Don't Lead by Example

Thom Hayes

• Publisher: Warren Publishing, Inc
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9781957723273
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

I believe in dignity in all things, and it goes both ways, and while that attitude is modeled, the why-what-how has first to be shown,

taught, and reinforced. And if you want people to excel at the job you hired them for, you must lead-but not by example.

As someone who has held senior leadership positions in the past, Thom Hayes has seen the impact leaders have on their teams and employees. When a manager expects their team simply to know what to do and does nothing to assist them, or if the manager tries to micromanage because they don't believe in their own team, the result will ultimately be failure. A good leader is one who has the ability and patience to teach their team and inspire them to succeed.

CHAPTER ONE

DON ’T … JUST DON’T DO IT

So, basically, you’re upset that they aren’t doing what you didn’t tell them to do.

–THOMAS HAYES

Once upon a time, I was a training manager for a Fortune 500 retailer. This meant that I oversaw a training store where individuals formed a farm league of sorts before getting a call into the Big Show, a promotion to a store of their own. We were a good, solid team, and it was a joy to see people come up through the ranks and get promoted to store manager. There were many successes and opportunities, but each was dependent on the quality of leadership.

In one of these operations, there was a café featuring Starbucks coffee along with pastries and sandwiches. It was profitable, but there were policies and procedures the staff was not following. They were not upselling, cleanliness was not at par, and they were not following the protocol of writing customers’ names on cups. During a weekly one-on-one meeting, I asked the department manager about coaching and counseling her team. She said she wasn’t doing that.

“So,” I asked, “how are you leading your team?”

“I lead by example,” she said. “They should be able to learn by watching me.”

“Hmmm,” I said. “And yet, they are not doing what we agreed they should be?”

“It’s frustrating that they are not doing it the way I do it.”

“So, basically, you’re upset that they aren’t doing what you didn’t tell them to do?”

“Well, when you put it that way … .”

That’s pretty much the only way to put it. You’ve got to state your expectations of someone concisely and include desired behaviors, metrics, and a timeline. Some refer to these as SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based.

Leading is intentional influence. We lead with purpose, explaining our business and the tasks at hand, and what right looks like. We work to improve ourselves by actively seeking knowledge and then cascading that knowledge and intent to individuals and teams to become actionable.

Let’s say your operation is struggling with payroll, and you need to find out where the problem lies. Is it in overscheduling, and if so, why? So you observe, ask, form assumptions, and challenge those assumptions until you fully understand what the problem is. Next, you get to the why and develop a plan of action and communicate it thoroughly, along with expectations. Then you delegate and execute.

This is contrary to how some people new to leadership roles operate. These people believe that all they need is to lead by example, and through osmosis, leaders will develop. Yet, this is passive and subject to the mindset of the intended target audience. It is presumptuous, as it presumes the individual wants to be a leader and is looking for a career when they may merely want a job. Further, this is kind of cowardly as it avoids difficult conversations and conflict. You might as well paper your wall with success and teamwork motivational posters and hope things work out.

Some people are uncomfortable with or afraid of tough conversations. They would rather be liked than lead, so they choose a passive method and call it “leadership.” And it is so commonplace, it’s in our leadership lexicon, “Lead by Example.” Hell, it was a mantra when I was in the military.

Here’s the rub: It is a complete fallacy.

The days of employees wanting to emulate their bosses and be like them are over. That’s why leadership by example doesn’t work. These employees don’t want to be us, yet we need them to behave in a particular manner to represent our company. The company hired them and paid them to do the job they were hired to do. That’s where intentional leadership comes into play. That’s where coaching and modeling reinforce the deliberate message.

The apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:26-27: “Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I will not be disqualified for the prize.”¹ Essentially, “preached” is providing direction and intent. The modeling comes in as Paul’s walk matches his talk.

One can model by example, but one cannot lead by example. Leadership is an active state. It is intentional influence and instructive. The best leaders lead by showing, not telling, and they sure as heck don’t do it merely by example. Modeling is passive, and it only reinforces what has been shown. People watch what you do as a leader, and it will be held up to you and against you at different times of your life. But you cannot expect a new employee working part-time in a job to know what you expect of them by merely modeling. That person views modeling as an indication of what you do, not what they are expected to do.

When onboarding new hires, particularly ones new to the workforce, I would begin by saying, “I hired you to do a job, not to give you a job.” That sets the tone. An employee is there to provide a service or labor that is necessary for the company to function. In return, they receive pay, knowledge, and respect. I believe in dignity in all things, and it goes both ways, and while that attitude is modeled, the why-what-how has first to be shown, taught, and reinforced. And if you want people to excel at the job you hired them for, you must lead—but not by example.

How many of you are parents of teenagers? When you modeled cleaning your house and doing laundry or dishes, were your children inspired to do the same, to put down their phones, and say, “Hey, let me help you with that.” No? That is the point here. Teens grow up to be adults and will behave the same way unless directed or led intentionally. You must begin leading them by teaching them how to do chores and providing them with the incentives to get them done, and teaching them the consequences when the work is not done—for example, the carrot (allowance) or the stick (phone forfeiture).

There is a difference between role mentor and role model. Being a mentor is intentional; being a role model is not. The reason NBA baller Charles Barkley and Nike Air partnered to produce the 1993 commercial “I am not a role model” is that people chose to model their behavior on Barkley’s behavior. He was leading unintentionally because people who respected his prowess were choosing to follow his lead. Barkley didn’t want that role of leadership off the court. He wanted to excel at basketball. We are talking here about people who choose to be leaders so that they can intentionally influence people.

When work is to be done, it begins with selling the vision of what successful task completion looks like. “You’ll know you’ve done it right when ‘X’ looks this,” for example. You prepare, tell, show, and do, then have your child or protégé review and do it on their own, and then you provide feedback. They do it not for the love of country or a parent; they do it because it was laid out as an expectation, and they were motivated by carrot or stick to do so.

And remember, whether teenage child or middle-aged new employee, you need to follow up with praise if the vision is satisfied. If it’s not, then you need to coach and correct.

If you walk by someone who’s not up to standard and don’t correct them, you have just set a new standard.

---

1Holy Bible 1978, New International Version. 3 I Corinthians, 9:26-27. P. 1061. Zondervan Bible Publishers, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

CHAPTER TWO

DEAL(ING) WITH IT

Major Walter Debany was a mentor of mine in the 1990s. During one Army National Guard mission in Honduras, he led a team comprised of me and one other member. Before the duty day, he and I would rise at 4:00 a.m., meet at the mess tent, grab a cup of coffee, and walk around the perimeter of the base camp to prepare our minds for the day ahead. We talked of mission, leadership challenges, relationships, finance, and whatever else came up during the 30-minute walkabout.

On one of these occasions, we spoke of how hot it was there, 115 degrees Fahrenheit at midday. I told him the soldiers were complaining about the heat. He said they were wasting time complaining about something beyond their control.

“Yes, it is hot. So now what? We still have to accomplish the mission,” he said.

It was by changing our mindset and reframing that we were able to find a way to complete the mission, and we did it regardless of the environment. It was hot for everyone, not just us, so we accepted it, managed it, and moved on with it.

In their seminal work, Designing Your Life, authors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans describe situations beyond one’s control as “gravity problems.”² As much as you cannot change the force of gravity when riding your bicycle up a hill, you have to adjust and reframe what you’re doing in response to the gravity. That was Debany’s point as well; we couldn’t change the environment, and we couldn’t not accomplish the mission, so we improvised, adapted, and overcame.

Another way is to communalize the feeling by embracing the suck.³ This phrase helps label the feeling and addresses the “This is bad and is not fair” mini-me ego that sometimes pops up in all of us. It’s a leveling and grounding phrase that puts things in perspective and simultaneously consoles and motivates a person in a challenging situation. Misery loves company, and this phrase elevates that company from a pity party to a place of recognition that we are all experiencing a gravity problem. While we cannot change it, we can muster our strength and deal with it.

Often, we worked with local civilians, and they adapted to the environment in creative ways. On one occasion in Honduras, they fashioned hats out of paper plates to keep them cooler as they worked.

My wife likes to tell the story of a hike she went on with her son, Michael, when he was ten. Her husband at the time, knowing the rigors awaiting them on the weekend hike along with both of their temperaments, said, “There’s no way you’ll make it through the weekend. You guys are going to kill each other.”

Sharon turned to her son en route to Grayson Highlands National Park. “Listen,” she said. “We are going to get hot, tired, and hungry. There will be times when we want to quit. It’s going to be hard, and it’s not going to be what we expected, and we’re both going to feel that way. But at that moment, we have a choice. We can either act out and take it out on one another, potentially ruining what could be an amazing weekend, or we can acknowledge that we’re both going to feel that way and make a different choice.”

They acknowledged the potential strain in advance—the “gravity” problems. Labeling their feelings and having figuratively built a bucket to contain them, they had a fantastic weekend, filled with happy memories to last a lifetime.

I respect people who do this, recognize the situation, and focus on managing the mission to its successful conclusion instead of being a victim. I re...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table Of Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter One: Don’t … Just Don’t Do It
• Chapter Two: Deal(ing) with It
• Chapter Three: Communicating
• Chapter Four: Accountability
• Chapter Five: Strategy, Tactics and Execution
• Chapter Six: Composure: Keeping Your Cool
• Chapter Seven: Human Capital Management
• Chapter Eight: The ILM
• Chapter Nine: Know Your Maths
• Chapter Ten: Making Your Numbers or Remember the Membership!.
• Chapter Eleven: In Good Company
• The Essays
• The Thoughty Bits
• Acknowledgments
• About The Author