Engaged, enthusiastic, and loyal employees are pivotal drivers of growth and health in any organization.

At its core, all authentic growth depends on more customers wanting more of what your company offers. Any other drivers - pricing gimmicks, heroic marketing efforts, forced acquisitions - are ultimately destructive.

When leaders throughout an organization take an active, genuine interest in the people they manage, when they invest real time to understand employees at a fundamental level, they create a climate for greater morale, loyalty, and, yes, growth.

If you could get all the people in the organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.

Empty values statements create cynical and dispirited employees, alienate customers, and undermine managerial credibility.

Values can set a company apart from the competition by clarifying its identity and serving as a rallying point for employees. But coming up with strong values - and sticking to them - requires real guts.