- Champion the Red Hat culture
- Inspire shared purpose
- Hire, develop, and reward your team using Red Hat practices
- Deliver results through empowerment
- Make decisions in an open and timely manner
- Create an environment of belonging, respect, and mutual support
Why: Our culture is a source of strategic competitive advantage, and the reason many associates choose Red Hat.
- Lead by example by living Red Hat's values (freedom, courage, commitment, and accountability) in balance.
- Recognize and reward associates who consistently demonstrate Red Hat's values. Role model the behaviors in the Red Hat Multiplier (connect, extend trust, be transparent, collaborate, and promote inclusive meritocracy).
- Encourage individual leadership at all levels according to each associate's interests and strengths.
- Demonstrate ethical behaviors, and act with integrity.
- Encourage collaboration within your team, between teams, and within communities.
- Establish balance between shared standards and processes versus individual freedom and re-evaluate over time as circumstances evolve.
- Support your team's participation in culture activities and events.
- Recognize that open communication forums (e.g., memo-list) are a key element of Red Hat culture. As needed, seek guidance from the People Manager Community, managers-list, and the People team on how to manage in an open communication environment.
- Understand and coach your team to follow the Online Communications Guidelines.
- Use one of the Red Hat values to support your viewpoint without taking into account the other values.
- Prevent thoughtful challenges to the status quo.
- Use power, fear, or title to lead.
- Use culture as an excuse for inaction. Culture should be invoked as a conversation starter - providing context as to why something or some action may be expected - rather than a conversation ender.
- Discourage or forbid your team from using open communication forums like memo-list or chat.
Why: Individuals are inspired to do their best work when they are connected to something bigger than themselves.
- Share your team's purpose and be clear on how your team's day-to-day activities support the Red Hat Why, and our mission, vision, and strategy.
- Help each associate understand how their work contributes to the team, department, and Red Hat.
- Share context on strategic and organizational messages from senior leaders and describe the impact to your team.
- Openly address conflicting priorities, lack of alignment, and other tough issues.
- Overlook or underestimate people's need to understand "why" in most situations or contribute their thoughts on various topics.
- Make decisions without considering impact to other teams or the company.
- Assume associates understand the context and reasons behind important decisions and announcements.
- Use dismissive phrases such as "because I said so," "you don't need to know," "don't ask me why, just trust me," "you would not understand," "that's above your pay grade."
Why: Consistent application of Red Hat's practices leads to more equitable talent decisions and an improved associate experience across the company. In addition, associates often stay or leave because of direct management.
- Build a team with diverse perspectives by hiring for mindsets, behaviors, and attributes that add to Red Hat's culture.
- Use Red Hat's hiring and interviewing processes to hire the best talent, reduce unintended bias, and create a positive candidate experience.
- Create a positive and engaging onboarding experience for new associates using onboarding resources provided to managers.
- Invest in developing your skills as a people manager to help your people grow and learn.
- Be transparent and resilient in your personal development goals as a role model for your team.
- Value the development and success of your associates. Support associates in creating a performance and development plan and invest in their growth.
- Provide timely, positive, and constructive feedback on associate behavior and performance.
- Take advantage of the entire range of reward opportunities at Red Hat. Reward and develop associates in ways that are important to them.
- Link performance and rewards. Differentiate rewards based on contributions. If performance is lacking, rewards (particularly bonus) should be adjusted downwards and explained to the associate.
- Use objective, consistent criteria for performance reviews, promotions, bonus allocation, and all other rewards to create a fair outcome. Help associates understand the outcome by sharing criteria and be open to discussion.
- Have regular conversations with each associate about their performance and development. Proactively discuss performance expectations. Communicate how their rewards are linked to their performance and behavior.
- Recognize and celebrate individual and team successes.
- Treat mistakes or failure as a valuable learning opportunity on the path to success.
- Perform periodic compensation reviews of your current associates to maintain competitive salaries and appropriate leveling based on their qualifications and capabilities.
- Rush into hiring decisions. Be sure to investigate opportunities to develop current associates into new roles and consider diverse external talent.
- Hire people at a position grade level lower or higher than their qualifications.
- Delay holding difficult performance conversations and fail to reflect afterwards on how you could improve the conversation in the future.
- Keep individuals from exploring other roles within Red Hat that align with their talent and career goals.
- Neglect or overlook opportunities to appreciate and celebrate small wins. These occasions sustain individual and team motivation.
- Distribute rewards evenly across your team. Rewards must be aligned to performance.
Why: Successful managers multiply their impact by delivering results through their team.
- Provide ongoing role clarity, direction, and encouragement to associates, allowing for freedom and autonomy to do their best work. Match your level of direction to the associate's skill and experience.
- Give associates the freedom and flexibility to do their best work while holding them accountable for their results and behavior.
- Make it safe for associates to ask questions, make mistakes, and learn from their experiences.
- Provide context for deadlines and explain the business impact of not delivering results.
- Use coaching techniques to help associates solve problems and work through challenges. Focus on enabling associates to complete tasks and activities on their own instead of doing or solving yourself.
- Support associates in building their network of people and resources across Red Hat.
- Value the success of your team as the measure of your success as a manager.
- Micromanage associates.
- Allow distractions to frequently divert team focus and effort away from priorities.
- Expect associates to understand your logic or thinking if you do not explain yourself.
- Expect associates will not make mistakes. Instead, view first-time mistakes as learning opportunities and a necessary part of innovation.
Why: A rapidly-changing environment means managers must respond to the needs of the business quickly, while still gathering a diverse set of perspectives.
- Widen your perspective—encourage contribution from other teams and locations, remote employees, and less vocal associates. Invite objections and differences of opinions.
- Consider available data, expertise, expected outcomes, and the level of effort required to implement a decision.
- Explain how feedback shaped a decision. Remember, disagreement is OK as long as shared commitment exists.
- Re-evaluate decisions that are not producing expected results.
- Default to "open." Explain the rationale for decisions that cannot be open.
- Use a formal Open Decision Framework (ODF) process for large-scale or high-impact projects. For other decisions, determine which ODF steps can be applied.
- Use "open" as an excuse to avoid making decisions or to allow debates to go on forever.
- Expect 100% agreement on all decisions made. Instead seek to build support, alignment, and commitment to move forward.
- Make decisions based on popular vote. "Open" means a voice, not a vote.
- Place more importance on input from those who speak first or are the loudest.
- Default to tight control of information or withhold information that your associates or others could find useful.
- Rely upon authoritarian, hierarchical, top-down, or suppressing words and controls like "permission," "authorize," and "mandatory" except where necessary for Red Hat's success.
Why: Teams perform their best in a supportive and inclusive environment.
- Collaborate with your team to create shared expectations on how to work together.
- Care for associates as people, not just workers.
- Create time for informal conversations and get to know what motivates and engages each individual.
- Address unprofessional or disrespectful behavior immediately. Even subtle behaviors can be harmful to team relationships over the long term.
- Prioritize regular one-on-ones with your associates. Remove distractions and give associates your full attention.
- Regularly request feedback from your team. Be vulnerable and model effectively receiving tough feedback.
- Encourage associates to respectfully give both positive and constructive feedback to each other.
- Consider the range of preferences, time zones, and outside office commitments when scheduling meetings or outings.
- Allow for flexibility in working arrangements and accommodations in alignment with Red Hat guidelines.
- Encourage appropriate socialization and fun in the workplace.
- Include and engage every associate, especially those who do not work in the same physical location or who are reticent to share their views.
- Share recommended ways that associates can share ideas, make their voices heard, and help sustain our culture (1:1 meetings, team meetings, RHAS, invitations for feedback, Associate Concerns process, ethics hotline, etc.).
- Tolerate any form of aggressive, bullying, disrespectful, or unprofessional behavior.
- Give special treatment to one associate over another.
- Schedule team outings or events that may make individuals on the team feel uncomfortable or like they don't belong. Seek input on the types of outings that work for everyone.
- Engage in behaviors that erode trust. Avoid being defensive when your ideas are challenged, overreacting to mistakes, not keeping commitments, failing to acknowledge and apologize for mistakes, gossiping, and focusing on blame versus solutions.
- Use local or regional words, metaphors, idioms, colloquialisms, or phrases that may not be understood by your entire team.
- Minimize or dismiss feedback that your actions or words made someone uncomfortable.
- Draw undue attention to an individual's differences (gender, race or ethnicity, etc.) or ask an associate to represent the perspective of an entire group.
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