For many people, leadership is a trait that comes naturally. For others, developing these skills takes time, practice, and experience. Regardless of where you’re at in your company, it’s important to capitalize on opportunities to improve your skills and advance the organization of your company. Even if you’ve been in a leadership position for years and have earned accomplishments that attest to your ability to lead your company in a positive direction, improving your leadership skills will, in turn, benefit your company culture.
Take Howard Schultz, for example. The epitome of the American Dream, the CEO of Starbucks has lived a true rags-to-riches story. From his upbringing in a poor family in the Bronx to earning an athletic scholarship to Northern Michigan University, to owning 21,000 Starbucks stores in 65 countries, Schultz has always been driven and hungry to sharpen his leadership skills.
In fact, Schultz is so committed to his position of leadership that he temporarily closed 7,100 US stores in 2008 in order to retrain baristas on how to make the perfect espresso. Not only was he committed to maintain the quality of his company’s product, but he’s dedicated to improving the customer experience.
Like Schultz, set a daily goal to further develop your leadership skills. As you strive to boost your skills as a leader, here are 3 three particular skills in mind.
- Embed Customer Experience In All Levels Of Company Culture
To implement customer-centered thinking into your company you’ll have to do more than proclaim you value the customer’s experience. Instead, create a model in your company that encourages and supports superior customer experience—at all levels. Review your processes and how employees engage with customers on a personal level to determine what strategies are working and what aren’t.
As a leader, make your customers a central organizational value that guides behaviors along with decision making. Consider pulling information from a variety of channels and touchpoints to further see what areas you can improve on or use in other areas of the company.
- Know How To Properly Define Your Company Culture
By having the ability to define your company culture, you’ll drive a stronger customer-centric culture. To achieve this type of culture, leaders may run into challenges to implement the kind of company culture they want to create and still reach their business objectives. First begin by asking yourself these four questions to gain a better understanding of how your company operates, both organizationally and culturally:
- How well does every employee in your business articulate why the company exists, where the company is going, and how it’s going to achieve that goal?
- What skills and resources do your employees need to be successful at their jobs and what business model will help you achieve your business goals?
- To what extent does the organizational structure of your company allow for decisions to be both efficient and effective and allows employees to operate in accordance with the values and norms of your company?
- Does your company focus on the needs of all stakeholders, and how well is your company’s ability to quickly adapt and respond to shifting needs and demands?
- Encourage Executives To Get Involved
Earning respect from your employees is the best way to improve company culture. The more trustworthy, transparent, ethical, collaborative, and mindful your workplace is, the more your company culture will have a positive impact the customer experience. As a leader, you must be engaged and ready to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty.
Furthermore, you should encourage other leaders and executives in the company to do the same. This will give you and other important figures the chance to focus on earning respect from employees at every level and extinguish any problem areas that might be hindering the success of your team and the company.
By following these three recommendations, you can improve on important leadership skills to enhance the company culture and fine-tune the customer experience.
About the Brooke Cade:
Brooke Cade is a freelance writer who’s committed to helping businesses and sales professionals build stronger connections with their customers. In her spare time, she enjoys learning more about InMoment.com—her CX platform of choice, reading books/articles on industry news, engaging on twitter, and exploring her local neighborhood coffee shop.
