Another Important Practice When It Comes to Great Leadership

One mistake I see many leaders make is making rules. What is a rule, really? When I was in corporate, the Human Resources Manual or Employee Handbook, depending on the organization, always had a list of “Major Work Rules.” If an employee broke one of those rules, they would face “corrective action up to and including termination.”

These work rules were usually strictly enforced. If an employee steals something or gets in a fight at work, they are terminated. It's a piece of cake, right?

The leadership behavior that is an issue is a tendency for leaders to try and solve problems by making rules. This is sometimes necessary, but most of the time, it’s not. To make matters worse, a leader will make a rule, and 2 or 3 months later, everyone has forgotten about it, including the leader who made the rule. What happens? The leader loses credibility. The organization learns that what the leader says today won’t happen in a few weeks or months.

This is bad for everyone. A leader who loses credibility becomes ineffective. The staff reporting to the leader begins to get “jaded,” almost rolling their eyes when the leader makes another rule.

So, never make a rule you’re not prepared to enforce. If the rule is “no employee can park in the lower lot,” keeping the spaces open for guests, an employee who does must hear about it. They must at least be asked to move their car. If all office staff must wear a tie on Mondays, no one should be there without one. Right?

What a “pain.” A healthy organization should be short on rules and high on expectations. Most people will perform according to organizational “norms.” Keep things simple and deal with the exceptions. If a rule is really needed (and sometimes they are), ensure you’re prepared to enforce it. If the rule no longer makes sense at some point in the future, don’t just stop paying attention to the issue; revoke the rule. In the same way, you established and communicated the rule, communicate why the rule no longer makes sense, and formally revoke it.