Do As I Say…

In our Five Keystones Culture Model, Keystone Three is, “Embody What Matters.”

This means, that as a leader, after you’ve defined what matters and relentlessly messaged what matters (Keystones One and Two), you must embody those things. Otherwise, you risk becoming a leader who messages to people, essentially, “Do as I say and not as I do.”

I get five calls a month from someone who isn’t the ultimate boss, at their wit’s end, because the boss pretty much does whatever they want while making it so much harder for everyone else to uphold the standards, that often, the leader themself has set.

Now, in some of these cases, the people calling me are passing the buck. At least in part. And they can certainly do more to influence things than they are.

But sometimes, they’re right that their boss is the issue.

I’ve turned down contracts to work with some of these leaders because my belief was that my coaching wouldn’t matter much if the boss wouldn’t embody what they say they care about. Other times, I ask for a meeting with that leader to see if we can get them on board.

Not once, has the leader agreed to even speak with me.

These people know they’re not modeling for others. They know they’re messing up. They know they’re not embodying what needs to be embodied. So the last thing they want is for me to call them out for it.

What I wonder, however, is if they also know that their credibility is plummeting, their teams are losing respect for them, and that their bottom line is being affected.

A leader cannot say they care about feedback and then withhold it or get defensive when they receive it. They cannot say they care about innovation and then blow up when people try to solve things in unique ways. And they cannot say that results matter and then not hold people accountable to getting results.

Recently, a member of a C-team told me, “We have goals. We have deadlines. We have things we’re trying to accomplish, but when we don’t, nothing happens.”

It’s so frustrating to work in an environment like that. But this person was wrong that nothing happens. Something does happen. Employees check-out, they start looking for other jobs, and they takes asks much less seriously.