I was at Starbucks sitting across from the president of Indianapolis area 2019 best place to work Renovia. Now this man had not always been in this position. He had assumed multiple roles in the organization, but now has the privilege of leading it.
As I always do when I meet with leaders, I ask what their top three leadership principles are.
For Matt Rolfsen, like many good leaders, those principles are embedded within his organizational culture. One way he keeps the values in front of his team is by the entire team reciting them together every Monday.
In order to further clarify these values, he has provided three behaviors for each value. I would suggest this practice solidifies the expectations concretely within the minds of everyone in the organization. Now let’s look at what the key leadership values are for this leader.
Authenticity
Matt is in the service industry and in every way modeled this value during our conversation. He did not exude any air of superiority. He sees his organization as a family and encourages everyone to “do life together.” One way people this occurs is through serving in the community and going to Mexico to build homes.
Matt transfers this authenticity by sharing the bigger cause. When leading he helps his team understand his motives behind what he does. When those you lead understand your why and your actions align with the why, they will follow wholeheartedly. Appropriate authenticity is contagious.
Empowerment
Many organizations believe emporwerment is important so I asked more questions to understand Renovia applies empowerment principles. First, each employee describes what success would look like for them through their success profile. This is combined with an Individual Development Profile where employees determine on an annual basis what they want to work on.
To take the development profile deeper team members set and review goals on a bi-weekly basis. During this process if goals are not achieved, they discuss what is holding them back and look for strategies to move them forward. These combine to create a culture of open communication.
Businesses Don’t Grow, People Do
Not only is this a culture of authenticity and empowerment, but also a culture where growth is valued. Matt is not worried about his people growing to a point that they may eventually leave. (I would suggest this is a testament to his faith as one of his values is that this ultimately is God’s business.)
Renovia demonstrates this value of growing yourself by providing an optional company competition called “The Pursuit.” With this tool, team members are given points for participating in growth activities and recognized when they hit certain “levels.” As the people grow, so will the business.
As we finished, I asked Matt for one final leadership nugget he would like to share and he said:
“True leaders step up and do the job before you have the position. Be in the game and don’t sit on the sidelines.”
How do you need to step up as a leader? Do you need help thinking into your leadership priorities? If so, contact me for a complimentary 30-minute thinking partner session. In the meantime, lead well!
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