Maintaining standards is a daily test of a leader’s character.

Nobody and no team ever drifts their way into excellence in anything. But drift happens.  We drift away from exercising, reading, or spending time with loved ones.  Another place we tend to drift is in maintaining standards.  Supervisors are the front line in the battle against drift. If a leader is not intentional with their standards, the result can be catastrophic.  

NASA identified the incremental drift away from standards as the cause of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.  Small compromises in standards led to compromise becoming the new normal.  NASA called it the normalization of deviance. As a result, seven crew members died and seven families were devastatingly ripped apart.

When it comes to maintaining standards, this isn’t just an issue of policies and procedures.  This is an issue of character for the supervisor.  Think about it.  When someone says one thing, yet does another, would we say that person has Integrity?  No.  

What about a leader who claims to have standards, yet doesn’t uphold those standards?  The willingness of a leader to maintain the standards is a character test all leaders must pass if they want to become a Leader of Character.

When it comes to maintaining the standards, it is not just a leader’s Integrity being tested. 

Courage:  Acting despite perceived or actual risk.

Someone needs to have the Courage to step in and adjust the behavior. Many times, the excuse for the behavior sounds like “it’s the way we’ve always done it.”  It will feel uncomfortable to say, “Maybe we have.  But that does not make it right. This team is always going to strive to be better than we were in the past.  Therefore, we are no longer going to accept this behavior from each other.”

Humility:  Believing and acting like “it’s not about me.”  

Maybe you are the one who has let the standards drift.  It will take Humility to admit that to your team and say, “I was wrong to allow this to happen.  That is on me.  From now on, I will do better, and we will do better.”

Integrity:  Doing what is good, right and proper, even at personal cost.  

The root word of Integrity is integer, which means – whole or pure.  That means we can’t pick and choose which standards we will uphold.  If every supervisor in the organization got to cherry-pick which standards were important and which ones weren’t, there would be chaos.  I see it in fire and police departments across the country.  One shift will have one set of standards and another will have a different set of standards. Nobody is sure what the standards truly are across the board.  Then we wonder why people say the number one problem in a department is inconsistency in leadership.

Selflessness:  Putting the needs of others before my own needs, desires or convenience.  

It takes time to stop and correct something.  When a vehicle is not cleaned at the end of a shift, or an incident report is incomplete, a leader will need to stop what they’d prefer to do, and make the correction.  If this doesn’t happen, the leader is making a selfish choice.  These conversations are not fun.  The leader may feel uncomfortable doing it.  But personal comfort is not how leaders should make decisions.  If we are, then that is a selfish decision.

Duty:  Taking actions based on our assigned tasks and our moral obligations.  

If the standards are not asking us to do something immoral, illegal, or unethical, it is a leader’s assigned task and moral obligation to maintain the standards.  Remember, standards are just the minimums.  When we enforce the standards, we are just asking people to do what is minimally acceptable.  Think about that.  If we are unwilling to do our Duty and maintain the minimums, maybe we need to reevaluate if we are in the right job?

Standards are part of the everyday life of a leader.  When a supervisor is consistent with maintaining the standards, people know what to expect.  They come to work each day knowing that the leader has the Courage to say something when something isn’t right.  That gives them the Courage themselves to choose Integrity when something is drifting from where it should be.

Standards are a daily test of a leader’s character.  When standards slip, it is a Leader of Character’s job to reestablish the standards. Will the leader choose character or something less honorable?  What will you choose?

Question:

• Which standards do you need to do a better job of reinforcing?
• How will you exercise character when you do that?

This is the second supervisor character test we’ve addressed in this blog series.  The next one is related to this one:  Correcting Behaviors the Previous Leader Allowed.