Why would a company at its right mind want to invest in a leadership program for all employees?
I am a people person. Throughout my whole career I’ve been working in the technology industry, and don’t get me wrong, I love technology and all things that IT enables, but even more I love the people that come with the territory and everyone’s little peculiarities. Because we all have them, our customers, employees, partners, friends and families. But the fact is that the more we know and understand each other, the little quirks that you perceive as annoyance transforms into likability. So to get there, we need to have a common ground on how we interact and communicate with each other.
We have a number of core values at TIQQE and we were born with a strong culture that we want to make sure that we maintain over time.
- Awesomeness – Always make our customers heroes, our teammates awesome
- Autonomy – Let the teams be self driven with the knowledge that they’ll always do what is right for our customers
- Ideas over status – Anyone can have the best idea. Encourage bravery in all to present smart thoughts. And be prepared to change your mind, without seeing it as a defeat.
- Courage – We want to challenge current “truths” to achieve new things.
This isn’t just important to us. It’s our highest belief that this is what will make us succeed in our joint mission to “create a company where we all want to work” that we never will want to leave and in just that small quote comes big responsibility from everyone. In order for us all to take charge of our own personal #theTIQQEcode. We’re doing this work. Simply because it is our responsibility as a company to assure that everyone has the opportunity to affect what we are and who we are. And we want to do it Together.
What if we all were leaders and How many leaders can a company have? Here at TIQQE we believe that we can have as many leaders as we are employees. Let’s start with the definition of a Leader, which of course can be very individual. Forbes published an article of the most essential qualities that define great leadership a couple of years ago. Here is some of the qualities from that article:
- Sincere enthusiasm – True enthusiasm for a business, its products or mission cannot be faked.
- Integrity – Whether it’s giving proper credit for accomplishments, acknowledging mistakes or putting safety and quality first. Great leaders always do what’s right. Even if it isn’t the best thing for the current project or even the bottom line.
- Communication skills – You can’t accomplish motivation and inspiration if you’re not a good communicator. Nor can you underestimate the importance of listening, as an integral part of communication.
- Loyalty – True loyalty is ensuring that all team members have the training and resources to do their jobs. It’s standing up for team members in crisis and conflict.
- Decisiveness – You are willing to take on the risk of decision making, with the knowledge that if things don’t work out, you’ll be held accountable.
- Empowerment – A good leader has faith in their ability to train and develop the employees. Because of this, they have the willingness to empower those they lead to act autonomously. When employees are empowered, they are more likely to make decisions that are in the best interest of the company and the customer as well.
All of the above, is something that I don’t believe is my exclusive right as my every-day work. I am convinced that all of us that are employed at TIQQE possess this within, and we all matter and have a part in the above. We are all leaders of ourselves and we all just have to practice on it to maintain it and get better at it.
Imagine the difference between one or two people defining the truth for a whole company, rather than the whole company defining what we want the company to be together. What would the difference be in commitment to the company, the mission and purpose of our business? We believe that the difference is humongous. That’s why we invest in a leadership program for all our employees. We’re building trust, practice how we communicate and how we can coach each other, discuss and practice different tools, experiences, life and work. So if you wonder what’s happening in our office one Thursday a month? We’re preparing everyone to be tomorrow’s leaders today.
