The Corporate Storyteller

Combining Southwest Airlines' management philosophy with the late Peter Drucker's belief that leaders should always think of their employees as volunteers, a recent Washington Post article offers a series of steps to help leaders foster a spirit of volunteerism among employees.

Here are the first three:

1. Communicate your mission and values clearly so that each employee understands how s/he fits in and can contribute to reaching goals

2. Focus more attention and resources on employee training and development, taking care to praise and reward the behavior you want

3. Make the effort to get to know your direct-reports and other employees as individuals and encourage other managers to do the same

My addition: Remember that storytelling is a highly effective communication tool that will support your effortss with all three of these critical steps. We'll cover the remaining three steps in the next post.