Principles For Leaders vol. 1

This first volume of leadership training is intentionally kept short. It’s just one principle of leadership training but it is the backbone of all the rest of the things you’re going to be learning here. Take these words to heart. Learn this principle. Embody it. Live it.

The fundamental Key To All Leadership

It all stems from the quote below. There is one fundamental key to all leadership. There’s a lot more to leadership than just one quote, but this sums up most of it.

“Leading by example isn’t a way to lead, IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO LEAD!”

Simple. Profound. True. There is no other way to lead, this is the way.

So, why is this all important?

Well, as a leader in the company, your family, relationships, etc. you have to set the bar for yourself before you can expect anyone else to do what you expect.

A few professional and personal examples we can probably all relate to:

Personal

1) Wanting someone we care about to take better care of their health.

2) Wanting someone we have a relationship with (personal or familial) to invest more into the relationship.

3) Wanting someone in your life to keep their word and do what they say they’re going to do.

Professional

1) Wanting someone you’re leading to get the whole job done

2) Wanting teammates to show up on time

3) Wanting teammates to live up to the standard you or we have set

Now, take all these examples and think about how can we, as leaders, hold people to a standard we don’t have set or a standard we don’t hit ourselves?

Using those personal examples, you better be sure before you ask a family member (or whoever) to take better care of themselves that you’re taking care of yourself. If you want someone to invest more effort or time into a relationship with you, you better be sure you are investing effort or time first.

The same thing with the professional examples. If you’re in charge of just yourself or a whole team, you have to lead by example. If you want your team to get the whole job done, be on time, work up to standard and exceed it, you better be doing the same thing yourself.

On the Inverse

If you hold the bar high for others but you aren’t living up to the expectations you’ve set, then you will be judged by the people on your team and in your life. This is why this principle is SO important. Because if there is judgment from your team towards you, then that is a killer of the culture. And the culture is the glue that holds this place together. And on top of killing the culture, it also kills morale.

High morale is crucially important for a winning team. High morale is a mix of discipline, communication, trust, feedback and pride in what you’re/we’re doing as a team and organization.

Implementation

What does it mean and how can you embody this for yourself, your team and the organization?

Simple. A lot of it goes back to item 0 in the cultural tendencies document in Certification 1.

Lead by example by… Saying what you will do and actually doing it. Doing your work and doing it well. Raising the bar for yourself and those around you (team, family, friends, etc). Seeing a problem and fixing it. Setting an example for others. Seeing what isn’t being or what can be done better and stepping up to do it. Going above and beyond the standards set for you.

There’s more specific items in the Cert 1 section, but those are the main ones. Now imagine this, if you had a leader that led by example and did that, don’t you think by seeing them you’d follow in their footsteps?

Now… Ask yourself this. As you move up in the organization and have a more direct leadership role, if you did the above for your team, do you not think that your team would produce at the highest levels?

Leave Room For Grace

There are lots of dichotomies to leadership. So much so there is a whole book called “The Dichotomies of Leadership”.

There are times as a leader where something with one of your teammates is going to pop up and things may not get done. Boxes may not get checked. They may just fall behind overall.

While this isn’t okay or the standards we set or have as an organization, the reality of life is that stuff happens. As leaders we have to leave room for grace. Someone’s family may be in shambles for a period. They may go through a nasty heartbreak. They could have a sick family member. Someone they are close to could pass. They could temporarily feel overwhelmed or be down in terms of mental health. Etc.

As leaders it is our job to have grace during the hard times and be there for them. Help them how we can. Be an ear for them if they need it. Then as we help them and cover them in their time of need we can do what needs to be done and then when the time is right raise the bar back up for them as the time is right.