I recently went one on one with Rose Gailey. Rose Gailey is a partner and global lead for organization acceleration and culture shaping for Heidrick Consulting at Heidrick & Struggles, and a co-author of Future Focused: Shape Your Culture, Shape Your Future.

Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?

Rose: Growing up as a Latina in El Paso, Texas, the daughter of parents who immigrated from Mexico, my understanding of the critical role of diversity, equity and inclusion became core to my grounding and values. My journey in organizational culture began early in my career. With roots as a marriage and family therapist I quickly came to understand that while behavior change starts at the individual level, it requires shifts at the systemic level, family or organizational, to reinforce and sustain. As my clients brought me into their workplaces, I began applying what we now describe as our four principles of purposeful leadership, personal change, broad engagement, and systemic alignment—well ahead of working in the organizational culture space. Early on, my biggest mistake was believing that strategy execution and culture are separate, albeit important, workstreams. By aligning and integrating a leader’s purposeful leadership shadow and culture with strategy execution against a balanced scorecard of metrics, organizations thrive and accelerate results.

Adam: What do you hope readers take away from your book?

Rose: Given all of the changes organizations are navigating today, I hope that Future Focused: Shape Your Culture. Shape Your Future gives readers a sense of why culture matters in the long term, why leaders need to focus on it and link it to their strategy, leading to a set of specific questions to ask and steps to take. I hope readers can recognize the impact of their influence, especially if they are leaders of an organization, and how valuable their influence is on culture.

Adam: What are your best tips for leaders on how to build a winning organizational culture?

Rose: At all levels of the organization, the culture requires leadership, champions, and facilitators to support, reinforce, and challenge the alignment of cultural values with the day-to-day experience of employees and customers. Through our research at Heidrick & Struggles, we found that there are eight essential tips for leaders to master to build a winning organizational culture. Some of those tips include creating frequent two-way communication, with high levels of feedback and coaching, appreciating and valuing people, and encouraging people to innovate, create, and being open to change. It takes a village to shape a culture and sustain it. While the CEO plays a critically important role, they cannot shape culture alone. From reliance on the senior team to broad engagement of the entire organization, to systemic alignment with human resources, operational excellence, and every other corporate function, shaping a thriving culture requires an all-hands-on-deck approach.

Adam: What are the keys to driving transformational change?

Rose: In the book, we offer four principles that define how to shape a thriving, high-performing culture in a healthy ecosystem. The first principle is that thriving cultures require purposeful leadership. Working toward a purpose ensures that the entire organization is engaged and aligned behind a distinct mission. Purposeful leadership requires work, leading us to the second principle that transformation is rooted in personal change. Leaders need to change their mindset, change their focus, and be more transparent to create transformation. As the third and fourth principle tell us, change also needs to happen more broadly in the organization. There needs to be broad engagement and systemic alignment for the culture to thrive into the future.

Adam: What do you believe are the defining qualities of an effective leader?

Rose: Effective leaders are future-focused and transparent. Through authentic communication, leaders can break through uncertainty with immediate actions that can stabilize the organization and reassure employees. Empathetic leadership is also highly effective, allowing leaders to listen with understanding in order to secure psychological safety. Additionally, leaders who communicate openly, honestly, vulnerably, and consistently are very effective, enabling employees to weather uncertainty and move to action.

Adam: How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?

Rose: Leaders need to be open to change and break the power of habit and behaviors to make way for new thinking, new possibilities, and new behaviors. Starting with a roadmap that clearly identifies what success looks like is a critical step for becoming the leader of a thriving company. Leaders can take their skills to the next level and deliver on their strategies by identifying a clear and powerful purpose that will help them create inspiration, alignment, and trust for all stakeholders.

Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives and civic leaders?

Rose: I’ve worked with entrepreneurs, executives, and leaders for over twenty-five years and have seen everyone contend with similar challenges when it comes to accelerating performances and creating thriving cultures. My three best tips include:

1. Ensure that you are staying future-focused in creating your culture. Consider what your goals are, what your purpose is, and ensure everyone is working toward that.

2. Strategy, structure, culture alignment, and a people-first focus are the most important elements of a successful transformation of your company’s culture.

3. Intentionally shape culture in order to accelerate future performance.

Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading and managing teams?

Rose: Culture is going to be one of the biggest influences on team performance as working hybrid or remote becomes the new norm – understand why culture matters, link culture to your strategy, and take the necessary steps to invest in culture now and address any issues that are in the way of sustainable performance.

Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?

Rose: The one I live by the most is don’t underestimate the impact of a personal connection. Whether it’s a client, colleague, or team member I’m supporting, I take the time to listen and get to know people on a personal level. In the rush of the day-to-day, we tend to forget to connect on a personal level. I always try to ask in the first part of my conversations, “Tell me how you are, what’s going on for you?”

Adam: Is there anything else you would like to share?

Rose: Earlier this year, the team at Heidrick & Struggles surveyed 500 CEOs at large companies around the world about how they define culture and how it influences financial performance. We found that companies that link culture to strategy and focus on people first also see better financial performance. As leaders work to maintain resilience in hybrid and fast-changing working conditions, the increased sense of purpose, inclusion, and collaboration that culture nurtures matters more than ever to enable individuals and organizations to thrive.


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

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