People Do What People See…

Expecting anyone to blindly Follow the Leader is more than a little naive, especially over extended periods of time or in performing difficult tasks, because our teams are much more apt to do what they see us doing when we’re in similar situations! But let’s be honest with ourselves here, telling our team members to adhere to even the simplest of rules then failing to do so ourselves won’t work all that well either. EVERYTHING rises and falls on leadership!

In all the years I had responsibility for facilitating a behavior-based safety process, I did everything in my power to avoid giving even the perception of me skirting a safety policy. While that process was geared at identifying risks, and not tied in any way to compliance, I still knew that I had to walk a very fine line if I wanted to maintain credibility with the workforce as a whole and convince a small portion of that workforce to volunteer their time to be active in that process. If my behavior showed that safety wasn’t important to me, even if I wasn’t exposed to the same level of risk that the majority of folks were on a routine basis, would it have been reasonable for me to expect anyone to take a suggestion I offered seriously? I certainly didn’t think so, and I did everything I possibly could to set the example I hoped folks would follow.

Interestingly enough, that wasn’t always the case with other members of the management team with regards to wearing the required personal protection equipment when it came to safety - and I can share more than a few stories about managers who held their team members accountable for a whole host of other things that they made no attempt to do themselves! In some cases, those things were tied to the specific duties within a department but sometimes it was as simple as showing up on time…

Think back to the two high performers I mentioned before… One of them told me how their executive team had set an expectation that everyone in the organization responds to emails within 24 hours. I don’t care what industry you’re in, I don’t think that’s an unreasonable request - and they didn’t either. Their frustration, however, was coming from multiple instances of reaching out to folks on that executive team and not hearing back for far longer. Their comment was something about being given the perception that the executives believed they were above reproach… I’m not sure that’s the message their executive team means to send, but perception does indeed become someone’s reality!

A lot of the work Cindy and I do today is directly with business owners and high level managers. Those tend to be some of the busiest individuals within their organizations. One thing I’ve noticed through our interaction with them is that the ones who take the longest to respond, or even miss responding from time to time (intentional or not), tend to have a similar culture throughout their organization. Just like the manager I worked with years ago who never wore safety shoes on the shop floor and constantly struggled to get his employees to wear their required equipment, the executives who don’t follow up or follow through have team members who duplicate their behavior. People do what people see…

This can lead to certain immediate consequences, especially in safety or customer service, but it can also take a toll on even the most dedicated team members, the ones who are committed to upholding the organization’s values and achieving great results, so that’s where we’ll pick up next time…