Talented People Must Choose To Do Great Work: Curate A Culture

By Tammy Erickson

Leadership today can be a downright frightening proposition; your success hinges on activities that cannot be standardized: innovating, collaborating, sensing, customizing, and learning. As a leader you can’t come up with all the answers, nor can you force people to fulfill their roles well. Frankly, you won’t even know if they are working to the best of their ability.

It’s humbling, but the fate of your business now rests largely on the willingness of individuals to choose to invest their best discretionary effort in your company’s cause — to dig deep for innovative ideas, to imagine solutions outside any box, to perceive subtle shifts and faint signals. Individuals’ decisions regarding whether to invest discretionary effort will make or break your success.