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A culture of leadership is vital to the success, at least the continued and long-standing success, of any company or business in Australia today.

It was once the case that a company looked to one leader to inspire them by his or her example, much as a rugby or football coach could take a team of average players and lead them on to a championship victory. Those days, sadly, are nearly gone. Business moves so fast these days with so much data to keep track of and so many new products and services continually emerging that there simply cannot be just one leader in many companies. Instead, a company needs a whole culture of leadership within itself which promotes those who take initiative to make things happen for the company when called upon to do so. Each department within a company, in fact, requires a leader or leaders of its own.

This new business culture is an important one to adopt, given the fast growth and global ties of the New South Wales economy as the state and the country of Australia move on into the 21st century. As the economic plan of NSW itself states: “a strong economy allows us to provide the excellent services such as healthcare, education, and policing which the public expects…we are…innovative people who want a society built on fairness, equity, and collaboration…(a) society built on these principles will be more productive, wealthier, and fairer.”

This is also the way the 21st century company should be run.

STEP ONE: BUILDING TRUST AND A SHARED VISION

The top management at every company needs to make sure that each and every person within the organisation is on the same page if they are to proceed. All persons must agree on the same goals and objectives for the company. When everyone is working towards the same ends, then conflict within the organisation is minimised. People who feel that they are building something of value will naturally be motivated to maximise this success. This will bring out their natural talents for leadership, which is good for the company as a whole.

A company where everyone shares a single vision, where there is trust and an absence of conflicts of interests within the organisation, is a company which comes up with innovations and is one well prepared to take the risks. This is a company that can really grow.

Since people are so conditioned to always be in competition with one another in the business world, this can at first be a difficult thing to bring about. The top management must give people a push towards this goal by encouraging them to share their insights and feelings among their departments and perhaps even on a company wide level.

STEP TWO: EXPLORING THE POSSIBILITIES

People within the company must be brought around to a way of thinking which lets them take new and different possibilities into account. This is the way that top management thinks, but this view must be inculcated company wide. People have to be shown that it is OK to think outside the box and come up with truly new ways of doing things. One way to do this is to get people to sit down and think about some questions which pertain to them personally. These can include: “where do you see yourself in five years? In ten? How about your retirement party, what do you think will be said about you?” Questions about what are the positives - and the negatives of the company could be asked, along with questions dealing with how to handle unforeseen events are good ways to foster this sort of creative thinking.

Management needs to digest the answers and then share them with department or team leaders, eventually distilling them to all of the employees and getting everyone to further reflect on and contemplate what has been learned.

STEP THREE: ESTABLISHING AN ACTION PLAN

Now that the entire company is on the same page and everybody within the organisation is working towards a common vision of growth and success for the company, a plan for success can be plotted out. Each department will have its own goals to meet. These all will help the company on its way to the common goal which all will work to achieve. Top management will both steer the ship and act as cheerleaders for the company as it moves forward to ever greater success.

With a culture of leadership now established, a company can be more productive, forward thinking and of course, profitable.