Living in a Fishbowl

I think that most leaders realize on some level that they need to lead by example but one my former bosses used to say that as leaders we live every day in a fishbowl.  The members of our teams are watching every move we make and are interpreting our every action.  She was right.  Leaders live in a fishbowl.  Get used to it.  If you don't walk the talk every day your team will see the insincerity of your actions like a signal flare against a dark sky.  If you preach ethics yet pad your expense accounts because no one but you will know guess again.  The people in accounting see that $1,000 dinner with several expensive bottles of wine.  Think they won't talk?  You bet they will, particularly if times are tough.

Those of you that know me personally and particularly from years back know that I can be a little (OK, more than a little) flip.  I was meeting with a design team and the lead engineer was brand new.  I was giving him a hard time about the part count and having some fun with him.  I had suggested that he could fit in more of a certain component and most of the room laughed knowing what I meant.  I failed to see that the lead engineer had taken me seriously until someone pointed out that he had taken notes on that point.  At that point I realized that my relationship with the organization had changed.  I went back to the employee with both an apology and an explanation.  I also learned to be far more careful about what I said and did.

The fact is that higher up in an organization you are, the more careful you need to be.  You need to assume that every action will be scrutinized very carefully for inconsistencies between what you say and what you do.  If you think that the rules don't apply to you, your team won't think they apply to therm.  If you are asking your team to make sacrifices you better be right there with them in making those same sacrifices.  In fact, you should be leading from the front in this respect.  Show your team that you are willing to be right there with them.  It builds your credibility as leader and can make all the difference in the morale of your team if they see that their leader is in the same boat.

I once worked for a company that entered into Chapter 11 because the CEO had made series of bad decisions and in the process had over leveraged the organization.  He flew out on the corporate jet to announce the decision to file Chapter 11 to the organization and during his announcement he denied any accountability for the financial state of the company.  Since he rarely spoke to anyone below the division GM level, there was a lot of genuine surprise at the blistering criticism he received.  We spent considerable effort trying to mitigate the damage from that one event.  Note that I deliberately chose the word mitigate because the damage was beyond repair.  He was never again allowed to address anyone below an executive level for fear of the irreparable damage he might do.

Let's face it without our teams we can not hope to be effective.  We need to realize that we need to earn their respect and trust.  The only way to do that is to walk the talk and  lead by example.  This is an enormous responsibility because it means we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard of behavior and performance than we do for our organization.  As my father said to me more than once "never ask anyone to do anything that you are not prepared to do yourself".  Good words to live by.