LEAD YOUR TEAM BY EXAMPLE

There’s hardly anything worse for a company’s morale, according to Bruna Martinuzzi, than leaders who practice the “Do as I say, not as I do” philosophy. For example, the manager who tells everyone to stay late and finish the project but leaves promptly at 5:00 pm to golf. Or the CEO who criticizes everyone for spending time on the internet but is discovered buying groceries online in the middle of the afternoon, or the CFO who recommends layoffs to stop “unnecessary spending” but buys brand-new luxury office furniture.

Most leaders know that their actions can influence how a team feels and performs. Moreover, when leaders don’t practice what they preach, you can almost see the staff’s loss of enthusiasm and goodwill. It’s like watching the air go out of a balloon – and cynicism and disappointment usually take its place. Take Satya Nadella, for instance; since taking over as CEO of Microsoft, Satya’s first order of business was dedicated to changing the culture of the company and leading the change by example. It’s a fascinating turnaround of a company that allowed itself to be bogged down with infighting and win at all costs, but the change was worth it.

Satya Nadella Approach.

Microsoft invested significant resources in robotics and even introduced Tay, a teenage girl-inspired bot that had been programmed to interact with Twitter users. I don’t know if you guys are familiar with the story. According to the Financial Times, within hours of activating her on social media sites, Tay was parroting racist, misogynistic and pornographic lines that other users prompted her to repeat. Microsoft rapidly grounded the objectionable bot with a statement that said it was “deeply sorry for the unintended offensive and hurtful tweets from Tay.”

The experiments with Tay were a PR disaster for Microsoft, but Mr. Nadella dealt with it empathetically. He emailed the Microsoft team behind Tay, the artificial intelligence researchers, software engineers, and improv comedians — the morning after Tay was neutralized. He made sure the team did not feel bad for actually taking the risk. That’s huge. According to Mr. Nadella, “you’ve got to make sure that if you make mistakes, you learn from them.” This encapsulates the management style of the 49-year-old chief executive — frank, decisive, and forgiving. Mr. Nadella is modeling the behavior he expects at Microsoft.

It’s a significant shift for Microsoft. Microsoft had become a company where teams had to compete for resources and ideas that were perhaps in the best interests of the company as a whole but often lost out because it didn’t suit the interests of a particular executive or team.

When Mr. Nadella took over, he wholeheartedly embraced a one Microsoft vision and went about ensuring the change was embodied across various levels of the company. As a result, under Mr. Nedella’s leadership, Microsoft stock jumped from $200B in value to more than $492B in October of 2016, and the company’s shares surged past its all-time high price of $59.56.

Seemingly overnight, the company was back with a vengeance, removing the perception of Borg Microsoft, the bullying juggernaut that ruled the software industry with an iron fist. Remember the Microsoft under Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer mocking Linux, calling it cancer, laughing at the iPhone. Or when Ballmer dismissed Android as too hard to use (a billion Android phones shipped last year.) The new Microsoft has shed its arrogance, and you can thank Satya Nadella for it.

What I particularly admired about this situation with Tay was the fact that Mr. Nadella took the time to email everyone on the team; I can only imagine what the team felt when they got that email from the CEO. As the leader of your company, you have tremendous influence, and as a result, your every move is monitored, and your every word is analyzed.

So you have to be particularly aware of your behavior. What you give off will influence the culture of your company. Mr. Nadella gets it, but unfortunately, many don’t. I can remember a father telling his son, “do as I say but not as I do.” Have you ever heard that statement, ridiculous as it sounds? But, unfortunately, that’s what many CEOs are doing at their companies—creating a total contradiction between their words and their actions, which usually causes confusion and mistrust among their employees.

If you’re in a leadership position, you have a responsibility to lead by example. No matter the situation, you have that responsibility; if double standards exist and the leader says one thing and then does another, it always feels like a betrayal. If this ever happened to you, you can probably remember that sense of disappointment and letdown. According to Bruna Martinuzzi, the legendary Jack Welch turned GE upside down. By developing a “boundaryless organization,” a place where everyone is free to brainstorm and think of ideas – instead of waiting for someone “higher up,” in the bureaucracy to think of them first.

He wanted his team turned loose, and he promised to listen to ideas from anyone in the company. And he did. Everyone from the lowest line workers to senior managers got his attention – if they had something to say or a new idea that might improve the company. It wasn’t just talking; it didn’t take his team long to figure that out. Welch stayed true to his passions and his commitment by practicing what he preached.

GE became an incredibly successful company under his leadership, and his team was always willing to follow his lead because the people within knew that he always kept his word. As a leader, part of your job is to inspire the people around you to push themselves – and, in turn, the company to greatness.

To develop yourself into a great leader, you must set the tone and lead by example. When leaders don’t ‘practice what they preach,’ it can be almost impossible for a team to work together successfully. How can anyone trust a leader who talks about one thing but does another? Leading by example is the most potent form of leadership. Effective and inspirational leaders model the way for others to follow.

Great leaders push their people forward with excitement, inspiration, trust, and vision. Becoming one of the great leaders takes the strength of character and a firm commitment to do the right thing, at the right time, for the right reason. This means doing what you say when you say it. Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position. If your team can’t trust you and your character is questionable, you’ll never lead your people and, by extension, your company to greatness.

About The Author

Gifford Thomas is the founder of Leadership First and understands the challenges that many leaders face. Gifford is deeply committed to sharing the best inspirational quotes and articles to encourage and uplift every leader by providing a daily dose of inspiration to support you through your leadership journey.