Are you self-aware enough to ‘lead by example?’

When asked what leadership is all about, my answer always includes the oft-spoken cliché “leading by example.”
Growing up, I played team sports, first hearing “lead by example” from my first coach. Coaches say that to mold behavior you must come to practice on time, run hard to first base on infield hits, wear your uniform right, etc. The phrase, however, has stuck with me because my leadership style has been to not ask something of an employee that wasn’t both important to me, and that I wasn’t willing to do myself.
In addition, I hope my employees embody all the attributes of myself that I considered to be my “good qualities.”
A good example
It wasn’t until later that I realized I could also unknowingly set an example showcasing my less-than-stellar traits.
In fact, we do lead by example. People pay attention to what leaders do in ways large and small. And the examples and patterns we purposely, or inadvertently, set might be good or bad with respect to what’s required to operate a company, to serve customers, to interact with each other, to accomplish individual and team goals, and so on.
After all, what part of running a business, or department, doesn’t “leading by example” encompass?
Are you self-aware enough about how you go about your business and personal life? The list of things we do to set examples is endless. Are you on time? Do you listen well? Are you organized? Are you detail-oriented? Do you follow up promptly? Do your meetings have agendas? How do you treat customers? How do you deal with stress?
Best practices count
There are no right answers about the best practices for any particular business. But as the leader, you do need to think deeply about those practices you believe serve the business the best, and then live all of them all the time so your employees understand your expectations. Also, you need to always be on the search for better best practices — which is one thing a peer advisory group is great at uncovering.
There’s been a long-running nature-or-nurture debate about whether leaders are born or molded. I think that the best leaders are the most self-aware and think the deepest about the individual traits and practices a business needs to consistently practice. These can be learned or decided; we need not count on Mother Nature to randomly anoint good leaders.

If you’re not a good leader, then either you haven’t thought deeply about the cultural behaviors the business needs to be successful, or your own behavior is not consistent with that culture, leading to confusion among the troops. One of the most crucial examples for the leader to set is to not let the organization deviate from that culture through benign neglect or compromise.