Want to improve employee performance? Context is everything

Dylan Taylor
7 min readMay 22, 2024

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Proper leadership technique is arguably the most timeless topic in business-related discourse, as notions surrounding best leadership practices have changed quite dramatically over the years. Today, these discussions boil down to a simple yet crucial fact: To foster stronger employee performance, leaders must embrace context as a central managerial theme.

As businesses navigate an economy that, in many ways, is still grappling with the lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, contextualized leadership has never been more important. Right now, there is little room for avoidable pitfalls like miscommunication, instability, and internal confusion-all of which stand to thrive in a workplace devoid of context. By investing in a context-driven approach, you can preemptively counter these shortcomings and create a healthier, more effective workplace for your employees.

PRIORITIZE TRANSPARENCY

Transparency and context are essentially synonymous terms in the workplace; they mutually represent a commitment to keeping employees informed and positioned for success. Regardless of industry or goal, business leaders inevitably serve as both practical spearheads and constructors of reality; they keep their teams focused on their ultimate goals, but they also set many of the parameters, measurements, and expectations defining that process.

Context, in this sense, means you should clearly convey such fields and promote fluid, transparent communication between yourself and your employees. By forgoing these considerations, you risk damaging both your workplace functionality and your employees’ underlying sense of value.

FOCUS ENERGY WHERE IT COUNTS

Context also aids the stronger allocation of energy and internal resources, which subsequently can help you build an informed foundation conducive to organic employee development. With a contextualized leadership style, you can reduce miscommunication, which, in turn, helps keep employees focused on the tasks and aspirations most relevant to their growth.

This notion is especially true of workplaces operating in a remote infrastructure, where potential issues like latency and fragmented communication may compound logistical deficiencies. Today’s workplaces are in a near-constant state of change and disruption due to countless macroeconomic factors, and this demands impeccable self-awareness and context-driven organization.

BUILD A HEALTHIER CULTURE

Perhaps the most vital aspect of contextualized leadership is its impact on workplace culture. As business leadership has evolved, the working world has become increasingly aware of negative, toxic, and reductive approaches that, in retrospect, have stunted many businesses’ growth from the inside.

A little context can help you pinpoint and mitigate barriers to employee advancement and keep you focused on the opposite end of the spectrum-the practices that promote fairness, equity, and access to opportunities for development and contribution.

When you better understand the conditions and underlying elements of your present work environment, you will likely have an easier time identifying chances to assess and enhance your culture’s effectiveness. This process may entail taking stock of certain employee needs, industrial and regional considerations, and structural factors defining the leader-employee relationship-aligning these matters for necessary cultural overhauls.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Contextualized leadership reflects a key business fundamental: Employees can only excel if they have the proper knowledge and support to do so. Therefore, the above fields should remain paramount as you reach for your business’ overarching goals.

Originally published at https://www.fastcompany.com on May 22, 2024.

About the Author Dylan Taylor

Dylan Taylor at the Financial Time Space Summit in London

Dylan Taylor is a global business leader, commercial astronaut, thought leader and philanthropist. Currently, Dylan serves as Chairman & CEO of Voyager Space, a multi-national space exploration firm focused on building the next generation of space infrastructure for NASA and other global space agencies.

Dylan has been recognized by Harvard University, SpaceNews, the BBC, the Financial Times, Pitchbook,CNBC, CNN and others as having played a seminal role in the growth of the private space industry. As an early-stage investor in more than 50 emerging space ventures, including Axiom, Kepler, York, Astrobotic, LeoLabs, Relativity, and Planet, Dylan is widely considered the most active private space investor in the world.

Dylan’s technical background, global business experience and unbridled passion for space make him a unique figure within his industry. As a thought leader and futurist, he has written many popular pieces on the future of the space industry for Forbes, FastCompany, Newsweek, SpaceNews, The Space Review, and Space.com. As a speaker, Dylan has keynoted many of the major space conferences around the world and has appeared regularly on Bloomberg, Fox Business, and CNBC.

Dylan has extensive global business experience as both a board director and CEO in several industries, including advanced electronics, finance and real estate. He previously served as a Director for UMB Bank, a Fortune 500 company based in Kansas City and as a mutual fund director for the Jackson Funds where he oversaw assets of $8B across 130 distinct funds. He has also served in the roles of CEO, President and Board Director for multinational companies like Prudential PLC, Honeywell, Colliers and Jones Lang LaSalle. Dylan was recognized as a Fortune 1000 CEO with P&L responsibility in excess of $3B and operations encompassing 15,000 employees in over 60 countries. In addition, Dylan has participated in 4 IPOs over the course of his career.

Dylan is a leading advocate of space manufacturing and the utilization of in-space resources to further space exploration and settlement. In 2017, he became the first private citizen to manufacture an item in space when the gravity meter he co-designed and commissioned was 3D printed on the International Space Station. The historic item is now housed in the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

Dylan is an explorer of note. On December 11th, 2021 Dylan became just the 606th human to go to space as part of the crew of Blue Origin’s NewShepard Mission 19. Accordingly, Dylan earned his commercial astronaut wings with the FAA and his universal astronaut wings from the Association of Space Explorers.

He is also one of only a handful of humans to have descended to the deepest part of the world’s oceans, Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench as part of the Limiting Factor Expedition in July of 2022. In that mission, Dylan descended with pilot Victor Vescovo to a depth in excess of 10,800 meters (35,500 feet) into an area of the Mariana Trench that had never been visited by humans. Dylan is the youngest human to have been to the deepest part of the world’s oceans and crossed the Karman line into Space. Dylan has been a member of the Explorers Club since 2014.

Dylan maintains an extensive philanthropic impact on the space industry. In 2017, Dylan founded the nonprofit and social movement, Space for Humanity, which seeks to democratize space exploration and develop solutions to global issues through the scope of human awareness to help solve the world’s most intractable problems. Space for Humanity has successfully sent two citizen astronauts to space via Blue Origin including both the first Mexican-born woman (Katya Echazareta), and first African-born woman (Sara Sabry). Building upon his passion and support for the space industry, Dylan serves as a strategic advisor for both the Archmission and the Human Spaceflight Program and is a co-founding patron of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, which promotes the growth of commercial space activity. Additionally, he is also a leading benefactor to the Brooke Owens Fellowship, Patti Grace Smith Fellowship and Mission: Astro Access.

Dylan is the founder and Chairman of Multiverse Media, an integrated global media company focused on science and technology, with an emphasis on space. Multiverse is the parent company of the popular space philosophy website 2211.world as well as the Ad Astra Dinners, a Jeffersonian-style dinner series featuring some of the world’s leading influencers discussing the future of humanity in space. Another subsidiary of Multiverse Media, Multiverse Publishing, publishes books by leading authors including Frank White, Isaac Asimov and Gerard K. O’Neill. Multiverse is also the executive producer of the documentary film, The High Frontier and the forthcoming film, Fortitude.

For his influence as a global leader and his commitment to creating a positive impact on the world, Dylan has been honored with numerous personal and professional accolades in recent years. The World Economic Forum recognized Dylan as a Young Global Leader in 2011 and a full member of the World Economic Forum in 2014. That same year he was named a Henry Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute. In 2020, Dylan was recognized by the Commercial Spaceflight Federation with their top honor for business and finance, following in the footsteps of 2019’s inaugural winner, the late Paul Allen
and subsequent winners Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.

Dylan Taylor earned an MBA in Finance and Strategy from the Booth School of Business at University of Chicago and holds a BS in Engineering from the honors college at the University of Arizona, where he graduated Tau Beta Pi and in 2018 was named Alumnus of the year. He is also a graduate of the Global Leadership and Public Policy for the 21st Century program at Harvard University.

Dylan and his family reside in Denver, Colorado where he is active locally with Colorado Concern and theColorado Spaceport. In his spare time, Dylan enjoys hiking, competing in triathlons and spending time outdoors. As a weekend warrior athlete, Dylan has more than 25 top ten finishes and 25 age group wins to his credit, and he regularly interviews world class athletes whom have shown extraordinary resilience as the host of the Legendary Podcast. He is married to legal expert, consultant and author Gabrielle V. Taylor with whom he has two teenage daughters.

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Dylan Taylor
Dylan Taylor

Written by Dylan Taylor

Dylan Taylor is a global business leader and philanthropist. He is an active pioneer in the space exploration industry