How your behaviour as a leader trumps company policy

There’s something about being on holiday that gives you a chance to reflect on things with a little more perspective than usual; not sure if it is the relaxation and ability to forget what time it is or the better sleep or perhaps the general positivity that you feel when relaxing in the fresh air.
Whatever it is, it has enabled me to see with real clarity just how important leadership role modelling is. I instinctively knew it but the recent news that France has introduced a ‘right to disconnect law’, which requires companies to negotiate policies that limit the way that work can spill over into personal time, has underlined it for me.

As a coach, I sometimes support leaders who are wanting to make behaviour changes in order to be more successful. This can be for many reasons and often is related to relationships with others. That being said, there is not always an awareness that employees who are less experienced are looking at them for cues on how to behave at work and will follow their behavioural lead.
In my previous career as a leader in HR, my behaviour was important to me. I wanted to know that I could say hand-on-heart that I had genuinely behaved in a way that would have a positive impact on others. Did I always get it right? I suspect not. Did I always try to? You bet.
One example of this that links into the new French law is that I made it a practice not to be contactable on holiday. My team were perfectly able to deputise for me and I knew that not only would I be more effective back at work for a complete break but that also my team knew that I would not expect them to be looking at their work and emails when they were on holiday.

So what’s my concern about the new French law?

The intentions are good certainly… to enable employees to be able to switch off and not feel obliged to reply to emails outside of typical working hours. I’ve known organisations use policy to attempt to change a working culture similarly to this national law and yet, without alignment between such policies, company values, the way that top leadership behaves, and what the organisation measures to show success, the effectiveness of such policies may be limited.

It’s not dissimilar to how children can potentially learn from what their parents do as much if not more than from what they say. The hard hitting video by NAPCAN ‘Children See, Children Do’ is a powerful reminder of the influence of seeing others that we look up to behave in a certain way. While not a causal relationship given that we are all capable of making our own decisions on how to behave, leaders have a responsibility not only to themselves but to those that they lead to consider how their behaviour may be interpreted as ‘the company line’.

So, as a leader, how can you best ensure you are influencing for good through your behaviours?

1. Check in on your own values. What guides you to behave as you do? What values do you draw on that hold significant meaning for you? For example, I can still vividly recall a time in my early schooling where I felt I was treated unfairly which to this day makes me an ardent champion of fairness where fairness is possible.
2. Be clear on what is made explicit in your own company culture, values or principles, and ways of working about what good looks like. If you are part of a leadership team which shapes these and they are not clear, or not consciously lived by you and your team, put a day aside with your team to work through them and determine how you can be seen to live them day in day out.
3. Don’t take it for granted that you are behaving in a way that promotes a positive working culture. We are all influenced by the prevalent ways of working in our workplaces and so it is worth becoming more self-aware by deliberately reflecting back over a typical day to consider:
   – Who did I talk to today? What did I say?
   – What decisions did I make? Why? Were my motives clear to others?
   – How did I react to things that felt like problems?
   – How did I celebrate success? And what IS success here?
   If you notice behaviour that contradicts the espoused culture or policy, either question the policy if you feel your behaviour was right for the company, or consider how else you could behave in future.

Whether you are currently a leader, or aspire to be one, the same rule applies: your behaviour matters, so own it. That’s all your fellow employees have to go on unless you are explicitly explaining your every move all of the time … and if you are doing that then I think you have other things to worry about <smile>.