Do as I Say, Not as I Do...

As I uploaded the last post, I had to force myself not to use a fairly recent mugshot of one of the folks I referenced. I opted for an image that reminded me a bit of the Lord Farquaad character in Shrek… With the picture of that vertically challenged villain now in your head, let’s move on to another example of qualities of a bad leader…

I remember sitting in a business unit action planning session while I still worked in manufacturing. Most of us had been responsible enough to show up on time and get the meeting started. We had just discussed the staffing needs of that department and started on the next agenda item when the engineering manager, who was actually supposed to be running the meeting, decided to grace us with his presence. His stature resembled the little fellow from the 1980’s show Fantasy Island and his demeanor was 100% Lord Farquaad, which was actually a really interesting blend! A few minutes after he made his entrance, the topic being addressed tied back to staffing. Rather than stopping the entire meeting, I leaned over to the department supervisor sitting next to me and asked my quick question. Lord Farquaad proceeded to berate the two of us for having an offline conversation. It was clear that he expected everyone else to toe the line whether he did or not…

Interestingly enough, his Do as I Say, Not as I Do approach applied to far more than just meetings. In his role as engineering manager, the entire engineering staff as well as all of the maintenance team reported to him; some directly and some indirectly. Lord Farquaad was known for his intense scrutiny of attendance and punctuality. Unplanned time off was not acceptable! And during severe weather, calling out or showing up late was still not tolerated.

For what it’s worth, I actually agreed with him on that since the team he managed (notice I didn’t say LED) played a critical role in keeping all the equipment throughout the facility running… The challenge was that he rarely made it to the building by 8am more than three days in the same week. And if there was more than just a light rain, he may not make it until after lunch! The rules he held his team so accountable to clearly didn’t apply to him…

I could give at least half a dozen other examples of how he expected others to take steps he had absolutely no intention of taking action on himself, but I think you get the point. That Do as I Say, Not as I Do approach is a quality of a bad leader that far too many of us have had to deal with at some time or another. And I believe it provides us with a great example of what NOT TO DO to the teams we’re responsible for leading!

If we want to earn authentic influence with the people we hope to lead, being the example of what we would like them to replicate is key. While the tasks we need to accomplish on any given day are probably quite a bit different than what each of our team members need to do, our approach to those tasks can set the standard. We have to be willing to have expectations of ourselves that are at least as high as the ones we have for our team. We’ll look at that in more detail next time...

In the next few posts, we’ll take a look at a few more qualities of a bad leader that can be alert to and work to avoid moving forward!