However you want to define it, a strong leadership philosophy ….

1)  promotes employee engagement,
2)  aligns a company toward fulfilling a set of goals and objectives and
3)  provides every single person in your organization with a set of behaviors and values.

Tip:

If you haven’t thought about your own leadership philosophy, give it a shot. If you have one, make sure your company knows what it is.

Tactics:

How do you go about creating your leadership philosophy?

That may be your question OR you may be thinking — why should I be worried about my leadership philosophy when my sales are down 20% from last year?

Good question. Here’s my answer.

In tough times it’s important to focus on areas you can control. You can’t control the economy but by focusing on your leadership philosophy and letting your employees know what you stand for, you can energize them around your philosophy, help them get focused on things they can control and stop the water cooler talk that focuses on fear.

Back to creating your leadership philosophy. There isn’t a set format. List the things that are important to you as a leader. If you draw a blank, think about leadership issues such as …..

Communications, supervision, teaching, coaching, mentoring, team development, decision making, planning, standards, best practices, professional ethics.

Factor in values which might include integrity, excellence, collaboration, courage, candor, compassion, fun, competence, respect ….

Values are attitudes about the worth or importance of people, concepts or things.

If you get stuck, think about ‘the system of values by which you live’. What makes you tick? What do you care about? How do you want to be treated? How do you want to treat others?

Once you have something written down, read it out loud. Share it with your management team or key employees. As leaders we sometimes hesitate to appear too human. The reality is it’s our very humanness that people gravitate towards.

I know things are still tough out there. I know you are worried more about making payroll than perhaps something as ’soft’ as thinking about your leadership philosophy. The reality is you are the leader of your organization and people are counting on you to figure it out. They are looking to you for the answers.

I’m simply suggesting that you may need to fall back on some basic philosophical issues that can provide you the strength and the energy to keep moving forwards — sometimes that’s an internal exploration.