Five ways to become a sustainable performance organisation

Many business leaders are currently faced with the complex task of rebuilding the wellbeing of their people, while also setting ambitious growth targets and planning for long-term success.

One of the greatest challenges businesses have faced over the course of the pandemic is operating with less resources and a potentially compromised workforce, whilst trying to remain innovative, and profitable. For leaders and their teams, these challenges may have proven to be inspirational but may have also unwittingly nurtured fear, further fatigue, and destruction of leadership trust.

The cultural undertone of many fast-growing organisations is often that employees must sprint a marathon and never fail in the pursuit of innovation, competitiveness, and bottom-line performance. In part, this level of intensity and pressure is driven long before a workday starts. At the economic, market, shareholder and board level, there is an imperative for growth, competitiveness, customer satisfaction and return on investment that ultimately creates the track for the ensuing sprint.

In a financially driven environment, this manifests internally as structural re-designs and/or cost-cutting; all happening while the core business of meeting customer requirements needs to be exceeded. This can result in leaders and staff living with low levels of resilience, mental illness and flagging performance.

It is here that resilience programs can aid not only in the support of leaders and employees but can also assist the long-term growth and sustainability of an organisation.

Resilience for sustainable growth

Resilience helps leaders sustain high performance under pressure, maintain an optimistic outlook during periods of turbulence, navigate change with agility, and bounce forward from setbacks. Personal resilience is a critical characteristic of any high-performing leader or manager. Resilient leaders pave the way for resilient, successful organisations. It’s for this reason that personal resilience in leadership underpins the five integral attributes of a sustainable organisation.

Creating a sustainable performance organisation

Creation of a sustainable performance organisation requires a systemic and integral approach aimed at developing people, culture and business, as well as consideration for external stakeholders.

For resilient leaders looking to nurture sustainable performance for their organisation, there are five areas to consider — compassion, leadership trust, psychological safety, customer aligned culture, and resilient people.

Five ways to create a sustainable performance organisation

1. Compassionate leadership

   Leaders operating with compassion (not sympathy, contempt, or indifference) are focused on deep care for their people, have a high-performance standard, reward values-aligned behaviour and emphasise the “greater good” and purpose of the organisation. The delicate balance of these elements requires, at times, difficult conversations to ensure alignment with individuals, teams and the wider organisation.

2. Trust in action leadership

   Our own research shows that around half of employees don’t trust their leaders, yet leaders remain unaware of this dissatisfaction. Leaders focused on the future will need to build trust through strong communication, compassion, and intolerance for non-values-based behaviour. In an environment of high leadership trust, staff feel safe to push back on excessive workload and prioritise effectively.

3. Psychological safety

   A culture of psychological safety fosters experimentation and calm as opposed to fear, overload or burnout. According to Professor Amy Edmondson at Harvard University, psychological safety is “…knowing or having the belief that you won’t be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or if you make mistakes”.

   Without psychological safety, staff are unlikely to take risks, believe that failure is not OK, won’t voice an opinion, and as a result live in apathy or anxiety. Respect for leaders is diminished and trust becomes contempt. Purposeful performance cannot happen when a fear-based culture is present.

4. Customer aligned culture

   This culture is evident when future values align with current values and when thoughtful, customer-focused behaviour is supported. All values and associated behaviours are linked to the organisation’s purpose, empowering staff to serve customers without the constrictive politics that can occur between people and departments.

5. Resilient People

   Individuals with higher resilience are able to adapt more quickly to a more optimistic and purposeful future. Organisations with a culture of resilience among the workforce are more sustainable through the years, powered by productive, mentally healthy people who can successfully navigate change and thrive in periods of high intensity and uncertainty.

   As leaders seek to lead their organisations beyond the challenges of the COVID-19 environment and to pivot to future growth opportunities, there is a need to invest in growing resilience and to set the leadership standard around trust and compassion — thereby creating a supportive, safe culture and sustainable performance. The ROI is clear, with benefits resulting in significant decreases in mental health issues, reduction in injuries, and increased engagement, performance, and adaptability to the changing sector.

Liberating organisational and personal performance in these circumstances becomes a source of organisational success and long-term sustainable growth.