Cyberlogic is a Managed Solutions Provider with a focus on infrastructure, cloud, cyber security, and business intelligence. In 2020, Cyberlogic had a 25-year track record in the South African market and was doing well, but its leadership knew it had the potential to do better.

Poised for growth, the organisation recognised that in order to fulfil its stated promise of “Delivering Unquestionable Value” to a growing client base, enabling people excellence through great leadership would be key, particularly in a market where competition for talent is intense.

When leaders understand that their role is to both care about and enable their people to be their best and then translate this into every-day leadership, companies become places people really want to work. Attracting and retaining good people is much easier and employees willingly take on more ownership and accountability. With that as a base, growing the business and maintaining consistently excellent standards is easier to achieve.

Three years later, the organisation has doubled in size to service a growing client base, and in that time has achieved a significant shift in culture, moving from dependence on a few key people to a significantly broader and more empowered base of leaders across the business that are trusted and supported by their people. The organisation continues to sustain that shift over time through a deliberate investment of time and effort.

THE TRANSFORMATION PROCESS – WHAT WAS DONE

In supporting the transformation, Legitimate Leadership applied its proven process with the leadership team in the business over an initial 15-month period. Going through the process collectively allowed leaders the space for both their own growth individually, and as well as created a platform for discussing and deciding where and how to integrate the principles into their everyday people practices. Adopting this mindset from day one enabled the leadership team to turn four key insights into practical actions, and these continue to support the culture they’ve created.

Insight 1: Leadership Practices Need To Become Leadership Standards

As the intervention progressed, careful consideration was given to how these practices that leaders were learning could become standard ways of leading, and what type of support might be needed to enable the standards to take hold. A number of things were done to support this:

• The Legitimate Leadership principle of “Accountability For Contribution” was integrated into Cyberlogic’s adopted goal management methodology – OKRs. This enabled a shift in focus from accountability for results to accountability for value-added contribution.
• Legitimate Leadership “Enabling Contribution” Conversation Principles were integrated into the standard for one-on-ones. Cyberlogic use Lattice as their people leadership platform, and it was configured and adapted to reflect these principles. This provided support to leaders in structuring their leadership conversations, and also enabled conversation to link in to OKR reviews and growth goal discussions.

Perhaps most importantly, Legitimate Leadership practices have become explicit expectations of those with people leadership responsibility. Leaders are assessed, given regular feedback and held accountable for their contributions. These expectations reflect that leaders are in the business to serve their people, and that they give Care, Means, Ability and Accountability. Equivalent value is placed on all four of these Leadership “Gives”.

“We’ve gained the insight that increased output comes from being happy, empowered, passionate and accountable employees. This is what leaders are spending more and more time on, and our systems and processes are a reflection of that intent.” – Roscoe Petersen, Head Of Cyber Security

“1-1s have become much more contribution and growth focused. People want to contribute, and want to contribute well! This focus on the ‘give’ is also spilling over into reviews. We’re finding that 1-1s are less focused on the outcome of a bonus or incremental increase, these are now experienced as a fair result of people’s contributions.” – Lorraine Deane, Head Of Demand & Marketing

Accountability is moving from something to be feared, to something to be valued. “Accountability is getting better, and our insight has been just how hard one has to work on it – importantly we have the resolve to do so. This is building steadily – employees keep leaders accountable, leaders keep other leaders accountable, and leaders keep their people accountable.” – Jacques van Zyl, Platform Management Department Lead

Insight 2: Leadership Is A Choice, Not An Inevitability

To support the vision that the business needs both people who are excellent at leadership and people who are excellent at the work, separate expectations and growth tracks for leadership and technical excellence were put in place.

Cyberlogic recognises that the criteria for technical and leadership excellence are different – one is about excelling at the work, the other about enabling others to excel. It has separated the relationship between these two areas, allowing space for career growth in both areas. People leadership is a career at Cyberlogic that one can ‘opt-in’ to do, rather than the defacto way to progress one’s career. The impact is much clearer expectations for those already in (and entering) leadership roles for the first time, along with increased capability to design growth plans for those growing their leadership capability.

“Newer leaders are bought in to what we’re creating, and by word-of-mouth Cyberlogic is becoming a place where other people want to work. This is a significant differentiator in an industry where competition for the right people is intense.” – Lorraine Deane, Head Of Demand & Marketing

Insight 3: Recruit For People Who Want To Lead The Legitimate Leadership Way

The Legitimate Leadership principles have influenced how Cyberlogic recruits’ leaders. Assessment and interview standards during the recruitment process have been re-designed to assess potential fit with Legitimate Leadership principles for those being recruited for leadership roles.

Recruitment interviews also deal explicitly with the expectations of those in leadership roles to improve selection success. In particular the notions of Care, Empowerment and Accountability as criteria for successful and healthy leadership in the organisation are set.

“As one newer leader remarked following the interview that communicated these expectations: this has been a culture shock. The emphasis on healthy leadership during the recruitment process sounded almost too good to be true.

But it wasn’t. You can actually see the empowerment mindset in the way everyone interacts and does things.” – Jamie Brighton, End User Support Team Lead

Insight 4: Nurturing The Leadership Culture, And Maintaining Legitimacy, Is An Ongoing Activity That Every Leader Contributes To

When leaders are appointed, they are nurtured into the role incrementally. A newer leader might pair up with another more experienced leader (or act in a “2IC” capacity) and work side-by-side with some joint responsibility, and once the newer leader is ready the role will be separated.

One-on-ones with those who lead others are focused on clarifying and enabling leadership contribution. An open-door culture around advice, coaching and support in leading others has been created. Where leaders are struggling or need of support they are encouraged to consult widely – with their own leader, with their peers, as well as the People Operations function.

People leaders get together every month to discuss and reflect on how they lead, and what can improve. There is consistent emphasis on leadership being a critically important contribution, and so the time spent on building collective capability matches this emphasis.

“Being a newer leader, I gained a completely new perspective on our culture. As an employee at Cyberlogic you experience good leadership, but stepping into a leadership role you are exposed to just how much deliberate thought, effort and consideration is given to each and every decision that affects people. It is absolutely clear that what drives leadership action is not ‘what’s is in for me’, but what am I doing to support and enable my team to succeed. I’ve been very fortunate to have access to not only my leader but other leaders around me for help, guidance and advice. – Dylan Payne, Infrastructure Support Technician Lead

“We have a very clear EVP – we’re prepared to trust people, look after their growth and provide both the conditions and the accountability for them to do their best work.” – Jacques van Zyl

KEY IMPACTS AND TAKEAWAYS

Crafting the leadership culture of an organisation takes a significant amount of time and effort to get it right. It is easy to lose sight of the ongoing investment needed to continue to nurture that culture, particularly in a growing organisation.

Cyberlogic’s efforts in this regard are a positive example of what organisations that do this well focus on, and have excelled at:

• Creating clear expectations that those who lead in the organisation are here to enable others, and setting up clear accountability for meeting those expectations.
• Baking leadership practices into the way things are done as standards.
• Taking care to mentor and coach new leaders into their roles, giving them good role models to follow.
• Hiring for people who want to lead the Legitimate Leadership way.
• Internal engagement surveys showed 99% of employees would recommend Cyberlogic as a great place to work to other job seekers, citing the people centric culture, growth opportunities, and that the company cares about people. The same proportion of people (99%) also say they are highly satisfied with the leadership being provided to them.
• The organisation has doubled in size over three years, matching the growth in demand for their services brought on by client service excellence.
• 26% of employees have either been promoted or benefitted from career moves.