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No one succeeds in a vacuum. Looking up and around, taking in the ideas and views of others and integrating them into your planning is the path to achievement, says Hamza Khan, the author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/stores/Hamza-Khan/author/B08SY2F4XJ?ref=ap_rdr&amp;store_ref=ap_rdr&amp;isDramIntegrated=true&amp;shoppingPortalEnabled=true" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">two bestselling books</a> on leadership, resilience, productivity and change.



“I wake up every single day obsessed with the question: How can we best equip leaders to be prepared for the leadership moments well in advance? And how do we help them learn on the job?” Khan says.



One answer, he believes, is leaders fine-tuning their soft skills. Khan, who has worked in academia and found his calling in entrepreneurship, co-founded SkillsCamp in 2015 to do just that: teach managers and educators soft skills.



Soft skills, Khan says, enable those in leadership roles to develop open systems that thrive on input instead of closed systems that collapse in on themselves. Open systems welcome feedback from diverse perspectives within and without the organization.



To take an idea to fruition, or lead an organization through growth or change, requires a willingness to dig in—to take a hard look at successes and failures, company culture and morale and to get in sync with the behaviors and expectations of today’s workforce.



Khan follows the model of <a href="https://www.betterup.com/blog/servant-leadership-what-makes-it-different" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">servant leadership</a>, a philosophy that leadership exists at the bottom to serve the needs of its workers. “How you treat your employees is how they’re going to treat the customers,” Khan says. “And it’s the customers who, when satisfied by that treatment, will ultimately reward the organization.”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-3-key-soft-skills-needed-by-leadership">3 key soft skills needed by leadership</h2>



To tap into the needs of employees, those in leadership need soft skills. Khan says attunement, resilience and creativity (ARC) are the three key areas to develop those soft skills. Together, this “ARC” will form a framework for leaders to cultivate an open, productive and more successful environment. Attunement allows you to identify strengths and weaknesses, while resilience enables you to accept these and move forward, and creativity sparks the solutions.



Here’s what managers stand to gain when they develop these soft skills.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-attunement">Attunement</h3>



Attunement between a team and a leader is key. It combines active listening and communicating—or literally tuning in to the needs of both the working team and the community at large. To apply this soft skill to the workplace, Khan suggests those in leadership roles try a reverse town hall meeting. Ask difficult questions, practice active listening and reinforce communication. Creating a culture of acceptance will ensure that you receive honest answers.



“You can even take that further in structured one-on-ones,” Khan adds. “Ask questions that are difficult for leaders to ask, because we might not like the answers we’re going to receive, but we have to cringe fast and cringe early when seeking these answers. We can ask questions like, ‘Why did you join this organization? Are you happy here? How am I doing as a leader? What could I improve?’”



Allowing space for these answers can reveal gaps in understanding you may have about the organization and opens the door to fixing problems.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-resilience">Resilience</h3>



While attunement lies with the collective, <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/7-daily-habits-to-build-your-resilience/">resilience comes from within</a>. Khan looks at resilience in this context as “the ability to sustain productivity for the long haul.”



The benefits of this soft skill for managers seem obvious, but being resilient requires looking inward, which is hard work.



Why bother? “Resilience can help to withstand the stress of change,” Khan says, adding that it can also help separate good stress from bad stress—“understanding that not all stress is created equal.”



<a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/all-change-the-new-era-of-perpetual-organizational-upheaval" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Many companies falter</a> during periods of change and when they reach maturity. This is where leaders encounter an inflection point: Renew themselves by changing or, as Khan puts it, “tumble into the chasm of time” and lose their relevance. Only resilient leaders, Khan says, can navigate into the future.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-creativity">Creativity</h3>



Opening lines of communication generates a free flow of information that fuels creativity. Like any other leadership soft skill, <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/12-creativity-hacks/">creativity can be developed</a> and nurtured—and must be for leaders to create and communicate their vision and for organizations to innovate and thrive.



Creativity can come in many forms. Sometimes, it’s about looking at something from a new perspective: Challenge preconceived ideas and structures, shake up established routines and troubleshoot weak points.



Although it sounds counterintuitive, Khan suggests engineering chaos in the workplace by brainstorming all the pitfalls that can occur and considering options for rectifying them. “You know, organizations are really good at doing post-mortems after the fact, [where you] sit down and talk about why something didn’t work out,” he says. “But what if you did the opposite?”



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-other-soft-skills-those-in-leadership-should-develop">Other soft skills those in leadership should develop</h2>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-emotional-intelligence">Emotional intelligence</h3>



<a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/emotional-intelligence-in-leadership/">Leaders with developed emotional intelligence</a> have the ability to sense, appreciate and effectively apply the power and acumen of emotions to facilitate higher levels of collaboration and productivity. Success is the combination of self-awareness (recognizing your own moods and emotions) with self-regulation (the ability to control disruptive emotions) and motivation (an intrinsic desire to effectively accomplish your goals).



Developing this soft skill allows managers to regulate their own moods and behaviors so they have a more favorable impact on others. It also helps leaders recognize and draw out personal conflict within their employees—and help solve the problem by offering empathy and additional resources as needed. Self-awareness is making sure that whatever is bothering you doesn’t become a team problem while also helping others recognize and do the same.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-communication">Communication</h3>



Under the guise of getting things done, leaders don’t often take enough time to fine-tune the way they interact with others and convey their messages, either verbally or in writing.



People in general tend to be sensitive to the way they want people to communicate with them, but they are less sensitive to recognizing the ways others want to be communicated with. For example, if an outgoing and fast-paced person corners an introverted colleague in the hall for a quick decision on a complicated work plan, chances are that person will shut down and not completely receive the message.



Developing this soft skill goes beyond those in leadership roles having writing or speaking proficiency. It is also the ability to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/article/6-communication-skills-that-will-make-you-a-better-leader">adjust how you communicate</a> so that the other person is receiving the message you intend. This creates clarity in communication, which reduces opportunities for misunderstanding.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-coaching-skills">Coaching skills</h3>



People don’t like to be told what to do, talked at or ordered around. The command-and-control model of management is out of date.



Employee coaching is instead about facilitating and supporting a person’s professional growth, as opposed to giving a directive for a straight line between where they are and what they need to do. This approach requires more skill and finesse than the command-and-control approach. A leader’s goal as a coach is to help the team learn, grow and create outcomes independently.



Leaders who are coaches will identify what is preventing people from being effective and give them the tools to teach themselves, instead of just telling them.



When a commanding style is used, it almost always sets up a barrier for employee engagement. If you constantly tell your employees what to do, it could prevent them from taking more initiative and a self-starting approach to the job. It is also setting up an expectation in the job that your employees don’t have to think because they will be told what to do.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-interpersonal-skills">Interpersonal skills</h3>



A leader with effective interpersonal skills is respectful of employees and has the ability to easily build rapport. This leader attempts to see the situation from the other person’s perspective, <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/how-to-speak-well-and-listen-better/">listening actively</a> to understand ideas being presented and empathizing when needed.



Those in leadership who develop this soft skill can help their teams cultivate relationships by encouraging understanding and thoughtfulness. These leaders also <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/embracing-diversity-increasing-inclusion-in-the-workplace/">show sensitivity to diversity issues</a>, celebrate distinctions and help facilitate relationships among those who may be different.



There is team strength in different points of view, varied approaches to problems and ideas inspired by distinctive life experiences. Interpersonal skills develop relationships that add to the richness and effectiveness of a team.



<h3 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-appreciation">Appreciation</h3>



Think of the best manager you ever had: Chances are this manager appreciated you. This soft skill for managers is about being others-oriented as opposed to being self-oriented. A leader who appreciates others will take the time to connect with employees, making them feel important, heard, understood and valued.



Appreciating others also involves recognizing employees for their ideas and contributions to the team or the project. If you make a habit of showing appreciation to each person on your team on a monthly or even quarterly basis, you will see a significant shift in employee loyalty and production.



These soft skills for leadership naturally dovetail with each other, but when you aggregate them and practice them, you will be a better manager—and even a better person. It’s important to recognize that while some may view these skills as “soft,” they are anything but. Strengthening these skills will result in more effectiveness, increased productivity and stronger results from your team. And that goes straight to the bottom line.



A portion of this article originally appeared in the <a href="https://store.success.com/by-media/success-magazine-sept-oct-2023-kris-carr.html">September/October 2023 issue</a> of SUCCESS magazine. Lisa M. Aldisert contributed to this version. Photo by fizkes/Shutterstock.com

When those in leadership roles improve their soft skills, they become better managers. Here are the essential soft skills to develop.

When those in leadership roles improve their soft skills, they become better managers. Here are the essential soft skills to develop. | SUCCESS

Soft Skills Those in Leadership Roles Need to Develop to Be Better Leaders

The Soft Skills Those in Leadership Need to Be Better Managers | SUCCESS

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Shor is a freelance writer and what one niece dubbed a “free-range person” or digital nomad with a blog, of course.

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Susan B. Shor

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The truly innovative see the big picture and can connect the dots between disparate problems. They see a void where others don’t and understand how to fill it, creating solutions to problems we didn’t know we had. But how do you make the leap to seeing the world in a new way?



Creativity is an outgrowth of mindfulness, says Murray Hidary, a tech entrepreneur, composer, concert pianist and visual artist whose life is grounded in Eastern philosophy and practice. Hidary and his brother, Jack, co-founded EarthWeb, an internet consulting company-turned-web portal, in the mid-1990s and took it public. Hidary has since started several other internet-based companies, but his focus is on spreading mindfulness. In his latest venture, <a href="https://www.mindtravel.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">MindTravel</a>, he creates experiences that encourage a flow state using visual presentations and improvised meditative music.



Music is a running theme in Hidary’s life and, he says, a key to his business creativity. “Music really allows us to have a very expanded internal experience,” he explains. “It’s a language that opens the heart and trains us how to listen. Passive listening captures attention and helps in developing the musculature of deep listening”—and listening mindfully unlocks creativity.



Hidary sometimes plays piano as part of his mindfulness practices, but though keeping a baby grand in the office as Hidary once did may not be possible, it is also not necessary. Simpler methods for unlocking creativity are entirely feasible in an office setting and in daily life.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img src="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Success1-683x1024.jpeg" alt="" class="wp-image-66026"/></figure>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-benefits-of-mindfulness">Benefits of Mindfulness</h2>



What’s the point of carving out time to just listen to music during a busy workday? On a personal level, meditative music and other mindfulness activities calm the nervous system and develop attention.



When you carry those benefits into your professional life, mindfulness leads to more creative ideas and a greater ability to build on the ideas of others and think about the big picture, according <a href="https://hbr.org/2018/07/how-to-use-mindfulness-to-increase-your-teams-creativity" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">to the Harvard Business Review</a>.



“Our internal state is directly tied to our external experience. In the business world, it’s easy to think the world is happening to you, the market is happening to you,” Hidary says.



To be an innovative entrepreneur, you need to become an active force, rather than a passive or reactive one; this requires you <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/all-you-have-is-this-moment-how-will-you-choose-to-spend-it/">to be fully present</a>.



Clearing your mind, exhaling anxiety and reaching a state of calm deepens listening and concentration, which in turn heightens your brain’s ability to make truly creative connections and envision solutions, especially in potentially stressful situations, Hidary says.



So how do you develop this skill? <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/5-ways-you-can-use-mindfulness/">Discover a mindfulness practice</a>. It takes only desire, consistency and the ability to forgive yourself if you forget or struggle to stay focused. As with any other habit or skill, it takes practice.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Mindfulness Exercises</h2>



Your practice has to work for you. Here are a few different exercises. Choose one or more to begin to realize the benefits of mindfulness:



<ol>
<li>Attend to your breath. Count your inhalation, then exhale for a longer count; for example, inhale for four counts and exhale for six. This stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system, which controls the body’s ability to relax. “From a pragmatic standpoint, I know I can use something as simple as one breath to change my state—and that literally takes 10 seconds,” Hidary says.</li>



<li>Take a walk. Not a power walk, but a meander—<a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/5-ways-to-get-outside-and-why-you-should/">preferably in nature</a>. Notice the beauty around you. Hidary offers guided walks with meditative music, but you can also do this on your own, especially once your practice has matured.</li>



<li>Listen to meditative music. Although your favorite songs may cheer you up or make you want to dance, meditative music has its own impact. When Hidary composes, he uses science to create tones, repetition and rhythm that help facilitate mindfulness.</li>



<li>Focus on an object. It doesn’t matter what the object is, as long as it can hold your focus and ground you. When you first begin your practice, you may find it easier to attend to a flower or a picture of a beloved person rather than, for instance, your computer mouse or anything that reminds you of the stress you’re trying to alleviate.</li>



<li>Try a combination of methods. Take a walk while listening to music. Breathe deeply as you focus on a piece of art. Work with music in the background.</li>
</ol>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Beginning Your Mindfulness Practice</h2>



Although these exercises may not be inherently difficult, the hardest part of practicing mindfulness will be actually taking the time to practice—and valuing its importance to your business success. Here are a few tricks to make this adjustment easier:



<ol>
<li>Take charge of your calendar. Block off a stretch of time each day to practice mindfulness and to leave space for creative thinking.</li>



<li>Prioritize quality over quantity. If you’re struggling to maintain your practice or can’t imagine taking the time to do “nothing,” remember that a little can go a long way—and <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/why-you-need-to-pace-yourself/">feel free to pace yourself</a>. A five-minute mindful walk trumps a 25-minute hunched-shoulder walk.</li>



<li>Shake yourself out of binary all-or-nothing thinking. Mindfulness practice does not have to take an hour of your day. Small, repeated actions throughout the day will serve.</li>



<li>Practice wherever, whenever. A sacred space is not necessary. Stuck at a light in your car? Take a few breaths. Waiting for an appointment? Go for a short walk.</li>



<li>Apply it to professional challenges. If you have an important meeting or negotiating session, use a mindfulness strategy to <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/how-to-speak-well-and-listen-better/">prepare for more active listening</a>. Try asking the other meeting attendees to join you, especially if the stakes are high or the problem is thorny. “If I’m listening to a bigger message, I have the opportunity to elevate the entire meeting, and most likely there will be a solution,” Hidary says. Listening to that message becomes even more difficult in a video meeting or remote interaction; those settings make deep attention even more vital. Seeing the results of mindfulness will help you prioritize finding the time for it.</li>
</ol>



Discovering mindfulness through any or all of these practices will intensify your business thinking. “We have to get ourselves out of our own way,” Hidary says. “That is the art of being an entrepreneur. You have to see the bigger picture.”



This article originally appeared in the September/October 2022 Issue of SUCCESS magazine. Photos by&nbsp;

The hardest part of practicing mindfulness will be actually taking the time to practice—and valuing its importance to your business success.

The truly innovative see the big picture and can connect the dots between disparate problems. They see a void where others don’t and understand how to | SUCCESS

Unlock Ingenuity in Business by Taking Time to Practice Mindfulness

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How to Maintain Your Company Culture Past the Startup Stage

Future of Work

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Future of Work | SUCCESS | What Achievers Read

Y​ou started with a great idea, enthusiastic talent and a core group of dedicated believers who felt that you were all in it together. As your company moved from idea to reality, you brought a few more people into the fold, but you hand-picked them and they blended right into the startup culture.



As your company took flight, you added more talent and the organization grew from a “we all do whatever’s necessary” mindset to the beginnings of defined roles. Perhaps the CEO doesn’t know everyone anymore. And perhaps instead of a couple people who started a company, there’s now a C-suite and another layer of management on the way. An org chart is in the works, but it’s a bit messy. Some people are having trouble letting go, and the new folks are confused about whom they report to.



Success is on the horizon, but obstacles abound. How does leadership maintain the enthusiasm and the positive pieces of startup culture as the company matures? What skills does it take, and how can you instill the company’s philosophy and ideals in new hires? How does the newly minted HR department choose candidates who not only can do the work, but who will flourish and help spread the company culture?



It takes more than business sense to develop a thriving business whose workers are happy to be there. Some of the biggest factors determining a company’s success are <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/the-importance-of-emotional-intelligence-in-leadership/">features of emotional intelligence</a>: Leaders must be able to look both inward and outward as they transition their companies.



“Broadly, leaders need to be socially aware, to understand others and take an active interest in their concerns. It’s easy to get focused on the business itself and lose sight of the initial connection,” says Melvin L. Smith, a professor in the department of organizational behavior and faculty director of executive education at the Case Weatherhead School of Management.&nbsp;



The first step toward that goal, says executive coach and C-suite search expert Caroline Stokes, is simply acknowledging the shift. Leadership needs the emotional intelligence to step back and think about how employees, both the newly hired and the stalwarts, are blending together so the company culture doesn’t suffer.



“When organizations go from startups into more mature ventures, they lament the loss of that kind of startup mentality. People talk about it over drinks,” Stokes says. “Sometimes they haven’t acknowledged that change is here and [they] need to be part of it.”



But once you’ve acknowledged the change, what do you do about it? Let’s look at it from the four domains of emotional intelligence as defined by Daniel Goleman, who (literally) <a href="https://amzn.to/3t3IlfI" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">wrote the book on EI</a>: self-awareness, social awareness, relationship management and self-management.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-1-self-awareness">#1 Self-Awareness</h2>



Looking inward will help you look outward to your company’s culture. <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/lead-yourself-first/">Great leaders know themselves</a> and their own strengths and weaknesses. They are able to examine their own motives and emotions as they move into the growth phase of their business.&nbsp;



But even great entrepreneurs won’t be able to wing it as they move from that startup mindset to a strategic role in which the day-to-day operations are no longer in their hands. To maintain a workplace where employees want to give it their all, founders who become occupants of the C-suite could use some guidance from the outside, such as an executive coach or peer group that can reflect behaviors back to them and offer suggestions for growth.



Benjamin Kittle, co-CEO and founder of the growing debt-relief company Century Services, is working with an executive coach to strengthen his leadership skills. The increased ability to self-monitor made a huge difference to Kittle. “I’ve been able to think about the way I do things. Then I can manage myself because I recognize behavioral patterns.”&nbsp;



Another tool for CEOs is to answer the question, How do I want to be remembered? Tasha Eurich, behavioral psychologist and author of <a href="https://amzn.to/3MHHfOv" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Insight</a>, a book about self-awareness, says this will help leaders create a positive culture around that answer.



Gaining self-awareness helps leaders become more intentional about their role in <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/how-to-build-a-thriving-culture-at-work/">developing culture</a>. No one is saying that all employees will think you’re the best boss in history, but leaders who use their emotional intelligence to monitor themselves are better equipped to help their companies make the transition with their culture not only intact but thriving.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">#2 Social Awareness</h2>



Being socially aware requires empathy, or the ability to understand the perspective of others. Some businesspeople are excellent startup founders but flounder during the growth phase. Why? One answer is that as the company payroll increases, they cannot have a personal relationship with every employee and they lose sight of what’s happening below them.&nbsp;



Company culture suffers if leaders don’t recognize that their behavior has to change as the company changes. No longer can they maintain an open-door policy for all employees—there just isn’t time.



But social awareness requires that leadership develop channels to keep the flow of information moving in both directions and take note of all methods of communication. Eurich recommends a group of “loving critics” for a reality check. “If you surround yourself with people who support you and support you enough to tell you the ugly truth about yourself, you will succeed and build the company that you want to build.”&nbsp;



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">#3 Relationship Management</h2>



<a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/lead-by-example-4-elements-of-true-inspiration/">Great leaders inspire others</a>. They get them to buy into the mission and feel pride in being a part of it. Again, that’s not so hard when it’s you, a few friends and maybe a family member. But as the organization grows, leaders find themselves managing relationships with people they don’t know.&nbsp;



Without a concerted effort at building departmental relationships through thoughtful messaging, workers may feel unappreciated or siloed, and morale and culture suffer.&nbsp;



As founders step away from the day-to-day operations of the business, they need to empower others to make decisions and to communicate honestly to avoid “CEO disease,” an affliction in which employees don’t trust that they can speak their minds and the C-suite ends up with a skewed view of the company and its culture.&nbsp;



To combat that, leaders must signal that they value opposing opinions and new ideas.



“It’s really about respect. Everybody needs to feel safe and psychologically comfortable,” Stokes says. “Everybody has to feel comfortable to say, ‘Hey, do you mind if we talk about this?’”



To develop that culture of openness, Kittle says he models by taking ownership of his own errors and explaining how he will work to rectify them. That requires communication.



Creating systemic and regular channels for communication is non-negotiable. This can come in many forms from department lunches with the CEO or management, town hall-style meetings or regular surveys of employees. (An Explorance survey on why employees are leaving their jobs in droves found that 78% of workers would love to take a survey about their work environment.) No matter the method, employees must feel they are being heard. That means acknowledging and taking action on feedback.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">#4 Self-Management</h2>



Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer may have had a famous temper tantrum (or two), and Apple founder Steve Jobs was well-known for his outbursts, but their model is not the one to follow as a company grows. Quick tempers promote a culture of fear. Entrepreneurs who want to grow their business instead should learn to <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/wander-woman/202201/how-manage-your-emotional-reactions" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">manage their emotional reactions</a> and other behaviors that define company culture.



If an organization’s startup culture includes open discussion, leaders must be able to think about the message they are sending before they react. But more than that, they need to manage their time and enhance the planning, prioritizing and goal-setting skills that allow them to work efficiently and effectively. Company culture relies on all members of the organization understanding what to expect, how to behave and the best way to function. Employees look to the top for that information.



“A lot of EI is all about consistency of demonstration of certain behaviors,” Smith says. “Largely it’s a lack of consistency—not learning how to do it, but to do it with more consistency.” If people don’t know what to expect or how leadership will respond to any given situation, company culture will erode.



Visionary leaders whose staff stays content set strategic goals and close the door when they need time to focus or manage their responses.&nbsp;



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Maintaining the Culture in Remote Times</h2>



Employees may not be able to head to the foosball table when they are working remotely, but that doesn’t mean camaraderie-building is impossible.&nbsp;



Trivia nights, virtual happy hours, Slack channels—or, as Century does, a virtual movie night of silly films complete with chat box for a running commentary—all encourage cohesiveness and allow personality to show. That, in turn, opens the door to better collaboration.



Can company culture splinter or become multi-faceted and harder to manage when the office is mostly empty (or doesn’t exist at all)? Yes. That’s why being tuned in is so important for culture. Emotional intelligence guides an understanding of the diverse needs of individuals and departments.



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Hiring the Right People</h2>



The move from startup to larger company also means leaders have to let go and <a href="https://successcom.wpenginepowered.com/how-to-delegate/">learn to delegate</a>. Gone are the days of everyone pitching in to do everything. Piling too much on their plates adds to stress and gives employees the feeling that their ideas and talents are underappreciated. Leaders must learn to be more strategic and turn over the tactical to others.



“I was really bad about bringing up an idea and then putting them on a to-do list for myself,” he says.&nbsp;



“Now we have to be much more organizationally structured. I have to come up with ideas and then give them to someone else to figure out.”



To ensure they are the right people, use that emotional intelligence and go with your gut, Smith says, and Stokes agrees.



“Usually CEOs are able to see from previous experiences exactly what a person can bring and see that person’s blindspots,” Stokes says. “It behooves the headhunter, human resources and the CEO to understand the culture.” This helps them find talent who will add to both the environment and the goals of the organization.



Companies are living, changing communities. The qualities of a great entrepreneur differ from those of a great midsize company CEO. Cultural shifts happen, but leaders who have emotional intelligence and are willing to grow with their companies can make the move without losing the can-do spirit of their startups. 



This article originally appeared in the March/April 2022 Issue of SUCCESS magazine. Photo by @Irrmago/Twenty20

Maintaining your startup culture during big growth starts with managing yourself. 

Maintaining your startup culture during big growth starts with managing yourself.  | SUCCESS

How to Maintain Your Company Culture Past the Startup Stage | SUCCESS

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Susan B. Shor

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How to Maintain Your Company Culture Past the Startup Stage