Martin Gunner: Town-Hall Style All-Staff Meetings

Another successful leadership practice of Martin Gunner is monthly town-hall style all-staff meetings. With employees often on travel on overseas project work and having two office locations, they use Google Hangout to connect and see one another. Gunner shares his vision for the organization and updates everyone on major things that are happening within each division. His goal is to let those employees working on vastly different programs to feel connected to what is happening in other areas of the organization. For example, he is able to let the employees working on medical programs for corporate citizenship know what is going on with the orphan programs the organization also supports and promotes. This helps the employees to feel like …show more content…
is empowerment. The Founder of the organization was a micro-manager that unintentionally held employees back. By not giving them freedom to use their skills without fear of failure and being micro-managed, many members of the staff were stunted in their growth in the organization, and in their skill sets and desire to know more. Under the leadership of Martin Gunner, he has chosen to empower the staff to make decisions and fully own their job description without being micro-managed on how they decide to best do it. This has allowed the staff to feel excited about their portfolios. They are broadening their interests in joining optional task force teams outside of their regular job duties. They are continuing their education in a desire to be better and know more about their area of expertise. This leadership practice has been Gunner empowering his Executive Staff. However, it has created a trickle-down culture of empowerment to where the Executive Staff is also empowering of the rest of the staff members. The culture created now is one where the entire staff feels empowered and excited about the work they …show more content…
is a lot like a family. The fact that there are nine staff members related is not the only reason for this. All members of this staff share a common Christian faith. Prayer requests are shared regularly with the entire staff. Everyone takes joy in life events (weddings, births, etc.) and also shares in the sorrow (funerals, divorce, etc.). It is not uncommon for the President, or the Founder before him, to grant an extra two weeks of vacation time to an employee because they had a child in the hospital. It is common for these same leaders to give a gift from the Benevolence Fund to help an employee with an unexpected expense that caused a hardship (car repairs, large medical bill, etc.). The employees feel as though they are truly cared for by all members of the Executive Staff because this same culture flows through to all management. If a need is seen, it is taken to the President who will decide that it is something he feels he would like to help