Lead with Courage

Houston Texas – 2/21/2017

“What you permit, you promote. What you allow, you encourage. What you condone, you own. What you tolerate, you deserve.”

-Michelle Malkin

A company’s core values are useless if leadership lacks the courage and support to enforce them.  For example:

• The value is “integrity” but everyone knows he’s cheating on his wife
• The value is “hard working” yet there’s still that one lazy person on the team
• The value is “positivity” but the same person is always first to say why something can’t be done
• The value is “teamwork” yet management tolerates one’s bad behavior on account of their high performance (it’s usually the top sales person)

Culture is all about a shared way of doing things, and when leaders don’t address those that aren’t on board, it sends the wrong message to everyone else. Their inaction undermines company values and communicates that values don’t really mean anything. These are the employees who have high jacked your culture, and you will never make progress until you remove these cancers and stand up for company values. Otherwise, your good employees are left to believe, “If that person can get away with it, why should any of the rest of us even try?”. The best ones just leave.

Culture Building Tip

If you want to be successful in having a great culture, you have to set behavioral expectations that fit and apply them to everyone, relentlessly.  That means ridding your company of the people who fly in the face of your values, however difficult it may be.

Every single time that tough decision to terminate has been made in my career, the team was always strengthened, leaders earned more respect, and the recovery was not nearly as hard as once thought and always worth having made the change.

The behavior you tolerate, you reinforce.  What behavior are you tolerating and justifying in your organization?  Let today be a new beginning. 

You’re hired for what you know; you’re fired for who you are.

-William J. Chopick

Univeristy of Michigan