New leaders are often tasked with enacting change. In the world of tech this means meeting a desired set of outcomes, many of which are new, visionary and have never been achieved before. But turning that vision into reality, especially as a company is growing and innovating can be extremely difficult, and requires careful maneuvering across several aspects of the business simultaneously, according to entrepreneur, health care executive, and consultant Aaron Kull.
No matter if a company brings in an executive with a mandate for change or an ambitious manager wants to improve his team’s output, driving meaningful change within a company takes more than desire and a plan.
Leadership is a muscle that, like any other, must be grown and molded through concentrated effort. Much of that molding comes through experience, and who you are as a leader is the product of how you navigate your experiences. “As I grew in my career, I think the things that shaped me most effectively as a leader were navigating extremely challenging and understanding how to lead among a team of leaders. I think that becoming humble through your leadership experience is really important. It helps you gain perspective, humility, and empathy.. And I think that really started to take shape for me during my transition from [global professional services company] Accenture to [health care IT services enterprise] Olive, where things just really changed in terms of the weight that I personally was carrying as a leader and how much people needed me and looked up to me.”
Aaron Kull’s views on leadership are shaped by his experiences. He’s worked as a founder, for a corporation that employs hundreds of thousands of people, a midsize company with a few hundred workers, and a small business. During his tenure at each firm, he found that being a leader meant leaning on different skill sets, but not necessarily because of the size of the entity.
“It’s interesting. I wouldn’t even say that leadership is primarily environment-specific. I would say it’s more people-specific and time-specific,” Kull said. “A leadership style that is effective for one person may not be effective for another, the same holds true for entire segments of the organization you oversee. The leadership style required to run a sales team is very different from the leadership style required to run an effective engineering team. The other key component is timing, what is required of you as a leader and of the teams you lead greatly depends on time, different leadership, strategy and work effort is required depending on your state of business, whether you are putting out fires, executing a growth sprint, or running day to day operations, all require an adaptable approach that must flow from top to bottom and back up”
Many new leaders want to bring a fresh culture to their job, but it’s more complex than simply showing up and asking people to behave differently, Aaron Kull stated, “Understanding the existing culture that you’re walking into is really important because in most businesses, company culture is deeply entrenched. It governs how people approach work, talk with each other, set goals, collaborate and communicate.” Sometimes, that’s a great thing. But for many new leaders, even positive cultures can present a challenge. Established cultures can be a bulwark against new ideas and stifle innovation. Even companies that promote different ways of thinking can fall victim to repeating comfortable patterns or shying away from disruptive processes.
“If you’re dealing with a deeply rooted culture that is preventing your team from hitting certain goals or operating in a better way, you need to build a better culture,” Aaron Kull said. “That starts by creating a true north to understand how you want the culture to look and feel, and then getting alignment on that from others within the organization. You don’t necessarily need complete agreement across the executive team, but complete alignment on what everyone wants the experience to be for the employees, and how that can be accomplished in tandem with the (often lofty) organizational goals.”
Aaron Kull defines a “true north” as the sincerely held beliefs, values, and goals that guide decision-making. These can be defined both qualitatively, through values, and quantitatively, through things like OKRs (Objectives and key results) or NSMs (North Star Metrics).
“Your true north is tied closely to your integrity and to your morals,” he explained. “I think that’s been a huge part of what’s been able to allow me to come into organizations, mesh with their existing culture, and then slowly shift it toward the type of culture that I believe is going to make the organization successful. That can look and feel different for different people, for different initiatives, and at different times in the organization’s journey.. Sometimes you’re at peace, sometimes you’re at war, and each requires a different perspective.”
A mistake many new leaders make is thinking that the best way to change something is to break it down and rebuild, but that is counterintuitive to momentum. Establishing a set of clear goals and core beliefs can help shift an organization’s culture, behavior and output very quickly. An unwavering moral center that stems from the top helps employees make decisions that push them toward team or company goals in the right way.
As more decisions get made using the rubric provided by the leader’s established true north, and the results demonstrate outcomes that align with employee satisfaction AND organizational advancement, things begin to evolve. Eventually, the entire culture shifts — and that’s how change happens, Kull stated.
