 5 skills every business owner needs

“Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction.” – John Crosby

At Tribus People, we believe a vital skill for great leadership is the ability to mentor. Mentorship involves guiding your employees, impacting both their personal and professional development.

But why should you be interested in developing your mentoring skills? What are the benefits to you, your employees or your organisation?

Leaders who effectively mentor their teams notice improved job satisfaction, higher retention rates, enhanced performance, and a stronger sense of community and collaboration among team members (Dennison, 2023).

Like most skills, mentoring skills are not necessarily innate, they require work, effort and intentionality. However, importantly, they are something that can be developed. 

What skills are required?

Inclusive leadership and Self-awareness

Before mentoring others, you should first examine your own biases, and understand yourself, others, and your impact. This self-reflection ensures that mentorship is conducted in a way that respects each individual’s unique attributes, allowing for maximum effectiveness of personal and professional growth.

Psychological Safety

When employees feel they can speak candidly without negative consequences, they are more likely to share their true thoughts, challenges, and aspirations. Building a psychologically safe environment allows for constructive feedback, which promotes the individual’s development, but also creates a workplace where mistakes are viewed as learning opportunities, driving change, improvement and innovation.

Vulnerability

“Make sure the leader is vulnerable first and often” – The Culture Code

By demonstrating humility and humanity, you signal that it is okay to have flaws and to be open about challenges. Being vulnerable creates a trusting relationship, encouraging employees to do the same. This shared vulnerability paves the way for deeper connections, improving the quality and usefulness of the conversations.

Intelligent Communication

“If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.” – W. Edwards Deming

Well-framed questions not only facilitate greater understanding but also empower employees to articulate their ideas, obstacles, and goals.

Equally important is your comfort with silence. Silence is a powerful tool that provides room for reflection and thoughtful response, rather than prompting rushed or superficial answers. Your ability to communicate intelligently, facilitate conversation and play with silence will significantly enrich your conversations and relationships.

Curiosity

Displaying a genuine desire for continuous learning and development serves as a model for team members, encouraging them to adopt a similar mindset. Leaders who are perpetually curious do not just impart wisdom; they also seek to understand different viewpoints and unique challenges faced by their employees. This two-way street of curiosity promotes lifelong learning and collaborative growth.

Many of these skills can be considered standard for good leadership, but their importance becomes even more evident in the context of Leader-employee mentoring. Honing these skills allows for the application of a mentoring relationship, which then promotes personal, employee and organisational benefits.

Reference List

Coyle, D. (2018). ‘The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups’. Random House.

Dennison, K. (2023). ‘The Power Of Mentorship: How Mentors Can Help Employees Grow And Succeed’.

Leadership at Every Level: What it is and why you should be interested

Leadership can be a difficult notion to define. Some consider leadership a role, of making demands and telling people what to do. Others see leadership as a quality, approach or set of behaviours, and others may define leadership as something different altogether.

At Tribus People, in addition to being a defined role, we also see leadership as a set of behaviours underpinned by the right leadership mindsets, that anyone can display, regardless of seniority or position. Positive behaviours associated with displaying leadership often include honesty, open communication, fair feedback, accountability and ownership.

But why should you be interested in fostering leadership behaviours throughout your organisation?

As a business community, we are moving away from the concept of a ‘hero’ leader, a single leader who knows all and makes the decisions, to a model of shared leadership and collaborative decision-making. And for good reason too. Gong (2021) reports organisations that collaborate on decision-making, emphasise knowledge sharing and foster networks of teams, tend to be more innovative and achieve better financial outcomes.

However, this notion of promoting leadership behaviours throughout an organisation is not new. Dee Hock, the CEO of Visa in 1970, championed a decentralised organisational structure that emphasised the idea of moving the power to where the information is. Hock believed that the people who know the most about a certain topic should have the power to make decisions about it. By doing this, decisions can be made quickly and with better information. Notably, Hock’s decentralisation of power promoted leadership behaviours throughout the organisation.

As a business leader, what do you need to be able to do to facilitate leadership at every level? How do you lead, make decisions, and encourage people throughout your organisation to take accountability, ownership, be open and honest?

Henry Mintzberg suggested leaders need to be able to access five different mindsets, and a great leader will be able to move between these dependent on the situation.

These include the:

  • Reflective Mindset (Managing self): Involves understanding ourselves better. If we do not take the time to reflect on our experiences, we will not gain any valuable insights or learn from them, which means we will not be effective in our roles
  • Analytic Mindset (Managing Organisations): It involves a continuous cycle of taking action, reflecting on the results, and adjusting our approach. By doing so, we develop a better understanding of how our actions, thoughts, and outcomes are connected. It’s essential to have a logical and rational approach to making informed decisions.
  • Worldly Mindset (Managing Context): Consider the broader context in which our organisation operates. It means gaining a deep understanding of the reality in which we operate. This mindset encourages us to step out of our offices and engage with different aspects of the business to ensure its success.
  • Collaboration mindset: (Managing relationships and others): The importance of working well with others and building strong relationships. As leaders, we cannot accomplish much without the support and cooperation of our team members. Collaboration involves negotiation and finding ways to create value together. We have a natural inclination to connect with others and work collectively to achieve meaningful goals.
  • Action mindset (Managing Change): Actively making things happen and managing change. We cannot spend all our time thinking about problems without taking concrete steps to solve them. It is important to strike a balance between planning and actually getting things done.

Demonstrating the five mindsets is crucial for leadership because it enables leaders to approach challenges from different angles and adapt their behaviours accordingly.

So how will adopting each of these mindsets allow you, as a leader, to promote leadership behaviours throughout your business?

The Reflective Mindset:

  • Encourages self-awareness and introspection,
  • Promotes humility and a willingness to learn,
  • Sets an example for others to engage in self-reflection and continuous improvement.

The Analytical Mindset:

  • Promotes a logical and structured approach to decision-making,
  • Fosters informed choices,
  • Inspires confidence and trust in their teams.

The Worldly Mindset:

  • Encourages leaders to consider diverse perspectives, cultural differences, and global trends,
  • Promotes inclusivity and empathy,
  • Fosters understanding and collaboration among team members from various backgrounds.

The Collaborative Mindset:

  • Emphasises building relationships, fostering teamwork, and creating a supportive environment,
  • Encourages open communication, active listening, and valuing diverse contributions,
  • Promotes a sense of belonging and encourages collaboration throughout the organisation.

The Action Mindset:

  • Drives leaders to take bold initiatives, embrace change, and lead by example,
  • Encourages a bias towards action,
  • Empowers employees to take calculated risks, experiment, and drive innovation.

As well as focusing on leadership behaviours, acknowledging and cultivating leadership mindsets can have a profoundly positive impact on your people and business. This combination enables leaders and their teams to approach situations with different perspectives, adapt their behaviours accordingly, and inspire others to do the same.

Reference:

Gong, L., Liu, Z., Rong, Y. and Fu, L., 2021. Inclusive leadership, ambidextrous innovation and organizational performance: the moderating role of environment uncertainty. Leadership & Organization Development Journal42(5), pp.783-801.

Culture & Climate – How to make tangible change

In recent years, most businesses have recognised that culture is as important as strategy. However, although culture should be consistent across their organisations, many leadership teams note that some of their teams are consistently less productive than others and have a very different ‘mood’ or atmosphere. This blog explores the reasons for this and outlines a data-led approach to measuring and understanding these differences and improving team performance.

Introducing team climate
Although it’s never specified in their job description, each team leader is responsible for developing the ‘climate’ of their team.

In a healthy climate, the team leader ensures that team members are primed for success. They empower their team members, encourage them and ensure that they understand how important they are to the future success of the company. As a result, team members find work enjoyable and rewarding, making them more likely to put in the effort needed to achieve or exceed expectations. In an unhealthy climate, a lack of transparency, communication or trust results in the team feeling demotivated and disengaged. Micromanagement only exacerbates the situation.

By giving your team leaders objective insight into the unique climate of their team, you make it easier for them to own and improve their performance. This can result in enhanced productivity, innovation and loyalty.

Simple yet effective ways to measure climate

To measure a climate effectively, we use a range of techniques and metrics to assess both ‘transactional’ and ‘transformational’ team and leadership performance, utilising the Performance Climate System tool.

Transactional measurements serve to create structure or definition for a team. To analyse transactional performance, we ask the team leader and all team members to consider:
• Goals – does the team have a vision and targets?
• Roles – does the team have the right people with the strengths and capabilities needed?
• Processes – does the team have robust processes which ensure consistency?

Transformational measurements are about taking a functioning team, turning them into a high performing team and sustaining that performance over time. Again, we gather feedback from the whole team to help us ascertain:
• Adaptability – does the team have the ability to flex and innovate?
• Connection – does the team have a healthy network of relationships?
• Resilience – does the team’s working practices and behaviour enable long-term success?

Results are collated and displayed on a Climate Circle graphic, as shown below. This enables team leaders and the company’s management team to quickly understand the team climate. By mapping the team’s results against the leader’s own scores, we highlight areas of both alignment and disconnect and help to create a plan for improvement.

Copyright Performance Climate Systems Ltd 2021

Reading the circle
The climate circle begins with ‘vision’. If a leader fails to communicate the business’s vision, it’s impossible for employees to understand the role they play in the company’s success. From vision, we proceed clockwise around the circle. If improvements are needed, we recommend that they are carried out in the same clockwise manner.

In conclusion

Leadership performance can be a very emotive subject. This climate scoring technique provides an objective, non-confrontational and supportive way to enable leaders to take responsibility for improving their own, and their team’s, performance.

For more information and to find out how you can measure and improve both climate and culture, please contact us at hello@tribuspeople.co.uk

Is loneliness the price you pay for success?

Few people on the leadership ladder realise quite how lonely it can be at the top and how failure to address feelings of isolation can hold them and their business back.

As leadership coaches, we’re trusted advisors to many CEOs and senior leaders. We know that loneliness doesn’t just affect the person feeling it, it has a ripple effect on their peers and teams.  

In this blog, we share seven ways to conquer loneliness for once and for all.

1. Face the facts

In order to achieve their goals, businesses need employees at all levels to be:

  • Productive
  • Engaged
  • Motivated
  • Fit and well

Unfortunately, loneliness:

  • Reduces productivity
  • Causes a loss of enjoyment
  • Generates tension
  • Reduces tolerance and empathy
  • Results in poor health

In a survey for the Mental Health Foundation in the early days of the first lockdown, 24% of UK adults said they felt lonely in the previous two weeks.

If a quarter of ‘everyday’ people can feel lonely, how much more prevalent an issue is it for leaders who are burdened by unique, even scary, responsibilities?

According to the Harvard Business Review, half of CEOs report feeling lonely in their role and, of this group, 61% feel that it hinders their performance. If we look at the CEOs as a workforce, over 30% would have a performance issue as a result of loneliness.

It therefore makes sense to tackle loneliness as we would any other performance issue. Admitting that there is a problem is the first step.

How authority changes everything

‘First-time CEOs are particularly susceptible to isolation. Nearly 70 percent of first-time CEOs who experience loneliness report that the feelings negatively affect their performance. These feelings are not limited to CEOs. In fact, loneliness and its repercussions can affect any individual with newfound authority. Leaders owe it to themselves — and more importantly, their organizations — to make sure this isolation does not impact their effectiveness.’

Thomas J. Saporito, Harvard Business Review

2. Build a trusted support network

We all need someone safe to unload onto, to bounce ideas off and who we can rely on to give us their honest feedback. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to be someone that you work with on a day-to-day basis. As Amy Gallo wrote in the Harvard Business Review, ‘The higher up in the organization you get, the less likely you’ll receive constructive feedback on your ideas, performance, or strategy.’

So, if you can’t rely on your colleagues, who can you turn to?

We recommend asking a past CEO, a trusted board member and/or a spouse to provide the support you need.

3. Make connections

You can grow relationships with employees by finding new ways to interact with them, such as weekly group coffee breaks on Zoom, ‘ask me anything’ sessions or having 1:2:1s with employees from different departments. As well as reducing your loneliness, this could help generate new ideas for the business, strengthen employee relationships and grow your employer brand.

Although it can be harder to connect with other CEOs than with your own employees, following them on social media gives you the opportunity to learn from their leadership experiences. Leaders who are open about the challenges they face and the lessons they have learned include:

4. Make progress

It can feel as though your ability to progress is hampered by the constant need to make hundreds of small decisions. Developing and empowering your teams to take some of the burden will allow you to free up the time to achieve more meaningful goals. It will also give them a sense of autonomy and grow their self-worth.

5. A rounded life

There’s little point encouraging your team to have a work/life balance if you model the opposite behaviour. Don’t just be a leader, spend time outside work being a friend, relative, supporter or mentor. However busy you are, you still need some downtime, whether that be exercising, doing some manual work or gaining some much-needed perspective through journaling.

6. Develop your company culture

Creating a loneliness-resistant culture whose values support wellbeing, collaboration and development will benefit employees across the business. It also supports achievement of the business’s goals by increasing employee motivation and engagement. This can have a positive effect on employee productivity and retention.

David Chamberlain, one of our Co-Founders, comments, “Your strategy and culture should be linked. Strategy defines the rules of the game, culture defines how you decide to play. A collaborative culture fosters teamwork and reduces loneliness. A competitive culture has the opposite effect.”

7. Work with an Executive Coach

As coaches, we can act as external sounding board, allowing you to share frustrations, talk through challenges and find solutions in a supportive and confidential environment. By acting as a ‘critical friend’, we’ll help you work out how to navigate the challenges of leadership, such as loneliness, and improve your self-awareness and adaptability.

Summary

Loneliness doesn’t have to be the price you pay for success. If you’re ready to boost your performance by tackling loneliness head-on, please contact us today. 

Six ways to help your business thrive

Businesses which achieve the best return on investment in people pay equal attention to how they attract, recruit, retain and deliver. In this blog, we explore ways of strengthening your performance, so your business becomes more successful, profitable and resilient.

Finding the leaders that you need to take your business forward

The cost of hiring the wrong leader can be huge. As well as the financial cost, estimated for a manager to be over three times their salary (Recruitment & Employment Confederation), it has an unquantifiable cost on productivity, culture and morale.

Our Executive Recruitment service is designed to eliminate many of the frustrations, blockers and mistakes which dog senior level recruitment, such as recruiting like-for-like replacements, CV overload, failure to qualify candidates properly and overlooking incompatible values. Instead, we’ll challenge you to ensure that the job and person specification is exactly right before approaching and assessing a small pool of potential candidates to test their potential fit.

Only when we’re satisfied that they are worth your time, will we make introductions.

The real cost of poor decision making

“We calculate that a poor hire at middle-management level at a salary of £42,000 could end up costing a business £132,015 in total to resolve.”

Kevin Green, Chief Executive, Recruitment & Employment Confederation

Developing your leaders, teams and culture

The one thing that’s going to be certain in a post-pandemic world is uncertainty. Over the last few years, we have all become used to some change, such as operating on an increasingly public stage, but now we are expected to accept, implement and embrace change at a remarkable rate.

Although traditional business skills such as decision making and communication will always be valued, your leaders and teams will need to develop softer skills such as adaptability, curiosity and humility in order to survive and thrive.

Our People & Culture Development service will bring together coaches, mentors, trainers, D&I experts and wellbeing specialists in a personalised programme to give your people the support they need.  

Laying the foundations for continued growth

Your business may have evolved naturally so far but taking a more proactive and objective approach to its design will make it easier to achieve your strategy, increase efficiencies and nurture innovation.

David Chamberlain, one of our Co-Founders, comments, “Taking a step back and looking at the roles needed to fulfil your business’s objectives, rather than the people you have available, is incredibly powerful. It helps you avoid one of the common mistakes smaller organisations make – shaping their structure to suit loyal employees’ skills and needs.”

Our Organisation Design service will help you take an objective view of the structure your business needs to be more successful and help you get the right people in the right place at the right time.

Ensuring your key people can evolve with your business

No matter what steps you take to minimise loss, it’s impossible to retain exactly the same leadership team year in, year out. As well as roles becoming available due to ill-health, retirement or resignation, business growth will also open up new management vacancies. Regardless of the reasons, having a pool of potential leaders ready to step into a more critical or key position will help safeguard your business’s productivity and profitability.

Our Succession Planning service will help you identify your strongest talents, nurture their leadership skills and ensure they are committed to your future.

Keeping it in the family…or not

Family-run businesses can avoid succession planning in order not to rock the boat. In PwC’s UK Family Business Survey, while 69% of family-run businesses had succession plans, only 18% described them as formal. If you’re a family business, we can help you take an objective view of what you need to do to protect your business’s future whilst protecting family relationships.  

Saving time and money by fine-tuning your processes

Recruitment will always be a business need. Streamlining and optimising your processes now will pay for itself time and time again. With the average length of the job interview process at 27.5 days (Glassdoor), shaving even a few days off will give you a competitive advantage and free up valuable internal resource.

Optimising your processes can also help get relationships with candidates off to a strong start, turning even unsuccessful applicants into advocates.

Our Recruitment Process Optimisation experts have the knowledge and experience needed to help you develop processes which will attract more suitable candidates, reduce administrative burden, turn new hires into loyal employees and grow your employer brand.

Becoming the employer of choice in your industry or area

Your employer brand is how you differentiate yourself in the work market. Get it right, and it’s easier to attract, recruit, retain and engage the right people. Even if you haven’t purposefully set out to develop an employer brand, your employees, ex-employees and previous recruitment activities will have generated one for you.

Strengthening your employer brand will help you attract candidates who have the right skills to take your business forward and who are a good cultural fit.

Conversely, a poor employer brand, or one which is mismatched with reality, can hold your business back.

Our Employer Branding services will identify why your employees love coming to work, benchmark you against your competition and help you develop a brand which is unique, honest and compelling.

The importance of employer branding

“An employer brand isn’t just a PR stunt to generate job applications. There’s nothing worse for a candidate, especially a senior hire, than starting a new job and feeling like they have been misled. It erodes trust between the employee and employer. We help businesses create an employer brand that’s true to the business and which fits with their strategy and public brand. This helps new hires to feel settled and reassured that they’ve made the right decision.”
Sarah Knight, Co-Founder at Tribus.

Summary

Addressing any people-related areas of weakness will enable you to take your business to the next level, but there’s no simple ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution.

Our unique data-driven approach will help you develop an objective view of your business’s strengths and weaknesses. We’ll then work in partnership to develop a customised package of services that will meet your unique needs.  To find out more, contact us today.