As a corporation, who are you, what do you do, what do you stand for, where are you going - and when? Many companies have a mission statement, but how often does it reflect reality?

Do the employees buy into it?

Understand it?

Believe in it?

Share it?

Corporate Culture

Difficult to define, identify, interpret, articulate.

One thing is certain.

If everyone is not on the same page,

your company is not running on all cylinders.

So how do we get everyone onto the same page, living the same ideals, working towards the same goals and objectives?

Of course there is no single, simple answer,

No magic panacea,

No potion you can put in their coffee.

The truth is:

Most corporate culture is shared by osmosis.

If the leader lives his vision:

Talks his talk and

Walks his walk;

His people will emulate him.

If he talks out of both sides of his mouth;

Talks one line and walks another;

His inconsistency will be reflected in the attitudes and actions of his people.

Leadership - also difficult to define and articulate.

There is a self evident truth (experience suggests that self evident often is not) about which John C. Maxwell makes the point, "If you think you are a leader and you have no followers, you aren't a leader, you're just going or a walk."

Someone guru has pointed out that everyone is a leader.

In some aspect of life: work, family, society, each of us, every child old enough to talk intelligibly and every adult assumes a leadership role.

A six year old says, "Lets go to McDonalds", and we go.

Dad says, "Lets go for a drive", and we go.

Mom says, "Lets put on a movie", and we do.

Leadership has been defined as the ability to produce meaningful change but in this 21st century change has a way of happening with or without leadership,

and

The leaders role becomes that of change management and control.

To grab change by the horns and steer it where you want it to go requires innovation but also that perhaps most elusive leadership characteristic, courage.

If we recognize the potential to develop in each of us the ability to lead more often and more effectively, and to lead consciously rather than by accident, we are taking a major step toward becoming more effective leaders ourselves.

Len McNally