Culture Starts Here, Ep4: Do Your Leaders Know What to Say and Do To Be Effective? [podcast video]
Special Guest: Todd Wuestenberg, Chief Culture Officer at Haverkamp Properties
Your leaders are your culture carriers.
If your organization wants to achieve and sustain cultural competitive advantage, your leaders must be crystal clear on a few critical behaviors.
In this episode, ADVISA CEO Heather Haas and leadership consultant BJ McKay have a lively and insightful conversation with Todd Wuestenberg, Chief Culture Officer of Haverkamp Properties, about the importance of the third of five drivers of cultural competitive advantage: Leader Effectiveness.
What does Leader Effectiveness look like, and how do you go about fostering it?
Heather and BJ tee up what they’ve learned as part of a leadership and culture consultancy that’s been helping organizations thrive for decades. And Todd shares his invaluable perspective of what this driver looks like in action.
This episode is a must-see for…
Anyone seeking practical strategies to build, measure, and sustain a thriving workplace culture.
Whether you’re an executive, HR leader, or culture champion, you’ll find actionable insights and inspiration from Todd’s journey and the ATLAS framework.
Culture Starts Here, Episode 4 Highlights
In this episode, you’ll hear:
The genesis of culture at Haverkamp Properties
A pivotal moment in 2015 sparked by reading “The 31 Practices” led to a company-wide effort at Haverkamp to define core values and mission, setting the foundation for intentional culture.
ADVISA’s ATLAS framework for cultural competitive advantage
The “ATLAS” acronym:
- Activation from Above
- Trust & Shared Purpose
- Leader Effectiveness
- Actionable People Data
- Systems that Support Leaders
For more information about ATLAS, see below.
Haverkamp’s Leadership In Training program
The company’s year-long Leadership In Training (LIT) program focuses on self-awareness, a learning mindset, and micro-mentoring, connecting emerging leaders with current executives for real-world growth.
Measuring and sustaining culture
Data like employee engagement and turnover rates can demonstrate culture’s ROI and guide continuous improvement.
Practical advice for culture champions
Todd explains that persistence, leadership buy-in, and “getting your culture on paper” are key.
Methods are many, principles are few. Methods always change, and principles never do.
Tactics for creating leader effectiveness
To achieve cultural competitive advantage, two critical factors must be in alignment:
- What most of your leaders say and do most of the time
- Your core values and business aims
Customized learning experiences and programs are the most effective way to equip leaders to propagate your intentional culture. But here are some tactics you can start with right away:
Prioritize wellness initiatives.
Leaders’ wellbeing is paramount to their ability to lead effectively. Keep a close eye on signs of burnout and provide support and resources. Ask your leaders about how they are managing their stress. Tell them that you care about their mental and physical health. Normalizing wellness conversations with leaders will have a cascading effect throughout the organization.
Identify key leader capabilities.
Determine what leaders need to “say” and “do” to live out the culture and move the business strategy forward. These observable behaviors define what effective leadership looks like within your organization.
Offer internal, authentic leadership development journeys for leaders at all levels.
Access to knowledge about how to generally lead effectively is infinite – books, podcasts, events, external leadership forums, leadership workshops. Authentic leadership development is customized to reflect your mission/vision/values, and it explicitly addresses your leader capabilities, thus propagating your intentional culture within and throughout the learning experience.
Provide coaching and mentoring opportunities.
Leadership is lonely and managers are in crisis. Match senior leaders with more junior leaders and managers for informal coffee chats. Engage with outside coaches to help leaders make real progress toward their development goals. Set the expectations for regular 1-on-1s between employees and their direct supervisor.
“If you want to maintain a strong culture, you’ve got to invest in the next generation of leaders.”
Todd Wuestenberg
ATLAS framework for cultural competitive advantage
To help organizations create the culture they need to succeed, ADVISA developed the ATLAS framework – five critical drivers that, when aligned, create cultural competitive advantage:
- Activation from Above – executive ownership of culture
- Trust and Shared Purpose – clear mission, vision, and values
- Leader Effectiveness – equipping leaders to model the right mindsets and behaviors
- Actionable People Data – putting people insights in leaders’ hands
- Systems that support leaders – aligning processes, tools, and norms with the desired culture
When these five drivers work together, culture stops being abstract – it becomes the engine that propels business results.
Take the free, 5-minute culture check!
Find out where your organization stands today – in just minutes! Plus, it’s free. ADVISA’s online ATLAS Navigator tool gives you a snapshot of strengths and opportunities across the five drivers. It’s a great conversation starter for leaders, managers, and teams who want to begin the culture journey with clarity.
👉 Take the ATLAS Navigator five-minute culture check here!
Key takeaways
- Intentional culture is essential
Haverkamp Properties’ journey shows that defining core values and mission – then making sure everyone knows and understands those – creates a strong foundation for organizational culture. - Culture is leader-led
The ATLAS framework highlights “Activation from Above” and “Leader Effectiveness” as vital drivers for a thriving culture. - Investing in leadership development is critical
Developing your organization’s leaders (at all levels, from the front line to the C-suite) is key to sustaining culture and supporting the growth of your organization. - Persistence pays off
Building culture is a long-term commitment. Methods may change, but principles endure. Feedback and iteration help organizations refine their approach and keep culture relevant. - Opportunities abound
Even small steps like improving onboarding can have a big impact.
About Culture Starts Here
Culture can be an organization’s biggest threat to growth – or its greatest opportunity for competitive advantage.
In Culture Starts Here, a special series on the CultureCon podcast, ADVISA CEO Heather Haas and leadership consultant BJ McKay share insights and tactics you can use to jump-start your organization’s optimal culture. This and every episode of Culture Starts Here includes the answer to the most common question ADVISA’s leadership consultants hear: Where do we start?
All episodes
- Culture Starts Here, Ep1: Meet ATLAS
- Culture Starts Here, Ep2: One thing your C-Suite absolutely can’t delegate
- Culture Starts Here, Ep3: Do Mission, Vision, and Values Really Matter?
- Culture Starts Here, Ep4: Do Your Leaders Know What to Say and Do To Be Effective?
- Culture Starts Here, Ep5: For Leaders, This Can Make the Difference Between a Guess or a Smart Decision
- Culture Starts Here, Ep6: Leaders Are Only as Effective as the Systems That Support Them
RELATED RESOURCES
Haverkamp Properties
ADVISA
CultureCon
PeopleForward Network
- Other podcasts from PeopleForward Network, the producers of The CultureCon Podcast and Culture Starts Here