What do my people need from me?

As I was preparing to write this article, two things influenced me. First, the topic kept coming back to me. Two, I was cleaning up my office and putting away some books and came across a book I read about six months ago. I decided to look over my highlights and I came across a story I had heard many times, but it kind of went with the topic I was thinking about. It’s a story about commitment. When I originally heard the story, it started by asking the question, are you a chicken or are you a pig? I was intrigued right away. When it comes to commitment, are you a chicken or are you a pig? The chicken and the pig both play a role when it comes to having breakfast. The chicken gives you eggs every single morning. But the pig,he has to sacrifice everything. As a leader, you must be willing to sacrifice. Obviously, I’m not planning on giving up my life. But I’m going to have to make some tough decisions and give up some things. I have to understand that my team is taking notes of everything I do and how I react. If I’m sloppy, they will be sloppy. If I cut corners, they will cut corners. If I make a big deal of doing the small things, they will make a big deal of doing the small things. If I want everyone to be consistent, then I need to be consistent. What time does a meeting start and what time do I show up for the meeting? If I say that a meeting starts at 8:00 am, and then I show up at 8:01 am. Then I am telling them that the meeting is not important and it’s also ok to be late. But if I tell them that the meeting starts at 8:00 am and I am there at 7:55 am and I start talking right at 8:00 am every morning. The meeting must be important and being ready is important. The book I had read said that best leaders always have the desire to be great. I think that comment is accurate. But then he says that your desire is measured by your routine and preparation. Do I have the same routine every day? More importantly, is that routine working? I know that I pretty much do the same things every single day and I usually do them around the same time. But is it working? Am I prepared for everything every single day? Am I missing anything? I believe over the next few years we are going to see a very clear change in philosophy. Right now, everyone is focused on results. Then after seeing the results, we weed out all the inaccuracies. In the end we try to make it, so the final data shows whatever we want it to be. I think the future is going to understand that we will always have inaccuracies and so the only way that you will be able to justify them is to show if you did everything the right way. Did you follow the proper procedure? So, to get back to the original topic, what do my people need from me? The strange answer is actually very little. My people need me to be who I want them to be. I want them to follow a routine and be consistent. They want to see consistency from me. If I say I’m going to be there, am I there? If I tell them to be there by 7:55 am, am I there by 7:55 am. Do I have a routine? Do I follow procedures? Do I check in with them. My goal has always been to have roundtables with my people and one on ones. If I don’t do something more soon, I think I will be failing in that area. I want my people to feel like they are being trained more, communicated to more and overall, just treated differently than any other group of people. To do that I need to make sure that I am communicating and training. My people need to see me working hard to improve so that they will know they need to keep up. If I’m not getting any better, then why should they? If I am only hitting the bare minimum, then why can’t they just do the bare minimum? How do I set the standard? I want everyone else in my position to look to me to try and figure out how they can have a group that is as successful as mine.