Lockheed Martin, the United States aerospace, defense, security and advanced technology company’s Full Spectrum Leadership initiative has been running for four years and has created a “shift in how it selects, assesses, and develops leaders—and how those leaders set objectives.” This major cultural shift has taken root in the 140,000 employees on the company’s payroll and good changes are seen in the executives and managers that has positively affected how the organization goes about and does businesses. The core of this leadership culture is accountability; leaders are not only measured on their results, but how they achieved them.
Changing a company’s culture is not an easy thing to do. According to John Kotter, there is eight steps in hot to effectively implement chang. First, is to establish a sense of urgency by creating a compelling reason on why change is needed. Second, form a coalition with enough power to lead the change. Third, create a vision to direct the change and strategies to achieve it. Four, communicate the vision. Five, empower others to act on the vision. Six, plan for, create and reward short term “wins” that move the organization towards the new vision. Seven, consolidate improvements and reassess changes and make necessary improvements. Finally, reinforce the changes by relating new behaviours with organizational success.
