Great Team Are Built Around High Expectations

I remember a time very early in my behavior-based safety career when Terry Ward (who I’ve mentioned several times in this look at values and throughout my first two books), stopped by my office to chat about something. When he stepped in, I had an email pulled up from Cindy. I can’t recall what the exchange was about, but likely something to do with our son and one of his teachers. Regardless, it wasn’t work-related. Terry called me out on it. He wasn’t rude, just direct. But he was very intentional in explaining the perception that could give anyone else coming into my office. Our behavior-based safety initiative was still relatively new and still didn’t have a lot of support from many of his peers on the management team. To take it step further, he shared some examples of others in the facility who had earned a reputation for being less than stellar performers. He closed by saying that while he understood the reason, he still expected me to take the high road and set a great example; remember the lesson about choosing the harder right over the easier wrong that I learned from him and his time at West Point?

Here’s the kicker: Terry wasn’t my boss. On paper, he had no positional authority to give me direction. Quite honestly, my supervisor probably wouldn’t have said a word about the email exchange with Cindy. I was effective in my role and hadn’t dropped the ball on anything I was required to do. Terry, from the very first time I met him, has always had very high expectations of me. That was definitely the case the entire time we worked for the same company, but it hasn’t changed in the nearly two decades since. The most recent example of him challenging me in an area he expected me to do better in was in November of 2019 when Cindy and I visited him at his home in Richmond. He put his arm around me, told me how proud he was of several things we had accomplished, and then proceeded to tell me I was fat - and he was 100% correct!

With him not being my boss, ever, why has his input carried so much weight in my life and career for more than 25 years? Very early on in our working relationship, he earned a tremendous amount of influence with me by showing just how dedicated he was to helping me grow. While he wasn’t my supervisor or manager, I’ve always viewed him as an outstanding leader. Because he had earned that level of influence, I’ve always wanted to meet and exceed any expectation he’s placed on me. Even when those expectations seemed out of reach, I pushed toward them because I knew he wouldn’t challenge me with something I wasn’t capable of.

Now, let’s tie all that to how we can work with our teams to create a legacy by living our company’s core values, and we’ve defined exactly what that looks like. The fact that you’ve stuck with me through this process assures me that you’re going to do everything in your power to be that 5% Maxwell said consistently exceeds expectations, even though I’m convinced that number has dropped off considerably over the last several years. Think about the folks you’ve looked to for leadership throughout your career. Hold on though, don’t confuse that with any old clown who happened to have the word “manager” in his title; I’m talking about the ones who genuinely earned influence with you like Terry did with me. If they set an expectation for you, one that you felt was even remotely possible, what were you willing to do to reach it? I’m betting anything you possibly could, and maybe a little more… 

When a leader has earned our trust, we feel confident that they won’t set expectations that aren’t achievable; any expectations they place on us are ones we know can be sustained - even if they seem out of reach initially. And when those who have earned true leadership influence consistently provide an example of how we can rise to their expectations, it can bring the best out in us. Over time, setting those high expectations for modeling our core values will bring our best team players together to form a great team. Even then though, accountability for sustaining those expectations is critical for creating a legacy, so that’s where we’ll pick up soon.