Establishing High Standards

I post a leadership tip of the day to my social media pages 6 days a week and they’re inspired by the conversations I have with other leaders, books I’m reading or conversations with my clients.  Last week I was meeting with a potential client who was really struggling with setting the standards and goals for his staff.  He knew where he wanted to go, but he was afraid of how it would be received by his staff and if it would create a backlash that he might not be able to overcome.  As a leader we should always be thinking about how to work with others and get the best out of them by providing the support they need to reach the standard that has been established.  That is good leadership, however the train tends to go off the rails when we compromise what is best for what is comfortable.  

Most people live in a state of comfort and doing hard things isn’t their idea of a good time.  As a leader if you are choosing comfort over high standards then you are choosing to limit your opportunity for success.  The leader I was talking with knew that they needed to raise their standards if they wanted to have any chance of meeting their goals for the next year. He even went as far as to say “if we don’t have high standards and goals that challenge us we won’t even come close to meeting the requirements of the minimum standard”  He went on to say “our board doesn’t want mediocre and neither do I, we want excellence”  Those statements told me two things.  The first was that he knew that he needed to raise the bar for his staff; he had to put forward a bold vision even if it was scary for people to hear.  The second was that he was already in trouble because he was considering compromising what he knew to be right because it was going to be hard for the staff to accept.  

So what is his course of action?  He has three basic options to choose from.  The first is he can go ahead and compromise what he knows to be the right thing in order to make the staff happy and eventually resent his staff.  The second choice is to do absolutely nothing and wish and want for some magical miracle to happen and be disappointed in yourself for not having the character to do the hard things that need to be done..  The third choice is to make the necessary changes and provide the support and encouragement that the people need to get the job done.   It’s obvious that the final option is the best option but there is one key element that will determine its success.  The culture of your building specifically if you have created a team of people that have trust in you and each other based on a solid foundation of integrity, transparency and collaboration.  

One final thing to keep in mind is things won’t change overnight even if you have a committed staff.  It will take a lot of hard work and commitment to have a culture where the standards are high and being met on a daily basis.  The part of this puzzle that will separate you from all the others is not giving up.  High Standards scare people and goals that are difficult to achieve bring out doubters and nay sayers.  It’s important for you not to give up or give in. People will want to give up even some of your best team members. It's human nature.  Your job is to encourage them and work to provide them with what they need.  Listen to them, validate their feelings but don’t make excuses because the standard is still the standard regardless of the situation. 

Call To Action

This week take some time to sit down with yourself and think about the standards you want your organization, business or team to have.  Once you have done that, ask yourself do we have the culture that will embrace working on meeting the high standards needed to be excellent? If your answer is no then you need to start working on integrity, transparency, trust and collaboration.  If your answer is yes then you can get to work on rolling out those high standards.  One final bit of advice when you take over a leadership role that’s the time to establish and implement high standards.  Don’t ease your way into it.  I’ve made that mistake and it’s a painful and difficult lesson you don’t want to make if you can avoid it.  Have a great week and remember to light the WICK of leadership by bringing the energy to ignite your staff everyday.