Some things can be built into a system, and others emerge from it. You can build walls, desks, spaces, you can write rules, processes and guides, but you cannot directly ‘make’ or ‘write’ things like culture, excellence or fairness. These are emergent properties from otherwise healthy systems. The icing on the cake.
It’s probably no coincidence therefore that these are also the things that we cherish: we value trust and fairness, we thrive in company, and celebrate with pride.
Use your sixty seconds today to look around: which features of your own system are coded, and which have emerged - and how do you feel about each of these?
We can look further: what is the role of a leader - to ‘build’ these things, or to create conditions in which they can be built? Is ‘creating the conditions’ a strength, or is it simply a way to avoid the personal responsibility and work of building?
Ultimately there is unlikely to be ‘one’ answer to this, but rather different and contextual ones. And perhaps the role of a leader is to keep calibrating their actions, and navigating this space?