What does it mean to lead by example?
I remember that from a very young age when I found myself in leadership positions I began to use a phrase that I shared with my collaborators without having much knowledge of the subject: “Be the boss you would like to have.“
Today I would replace the word “boss” with “leader”, plus everything else I would keep. I remember being inspired by the phrase “Treat others how you would like to be treated.”
What happens if managers don’t lead by example?
I knew a leader who all the time complained about his peers and his leader, he always avoided reaching a valuable conversation with them and tried to generate a plot with others so he would come out ahead. Guess what happened? Later the same teams acquired their behaviors and complained about others but never tried to solve them. This generated a lot of stress for the leader and he did not realize that he was partly the influence of that behavior.
He got frustrated that teams weren’t behaving in a way that he didn’t.
It is something natural, it will always be much easier to seek to change others and blame them for the things that happen, instead of taking responsibility and starting the change by ourselves. Seeing yourself as a leader is an exercise in change and humility.
How is a leader by example characterized?
Something that I feel characterizes my way of leading, is my genuine concern for the well-being of people in addition to their professional and economic growth, whether within the company or outside of it. And you know, this was influenced by a great leader that I had at the beginning of my professional career, who advised me to take a job opportunity even though that created a big problem for him.
How to lead by example: An exercise
Surely, today you would like your team to have different behaviors. I’m going to cite some of the more common wishes that leaders have shared with me in recent years, along with some probing questions.
| What you wish your team to do | What you should ask yourself in terms of leading by example |
|---|---|
| Be responsible | How responsible are you with them, with your peers, and with your leader? |
| Give frequent, lateral, and horizontal feedback | How often do you give feedback to your peers? To your leader? To your team? |
| Know how to say “No” | Have they seen you say “No” to your boss? |
| Seek to constantly learn | How often are you learning something new? Do you share these learnings with them? |
| Get creative | How creative are you? |
| Let them discuss and seek to reach agreements | Do you argue with your peers/leaders or evade the fight? |
| That they are aware that the result is when the product is delivered and not when their part ends | Do you apply this with the entire organization? |
| Always seek to do the best | How much every day do you apply continuous improvement? |
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