Leadership Best Practices

Do demonstrate leadership excellence by demonstrating best practices

Mar 15, 2007

One way to gain the solid respect of the staff you lead is to demonstrate best practices. Your credibility will soar if you behave as you expect them to behave.

Demonstrating leadership excellence is more that preaching best practices it is living by the standards that you set as a leader. If you don’t walk the walk, your staff will quickly lose respect and ignore or dismiss any of your directions or suggestions. When this disregard of direction starts to happen it can be a very quick downward spiral.

Ask yourself these questions about your leadership style to see if you are a role model for leadership best practices.

Do you ask for a change in process, but then use the old method?
Do you ask your staff to put in overtime but then leave early?
Do you ask your staff to generate new business but then miss opportunities or fail to follow up on a lead?
Do you ask your staff to be budget conscious but then buy a big screen TV for your office?
Do you complain about your workload but then either fail to delegate or make extra work for your staff?
Do you criticise staff for being late and then come in to work late or return from meetings or lunch later than expected?
Do you ask staff to follow company policies but then disregard them when it comes to your work?
Do you emphasize living and working to the company values but then push your own, contradictory values?
Do you expect staff to dress professionally but then come to work dressed too casually?
Do you expect staff to represent the company well in public but then act unprofessionally outside the office?
Do you set a rule against dating coworkers but date staff yourself?

It is important to demonstrate best practices by your actions so that staff see you as a mentor and role model.

If you have comments or suggestions on this blog entry, please start a discussion

If you liked this blog entry, try:

Change Management and Innovation

Performance Management Series