Why Are C-level Roles So Crucial To Culture? Part B

Your Corporate Strategy:  It Just Doesn’t Matter?       Part 23b

John Bell, said in a CEO.com contribution:  “Why CEOs And HR Should Be Joined At The Hip”:

“Ultimately, it is the CEO who determines the corporate culture, whether good or bad…. I’ll explain it this way: First, these cultural characteristics were monitored and measured. Second, we recruited for the right cultural attitude, followed by skills. Third, our superior financial results were a result of this modus operandi. Could I have done more if HR had been attached to that other hip? There’s no doubt.  Today, with declining loyalty and greater job hopping, it is critical that CEOs partner with HR.”

To be perfectly clear:   Whether a CEO, President, Owner, Founder, Executive Director, or whatever the top position is titled; regardless of private, publicly traded or non-profit; the organization is what the top leader leads is to be.  The organization represents the positives, negatives, strengths, weaknesses and blind spots of its leadership.  How those negatives, weaknesses and blind spots are balanced by the addition of leaders who eliminate negatives, bring strength to weakness and vision to blind spots rounds out a successful leadership equation and builds a great company and a great employer.

Or...a simpler quote from a Nordstrom CEO from years ago,"If it is to be, it begins with me."  So true, so true!

http://www.ceo.com/human_resource_management/why-ceos-and-hr-should-be-joined-at-the-hip/

Former Apple and JC Penney, CEO Ron Johnson and CTO Daniel Walker, obviously had that connection. Unfortunately, Ron Johnson’s path determined JCP was doomed to failure and was ”exacerbated by the fact that Johnson never relocated from California and more often than not was never in the trenches with the executives.”

 

As covered in part 4, “With the pace of change in today’s business and technology, it would be nearly impossible for top Leadership to be too strategic, unless it isolates leadership from what the organization actually does.   Leadership must know where they are, their base line, why and where they are going and its effects.  Providing it’s a good strategy, the execution plan must determine if it can be successfully implemented and how.  This is what top leadership is hired and paid to do!  Ron Johnson isolated himself from the brand and simply did none of this!

Next:  Why The Need For HR Leadership At The Top?