“I can’t raise the bar of others if I haven’t raised the bar for myself” — John C. Maxwell
As a leader, your actions, decisions, and demeanor set the standard for your team. Setting a high bar not only inspires your employees to strive for excellence but also creates a culture of continuous improvement and achievement.
Our second year in business, I had received a call from a great commercial client of ours. It was the regional manager of a set of communities we had the honor of maintaining. She had received a complaint from one of her site managers in regards to the quality of service they were getting from us. The site was about 45 minutes away from our operating shop at the time, and with how busy I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off every day, I did what most business owners do in this situation, I called the crew that was responsible for maintaining the site. Of course their response was that the site manager liked to complain and that they felt the site looked great. I went on to defend them to the regional, basically throwing her employee under the bus stating that she “had it out for us”. The next day, my contact had put eyes on the property herself and had suggested that I come look for myself. She didn’t say much, she just said I needed to. I made the drive, only to find the site in, well… Let’s just say their complaints were very valid. My client had said something to me as I apologized for the situation and assured her we would get it under control, she said “inspect what you expect”. I had realized that very day that not only had I not set the expectations for the level of quality I wanted to deliver, I never really set any bar at all. I just assumed that if I was paying people to do a job, of course they would show up and do an excellent job!
Nobody that is leading wakes up and says “I’m going to do my work “half-ass” today and I hope my employees all do the same”. I mean, if that’s you….Well… Best of luck! The issue lies in the fact that we get so busy thinking that we are setting a bar simply because we are busy, we ASSUME that our people should just know what to do and how we want things done. I mean they should just know these things because that is what we pay them for, right? Sure….
Many people go into business for themselves probably because at some point they got tired of maybe working for a crappy boss. Or they work to grow to be in a managerial role because it gives them authority to make decisions and have a form of ownership in an organization, and hopefully someday they don’t have to put in the labor as hard as they did to get where they are. But here is an issue that comes with this. Many struggle with not having somebody to hold them accountable. They use their position of power to demand results from others, sometimes more than they demand of themselves. If you’ve heard me talk about the 80/15/5 principle when it comes to leaders, the 5% of world class leaders are ones that have set a high bar at holding themselves accountable for whatever it is that they want to see not just for their people, but for themselves too!
As leaders it’s our duty to not just set the bar, but keep raising the bar. Every day. When people ask about my daily growth routine(which I am very passionate about), some look at me like I’m some sort of freak! People ask me why I’m so hard on myself. My reason is very simple. I can’t demand excellence from others that I lead, coach, mentor, and develop if I’m not requiring that same level from myself. We may teach others what we know, but we reproduce who we are!
If there is one thing I’ve learned over my journey, it’s that everything rises and falls on us as leaders. If you look at a department or organization that is growing and thriving, you’ll see a leader that is setting a high bar. If you look at an organization that is struggling, I hate to be the one to call out the obvious, but the leadership bar has probably been set pretty low. And nobody is being held accountable for their poor actions. Not even the leader him/herself. But it’s never too late to change it. It just takes time! And you have to be intentional in your efforts and consistent in your delivery. The best time to have started to set a high bar was 10 years ago. The next best time is TODAY.
Remember this my amigos… If your character is not strengthening, your future as a leader is weakening. How bad you want something determines what you will do to get it. Lead by example. Go first. Set the bar. Raise the bar. And then inspect what you expect from there!