Applying Transformational Leadership to Your Company Culture

Editor’s Note: This is excerpted from BONEZONE articles written in 2022 by Patrick Davidson, a former orthopedic executive. It’s an important message for leaders seeking to execute a company culture and personal evolution focused on continuous improvement.

We hear and see the term “transformational leadership” a lot these days in conversations with managers and leaders, in published articles, on LinkedIn and in other places. And it is important that we stop and ask ourselves: Do we all have the same working definition of this phrase? Having led organizations through successful transformation and worked alongside world-class transformational leadership coaches from WhatIf Enterprises and Nexecute Group, I propose this as the best definition I have seen — and that I have adopted for use:

“Transformational Leadership is the relentless pursuit of the organizational vision through the practices of self-awareness, self-management, boundary setting and honest conversations.”

Today, many people still use the words manage and lead interchangeably. It is very important to note a key difference: things are to be managed, but people are to be led. So, we manage what people do within a process, a work instruction, a training or even a timeline.

Management is a transactional process, and therefore we measure its effectiveness by the presence or absence of the transaction taking place (and perhaps within a given amount of time). Management is not a bad thing — it is just different than leadership, and we must know and recognize the difference.

Leadership is a transformational process, and therefore we measure its effectiveness by measuring the outcome. We continue to work with people, ask questions and become curious until we discover the real answers.

For example, as a transformational leader, we ask the question, “Why did we miss our month-end goal?” This is an outcome-focused question that will require introspection on the part of the leader and the team. For a transformational leader, it is no longer acceptable to answer this with, “Well, we followed all the work instructions” or, “We worked every shift at full strength.” These are transactional answers — and since we missed our end goal — they are insufficient to help us uncover the root cause of what is causing us to miss our goal.

Changing Our Thinking

The first thing we must know is that many of us have believed a lie about how organizations work. We have long thought of organizations as things that can be managed. But since organizations are made up of people, organizations are truly organisms — living, breathing creatures. We cannot reduce our orthopedic companies to a thing to be managed — even by changing words like “people” into “headcount.”

We must drop the dated idea that we leave our personal lives at the door and begin to embrace the truth that our story matters in the workplace. Our background, upbringing, past experiences, the discussion we had with our spouse last night and our child this morning — these all matter and affect how we behave, think, speak and react in the here and now.

Robert Quinn beautifully illustrates a critical point in his seminal work “Deep Change.” He argues that the key factor at the heart of organizational change is personal change. The biggest hurdle to personal change is fear. If I change, what if I no longer fit in? What if they no longer want me here? What if I no longer enjoy it?

When transformational leaders demonstrate the courage to do the deep, difficult work of personal digging and change, they subconsciously create a safe space (and even a requirement) for others to do the same. Quinn argues that the leader who does the hard work of personal development and change “builds trust and credibility” (p.35) with the rest of the team.

“The fundamental characteristic of transformational leaders is self-awareness, followed by a desire for self-management.” (Freier, “The Choice to Show Up,” p.19) This is quite counterintuitive for most of us, because we ask the question: How can I better lead/manage/influence others? Our question is about our impact on others. However, we must ask ourselves: When I have experienced a great leader for whom I would do almost anything within my power to support, what has been my experience of them? How did I feel when I was around him/her/them? And what do I recall about what he/she/they did to make me feel this way?

For many of us, the answers to these questions include several feelings. I felt heard. They were truly present when we talked. I felt valued. Even when the conversation was tough (like when my performance needed to improve), I felt like they wanted me to succeed. I felt respected.

In answering these questions, we find out an interesting truth: The very things that made us feel seen, honored, heard and respected — all things that we want for our people — are the things we worry will make us appear “soft.” We long ago developed this belief that the hard-charging, type-A approach to leadership was the way to get great results. In fact, most of the recent research shows that approach to be unsustainable and unhealthy for people (see works by Simon Sinek and Brené Brown).

Practicing Self-Awareness

The way we develop long-term buy-in and the kind of passion that makes teams want to do anything to achieve the organization’s vision is by making people feel heard, honored, respected and valued. That can only happen when the organizational leader identifies what has made them feel that way.

So, I encourage you, no matter your role in orthopedics, to start your practice of self-awareness — and just as importantly self-management — today. When someone is speaking and you feel that anger rise up inside you, instead of spewing out words in an attempt to stop feeling that way, ask yourself, “What is that all about?” “Why am I tempted to react?” In doing so, you allow yourself to choose how to respond instead of allowing your emotions to dictate how you react. Pay attention to whatever thought or memory comes to mind in that moment. That memory is the key to understand what triggered you, and better understand how part of your story from the past is coming up now.

Being self-aware is being curious about your emotions, feelings and reactions in the moment. Practicing self-management is choosing healthy actions — deep breaths, thoughtful word choices, honest and kind feedback in the moment.

Begin to do the things for your team that always made you feel heard, honored and respected. Ask questions to clarify that you understand what they are saying. Find out about their lives outside of work and check in with them on those things, too. Transformational change within orthopedic organizations starts with the transformational change within the organizations’ people. Be the courageous one to lead the change you want to see.

Setting Core Values

Now that we’ve taken an in-depth look at the importance of cultivating our self-awareness and self-management, let’s take a deeper look at what it means to set and hold healthy boundaries, and how that beautifully sets us up to have honest conversations.

In one of the best-written books on the subject of boundaries (“Boundaries for Leaders”), Dr. Henry Cloud writes, “We get what we allow.” As leaders, we must be acutely aware that we set the tone for what is (and is not) allowed when it comes to behaviors within the organization. This means we must have well-articulated company values.

Further, those core values must be deeply embedded in the organization. Finally, our actions (and inactions) and words — both in one-on-one conversations and publicly — have to reinforce the unwavering importance of these core values.

Many organizations of a certain size have taken the time to articulate their mission (why we exist as an organization) and vision (where we’re going). The next step in this journey is being very specific about how we get there. In other words, how we do things around here — what is acceptable and what is not.

Another way to look at this is to examine the differences between you and your competitors. Your competitors’ mission and vision is likely to be very similar to yours, because you are in the same industry and doing very similar things. You all are trying to become the best in your space in doing what you do (vision) to grow and better fulfill a need in the world (mission). So, what makes your organization unique? What does it look like, sound like, feel like to be within your organization? The answers to these questions are the building blocks to your core values.

A mentor and colleague of mine, Mark Freier of WhatIf Enterprises, utilizes an excellent tool developed by Jim Collins to help organizations walk through the process of discovering their true core values.

The exercise asks employees to name the people they would send to represent the company on a rocket ship to Mars. The key in the exercise is asking, “What is it about each person that is most representative of who we are as an organization?” Therein lie the true core values of the organization.

Living Your Core Values

Defining core values, and getting very clear about their meaning and importance, is the first step — and often the hardest — to improving the workplace culture. For many leaders, the next step is far more fun: embedding the core values within the organization. While it’s fine to print posters for conference rooms and banners for larger workspaces, the real work is in bringing these core values to life in our personal interactions.

Leaders should open every meeting by mentioning the core values. Whether it is an all-hands-on-deck employee or a gathering of executive leadership, the meetings should always begin with a review of what is most important to the organization about how it does things.

Leaders throughout the organization should be on the lookout to “catch” people exhibiting the core values, and should develop a system of recognition for these behaviors. Think simple and impactful, like a letter signed by the leadership team detailing the observed behavior that is delivered in person. Try to stay away from monetary rewards.

Performance reviews should be organized around employee performance within each of the core values. Employee discipline, when necessary, should be clear about the core values being violated. It should be eminently clear to everyone throughout the organization what is, and is not, expected when it comes to how things are done. We find that it is very important to define both the belief and the actions for each core value. The belief speaks to the intention of the core value, and the actions are how we see these core values at work.

Reinforcing Core Values

Clearly established and regularly reinforced boundaries set up the organization for what is perhaps the most important step toward positive transformation: honest conversations.

It is truly staggering to meet the large percentage of high-ranking leaders who fear addressing destructive behaviors within their organizations. When you create time and space for these leaders to be honest about why they are not addressing certain behaviors, the answer almost always comes back to not having established clear, unambiguous boundaries about what is acceptable behavior. Unhealthy ways of doing things are allowed to continue because the near-term results are good — due to the ability of the high-performing but troublesome individual.

When we have clearly established boundaries on what is acceptable within the organization’s core values, people address unhealthy behaviors as they occur instead of letting them fester.

Simple, straightforward conversations begin with phrases like, “I have noticed you saying/doing [identify the behavior], and that is not aligned with our core values [point out the specific value or values being violated]. Even though you might be getting results that are good, we have to act within our core values to have long-term success in continuing to become more fully who we are as an organization.”

If leaders and others within an organization continue to reward behaviors that are highly aligned to the core values, and quickly address behaviors that are not aligned, the organization’s alignment and speed increase dramatically. Employees who want to become more aligned to these values become more passionate about them — and those who do not wish to become more aligned to these values seek other opportunities.

Moving Forward

I encourage and challenge you to begin to do the things for your team to establish, embed and reinforce healthy boundaries through the utilization of core values. Then lead the charge in having honest conversations throughout the organization by speaking the kind truth.
By leading with your head and your heart, be the courageous one to lead the change you want to see in your organization. You’ll be amazed at how quickly others will join in.