Moshe’s Blog

The ABCs of Great Leadership: Unleash the Full Potential of Your Organization with a Simplified Approach to Transformation

Keep It as Simple as the ABCs

CEOs are often challenged to transform their organization and create a brand new framework for doing so. In my experience as an executive coach and consultant, sometimes less is more, like the ABCs. Authenticity, Belonging, and Collaboration–they provide a potent and comprehensive framework for business transformation, as they guide not just everything an organization does, but also everything about how its people are being.

Authenticity builds trust. It is about showing up whole and being true to who you are. It is reflected in the alignment of your words and actions, and in the “vibe” you bring to the table. On an organizational level, it means everyone in the company is supported to behave authentically every day. It means your organization’s commitment to your greater purpose is real and guides your priorities and decisions. Barriers go down. Hearts open. Business grows.

How would you rate your organizational culture in terms of promoting authenticity and trust?

Belonging meaningfully connects people. It happens when you successfully cultivate a sense of kinship between your organization and all your stakeholders, internal and external. The result is a palpable sense of emotional connection. People meld their personal brand with your corporate brand and proudly proclaim their affinity for your organization. Employee and customer loyalty is off the charts.

Do people strongly emotionally connect with and feel a meaningful part of your organization?

Collaboration is maximizing shared value. It means you’re all in this together, actively working toward shared goals. You’re aligned at a much higher level and creating greater value jointly. You have the courageous conversations that collaboration requires. In every situation, the energy of meaningful collaboration is always engaging and uplifting, routinely creating win-win-win situations.

How well do you foster fearless collaboration and minimize insecurity and greed?

12 Steps to Apply the ABCs to Help Your Organization Transform

Here are four high-impact action steps you can take in each area–Authenticity, Belonging, and Collaboration–to create real and lasting transformation in your organization.

AUTHENTICITY

1. Ask your stakeholders. Find out if your people trust you and believe you value them. Ask for examples to help you understand why or why not. Use the results to make you and your company even better.

2. Build skills and motivation. Provide resources to help your people know how to be authentic. Make sure it is safe for them to keep it real. Include authenticity in your KPIs.

3. Align policies and priorities. Make sure they match what you actually say. If it’s people before profits, that should be enabled by your policies and priorities, and expressed in your vision, too.

4. Honor your boundaries. Take stock of whether you or your organization are behaving in ways that are inauthentic or conflicting with your values. Address inconsistencies with honesty and conviction.

BELONGING

1. Start with yourself. Ask yourself if you feel a deep kinship and emotional connection with your organization, and what enhances or diminishes it. Be honest! Then ask your leadership team the same thing (with permission to say no!).

2. Know their hearts. Invest consistently in tracking the desires, values, and aspirations of your employees, customers, and other stakeholders. Identify what specific words and actions lead them to feel or not feel a sense of belonging with your organization.

3. Make it core. Treat ‘belonging’ as the essence of your practices to increase engagement, boost diversity, equity, and inclusion, and generate loyalty.

4. Celebrate belonging. Invest in, measure, and reward employee and customer loyalty. Give employees and customers easy ways to share their stories and proudly proclaim their affinity for your organization. Track and publicize their praise.

COLLABORATION

1. Start with shared goals. Get super-clear on what your collaborative goals are. Ask your stakeholders if they share and value those goals (and why). If they don’t, look for common ground you can build on.

2. Listen, listen, listen. Model a collaborative spirit by regularly inviting your various stakeholders to provide meaningful input on your organization’s collaborative processes and results. Get suggestions for improvement and visibly act on what you learn.

3. Avoid “empty” collaboration. Do not call activities ‘teambuilding’ or ‘collaboration’ if the real intent is only to check off a box. Empty collaboration builds resentment and distrust.

4. Keep it real and meaningful. When collaboration becomes automated or cult-like, people are pulled into so many meetings that they have no time or energy to do uninterrupted deeper work on their own. Ask your people if it’s too much and adjust as needed.

The Amare Way ABCs–Authenticity, Belonging, and Collaboration–provide you with a rich and engaging framework to uplift your organization and establish your legacy as a leader. The ABCs framework serves as a powerful container that can hold and unify many other tools of transformation. Read much more on the ABCs in my book The Amare Wave: Uplift Your Business by Putting Love to Work.

As a leader, allow yourself to imagine the power of everyone showing up as their best authentic selves, creating a unified sense of belonging, and actively collaborating together, with no fear or turf issues. Imagine that unifying slogans like “Better Together” and “One (company name)” are not empty words; they are a lived reality. This is a path of greatness for organizations to be their very best and fully deliver on their promise.

Inspire and Influence Your Teams with My Keynotes

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Today’s Amare Wave Wednesday Quote

“There is at least one point in the history of any company when you have to change dramatically to rise to the next level of performance. Miss that moment–and you start to decline.”

—Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel Corporation