Lenny Lind, among his other professional endeavors, is a coffee farmer in El Salvador. We were working together with Lenny on a conference, and we started exploring the lessons Lenny was learning from farming and how they applied to developing leaders. Lenny related how his agronomist, Luis Gutiérrez, was insistent that each plant would flourish with a buena casa—a good house—in which to grow. That meant that the holes into which they planted coffee seedlings had to be dug deep and filled with quality soil and nutrients. Although it would be cheaper to dig a shallow hole and use lower-quality materials, the plants could thrive and produce exceptional crops over the long term only if they took root from the beginning in a buena casa.
The same goes for human beings. When the environment in which people live and work provides the essential conditions and support for growth and development, people thrive. When the conditions are poor, and the support is lacking, people struggle and seldom reach their full potential. When there's a rich culture of leadership in an organization, leaders emerge, grow, and succeed. They prosper and contribute because they get the care and attention they need to become exemplary.
Ellen Langer, psychology professor at Harvard University, is one of the world's leading experts on how context influences people's decisions, actions, and well-being.1 She offers this observation: “If you want to gain control over your life, the first step is to ask who controls the context. Then find ways to generate the kind of context that will help you do the things you want to do. By being aware of the context, and making more mindful choices about it, you can become the master of your fate.”2
In one classic experiment, Ellen and fellow researchers gave plants to nursing home residents. In the experimental group, the residents were encouraged to make their own decisions about the care of the plants, while in the comparison group the residents were told that the nurses would take care of the plants. Those in the experimental group were also encouraged to make other decisions, such as where to receive visitors and on what night they wanted to see a movie; again, those in the comparison group were not encouraged one way or the other to make any decisions about such matters.
What happened was dramatic. Eighteen months after the experiments were over, those in the experimental condition had significantly improved their health and lowered their mortality rate. The health of those in the comparison group, however, had worsened. As a result of being mindful of the decisions they made by themselves, those who took more responsibility for their lives in the nursing home showed “more initiative and were significantly more active, vigorous, and sociable” than those in the comparison group.3 Researchers randomly assigned people to the different groups, so it wasn't the characteristics of the residents that made the difference; it was the context that the organization created.
It's important to be mindful of the context in which you live and work if you want to grow and develop your leadership competencies. It would be ideal if you could be in an organizational setting that cultivated leadership and provided lots of practice opportunities. But, sometimes you are planted in less-than-ideal, even harsh, conditions, and in those contexts you'll have to develop and foster your own culture of leadership.
Context matters. You know intimately from your daily experience how much context influences your thoughts and behavior. For example, when you're at a theme park, such as Disney World, Efteling, Lotte World, or LEGOLAND, you know that you're there to laugh, scream with delight, and play. But when you're in a house of worship, library, or funeral home, those same behaviors are probably frowned upon, to say the least. Name a context, and you will find out quickly how you are supposed to behave.
When applied to the workplace, context is often talked about as the organizational culture. It's a somewhat elusive concept, but according to Edgar Schein, emeritus professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Sloan School of Management and one of the leading authorities on the topic, organizational culture can be best understood as having three levels. First are artifacts and these are the things you can see: structures, processes, and observed behavior. You see them in dress, interior design, furniture, formal management systems, organization charts, employee perks, company publications, and the like. The second level is espoused beliefs and values. These are the ideals, aspirations, visions, and ideologies the organization and its leaders champion. You hear and see these beliefs in speeches, employee orientations, training programs, and posters on the wall. The third level of organizational culture is “underlying, taken-for-granted beliefs and values” that are not expressed overtly in speech or text. They're implicit rather than explicit, but they are often the most influential factors in how people think, feel, and act.4
To illustrate, in Chapter 5 we talked about fixed and growth mindsets and how each influences learning and performance. Imagine that a fixed mindset was the norm in an organization; the pervasive assumption was that employees were fixed in their abilities and fundamentally could not change their basic behaviors. Alternatively, imagine that the dominant norm was a growth mindset. Wouldn't these two different mindsets undoubtedly influence the decisions and choices made about the ways in which people were recruited, managed, and developed?
This is exactly what researchers find when they examine the differences between organizations with growth-mindset cultures versus fixed-mindset cultures. In growth-mindset organizations there is a “culture of development.” Leaders believe in people's ability to grow and to learn from their mistakes. They see their employees as more committed to learning and they see their organizations as having more leadership potential than in fixed-mindset workplaces.5 If you want to become the best leader you can be, you will benefit immensely from working in an organization with a culture of leadership—a culture in which the artifacts, espoused beliefs and values, and underlying assumptions are supportive of leadership development.
What are the attributes of a culture in which leaders are most likely to thrive and be productive? We recently posed this question to more than 200 leadership educators and developers.6 Four major clusters of cultural attributes emerged from their responses: trust, opportunities for learning, support for risk and failure, and models of exemplary leadership.
The most frequently occurring word that characterized a culture of leadership was trust. If leaders are going to grow and thrive, people need to trust one another. They need to feel safe around one other, able to be open and honest with one another. They need to support people's growth, have one another's backs, and be there to lift others up when they fall or stumble. They need to be able to collaborate and cheer on everyone. They need to show respect for differences and be open to alternative viewpoints and backgrounds. A culture of leadership that supports collaborative behavior is going to be more hospitable to the development of leaders than one that is internally competitive and focuses on a winner-take-all approach to selecting and promoting leaders.
Organizations with a culture of leadership are fanatical about making learning a priority and providing a variety of systematic opportunities for learning. The global consulting firm Aon Hewitt found that 100 percent of the top companies for leaders had a “strong reputation for internally cultivating talent throughout the organization” compared to only 66 percent of other companies.7 In its research on the factors that are of the most interest to high-quality job candidates, Gallup found that the best people are “attracted to roles that provide opportunities to learn and grow. Their ideal job would feature professional development or growth opportunities.”8 Organizations with strong cultures of leadership offer many formal and informal opportunities for developing their people, such as classroom-based learning programs, online learning options, external seminars, as well as mentoring and coaching. Rotational job assignments or special projects also challenge people to develop themselves. Designed feedback is encouraged, and learning is recognized and rewarded, making it something in which people want to participate.
Learning also requires taking risks—doing things you've never done before, challenging yourself to take on new assignments, addressing your weaknesses, and stretching into areas of discomfort. In cultures that develop exemplary leaders, there's not only tolerance for risk but also support and encouragement to experiment. When you try out new behaviors, you don't get it right the first time. You mess up a lot. If you are going to venture into the unknown, you have to be a bit courageous, and you have to know that there's support there to take that step. It's a lot easier to risk when you know there's someone to catch you if you fall.
Organizations that encourage innovation also provide time for working on projects outside of formal responsibilities, which can only enhance people's capabilities. Such environments nurture curiosity, which is a necessary antecedent to thinking outside the box. Recent studies at the Center for Neuroscience at the University of California, Davis, reveal that being curious prepares the brain for learning, including information that people might ordinarily consider boring or difficult. Curiosity also makes learning a more gratifying experience by stimulating the brain circuits associated with reward and pleasure.9
Finally, models of exemplary leadership are needed. You have to be able to see exemplary leadership in action to learn to produce it yourself. You need to see people in the organization model exemplary leadership and support leadership development at all levels. You need to hear stories about how leaders who lived the espoused values were successful and rewarded. You need access to those with experience and expertise. You need to see people held accountable for actions that are inconsistent with espoused beliefs. You also need to see and hear examples of leaders at all levels. From frontline supervisor to senior executive, from customer to individual contributor, everyone is viewed as capable of leading and encouraged to lead.
Although other factors can contribute to a culture of leadership, these four are the most salient. If you have the good fortune to be part of an organization that embodies them, you are off to a great start. If you don't, do not despair. There are a few ways you can tend to the soil yourself to enable the plant (that is, you) to grow heartily.
When asked what advice she'd give new college grads, Jan Singer, chief executive officer (CEO) of apparel maker Spanx, replied, “Never stop learning. If you have it all figured out, you're dead. You have to be open, and you have to listen and learn. You may feel a bit exhausted from all the learning in college, but find what energizes you and keep learning.”10
You may not have the good fortune of working in an organization deeply committed to cultivating a culture of leadership or in places where formal leadership training and development opportunities are even available. No matter. That doesn't change the fact that the best leaders are good at continuously sharpening their skills. In many places, you will have to build your own buena casa—to cultivate a culture of leadership wherever you are.
How do you do that? Use the culture of leadership attributes as guidelines for building your own context. For instance, who are the people around you whom you trust, and what can they do to support your leadership development journey? With whom can you be open and honest about your strengths and areas for improvement as a leader? Whom do you know who has some expertise you could learn from, and how can you tap into his or her experience and ultimately his or her network? Where are opportunities for you to get some feedback on your current level of skills as a leader?11
How can you support yourself for taking a risk, possibly making a mistake, and moving outside of your comfort zone? Consider taking small steps rather than huge leaps—or even one step at a time when it comes to really stretching yourself. If you know some folks who you think are quite comfortable innovating and taking risks, get together with them, and talk about both how they do this and what you might be able to do (or get away with). The more serious you are about learning, the more questions you should ask.
In addition to reflecting on your own personal-best leadership experience, think about all the best leaders you have known. Seek them out and ask them to share their learning journeys. How did they learn to lead or develop particular leadership skills? What advice would they have for you? Even better, find out whether they would be willing to help you develop that same competency.
The bottom line is that if you want a plant to flourish, you have to build a buena casa in which the seedling can take root and thrive for the long term. You have to do the same for yourself to succeed as a leader.
The key message of this chapter is this: Context affects your ability to grow and thrive as a leader—big time. Environments where you find trust and respect are critical, as are opportunities for learning, support for risk and failure, and role models from whom you can learn more about exemplary leadership. Sometimes you'll have to take charge of developing your own culture of leadership.
Find another person who, like you, is interested in learning. Although you want to focus on leadership, and he or she might wish to do the same or something else, that doesn't matter so long as you both have a commitment to learning. Become accountability partners (or learning buddies). Select one of the development actions you've already identified in your leadership journal, and tell your partner what you want to learn and why it is important. Identify specific actions you are going to take in the next 30 and 90 days. Then, put a date on the calendar when you'll connect with each other in person (preferably), by phone, or virtually. The sole job of your accountability partner is simply to ask, “Did you do what you said you would do?” and then you both can take it from there.