Enhance Success by Empowering Employees
Cathie Leimbach • September 23, 2020
Many leaders believe that employees don’t care about workplace culture or company results. They stifle success by ignoring strategies that would attract, retain, and empower quality people. At Leadercast 2019, Ginger Hardage , former Senior Vice President of Culture and Communications at Southwest Airlines, debunked several underlying limiting beliefs. She shared five aspects of creating a culture that empowers employees and drives organizational success.
Hardage encourages leaders to:
- Be intentional about building a healthy, uplifting culture.
- Ensure the organization has defined its core values and talk about them regularly. Include values discussions in job interviews and staff meetings.
- Ignore the naysayers who think this culture craze is all fluff. Join the parade of healthy culture, high performance companies that includes Chick-fil-A, Trader Joe’s, and Southwest Airlines.
- Develop, write down, and distribute policies and procedures that provide a framework for doing your organization’s work ethically, effectively, and efficiently. Equip your people to do the work and trust them to handle day-to-day variables within the framework.
- Strengthen culture by strengthening communication without waiting for a large line item in the budget. Have face time with your employees daily, involve them in decision-making, and share success stories.
Equip your employees by providing the right level of information and training, and they will help drive organizational success!
Most leaders can list what’s wrong fast: missed deadlines, uneven effort, or teams that seem capable of more. The bigger shift happens when leaders stop asking, “What’s broken?” and start asking, “What’s possible if we lead differently?” Limits like time, budget, and pressure are common. The resulting overwhelm is reduced when leaders get clear about what really matters. Strong leaders respond to these limits by focusing on priorities, simplifying decisions, and actively guiding their teams. Often, the shift begins with better leadership conversations. The right conversations clarify expectations, surface issues early, and help people take ownership before small problems grow into bigger ones. When leaders create space for clear, honest dialogue, teams stop guessing and start moving forward. Performance improves when leaders: Get clear instead of assuming Address issues early through direct conversations Set priorities people can follow Notice and praise progress, don’t comment only on mistakes These small, steady choices create momentum. We often hear questions like: “How do we stop reacting?” “What if our team is capable but inconsistent?” “How do we improve without burning people out?” Those questions point to opportunities for growth. Don’t think of them as failure. 👉 Where might your team be guessing instead of knowing? Identify one gap—and use your next conversation to close it.
Most leaders don’t struggle because they don’t care. They struggle because every day feels reactive. One issue gets fixed, and another one pops up right away. What separates high-performing teams from constant firefighting is simple: predictable leadership . When leaders are consistent, teams become consistent. People know what “good” looks like. They know how decisions are made. They know when feedback will happen. That removes stress and guesswork. Teams quickly learn what leaders reinforce and what they let slide. When expectations, follow-up, and accountability happen the same way every time, focus goes up and chaos goes down. This is how leaders move from reacting to leading. Regular check-ins replace urgent interruptions. Clear ownership replaces confusion. Small problems get handled early instead of turning into big ones. Much of this predictability is built through simple leadership conversations that clarify expectations, reinforce priorities, and address small issues before they grow. The result? Fewer surprises. More trust. Better momentum. 👉 If leadership sometimes feels more reactive than predictable, join our Leadership Conversation on March 17 at 3:00 PM to explore a few small shifts that can stabilize performance.