You Get What You Need? Nope, You Get What You Are!

The Rolling Stones shared a bit of wisdom with us years ago when they said, “You don’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need…” That may hold true in some cases but when it comes to leadership, you get what you are! Leaders truly do set the tone for what each individual in their organization sees as acceptable performance and that absolutely carries forward in how each of those team members executive the duties within their own roles…

As we started down this path, I shared a story with you about an engineering manager who had extremely high expectations for his maintenance teams’ attendance but struggled with his own. While that was just one of the things that made him a complete train wreck to work with, it seemed to be what alienated that maintenance team the most. Like I mentioned, the majority of those folks had been with the organization since rocks were soft and they viewed attendance as a top priority. Most of them had perfect attendance for years at a time, one of which had a streak that lasted more than three decades! The most senior members of that team never dropped their standards because of his poor example, but it sure did impact the folks who were new to the group. And I’ll let you guess how that impacted the overall comradery in that department, not to mention the level of respect (or lack thereof) that engineering manager had with them…

Similarly, I’ve watched another organization with a longstanding reputation for service and quality exemplify that we do indeed get what we are… The key leaders in the organization are very involved in the day-to-day operation, which sets a great example for overall work ethic. The challenge often comes in being able to give each plate they have spinning the attention it needs, when that attention is needed. In many cases, a plate not only spins slower, it may fall altogether. Since the leaders are so engaged though, they don’t necessarily lose respect from their team but it does set the tone for certain “misses” being acceptable. Unfortunately, the folks carrying far less weight in the organization (who also have far less buy-in to maintaining the company’s reputation) “miss” things too - and those things are often ones that directly impact the customer…

Whether it’s intentional or not, and regardless of how many other things we’re juggling at any given time as leaders, our example of responsiveness, service, attitude, and even performance has a trickle down effect on everyone else who follows us. We do not always get what we want. We won’t likely even get what we need. But we can count on getting what we are! So that makes being a real life example of leadership critical. As we move forward, we’ll look at a few leadership examples in business that have set the tone for their organizations through their own actions and have yielded outstanding results…