The Golden Rule

This is what you came here for. Every leadership guru has their own “secret sauce”, and I am no different.

Root through any amount of leadership material and you will find different thoughts on places from which leaders are supposed to lead. Leaders should eat last…leaders should lead from the front…leaders should lead from the rear…leaders should lead alongside…in chess, the pawns go first. Innumerous interpretations abound about where a leader should be in relation to their followers.

Each one of those scenarios is valid, but only for a specific leadership position. In a high context organization, a leader may find it better to lead alongside their followers, in a low context organization, maybe leading from the front works better. However, what each of these lacks is the fundamental truth behind what makes someone a good versus a bad leader. It’s not where you stand that matters most, it’s where you lead from. Now wait! Didn’t that contradict what I previously said? Give me a chance and this will all become very clear.

The Golden Rule

My mother had one steadfast saying throughout my childhood: “Treat others how you want to be treated.”

She was a religious person, so naturally, she got this phrase from church. Interestingly enough, if you look around the world’s religions, most of them contain some form of this teaching, so it has sociological and theological underpinnings the world over.

Boiling it down to this one statement isn’t enough, however, so let’s look into what The Golden Rule means for leaders.

The Golden Rule in Leadership

I’d like to start by stating that The Golden Rule does not mean to literally treat every person the exact way you want to be treated. Here’s a good example: Joshua is a highly logical, low-context individual who only cares about the content of information presented, not the manner in which it is presented. Annie is a highly emotional, high-context individual who cares more about the presentation of information than its content. If Joshua delivers information to Annie exactly how he likes to have information presented to him, he runs the risk hurting Annie’s feelings, of her thinking he’s calloused, etc. If Annie delivers information to Joshua exactly how she likes information presented to her, she runs the risk of Joshua thinking that she’s not decisive enough, or Joshua not caring about the information because of the length of the delivery. That’s what I mean by The Golden Rule not being literal. So, how then do we use this in a leadership context?

The first step to doing this correctly is getting to know your people. As a leader, I cannot stress enough how important it is to get to know your people. If you don’t know anything about a person, how can you possibly imagine the best way to motivate and inspire them? Each person whom you lead has their own life, dislikes, likes, family situation, financial situation, social situation, etc. Start by being curious about your people.

Next, instead of guessing…ask them! Have a candid conversation with them about how they like to receive communications, what drives them forward at work, and what they expect from you. You may find that things you assumed during the “getting to know you” phase were incorrect. Getting the information from the source is key because not only are you ensuring that the information is accurate, but you’re showing your people that you care about them individually.

Then, once you have “the lay of the land” as to who your people are in depth, you can begin the difficult task of looking within yourself. It’s important to go through that same exercise with yourself. You need to know who you are, your situation, and how you like to communicate/be communicated with. You must be honest with yourself during this time, so that you know where you are in relation to your team.

Finally, you can put this all together. Start by finding points of commonality and difference with you and those on your team. Once you have that part sorted, you can start mapping. By mapping, I mean that you can build a personality board wherein you have a name and some notes on each person. You can do this on a white board, a spreadsheet, a piece of paper, really any medium will do. It’s important at first to not do this all mentally, because there will be some things which you miss by using a mental model. Once you have mapped out your team, take time to sit with the map and get comfortable deeply ingraining the information for each person in your memory.

When you have done all of that round work, you are then free and able to recall that information about your people ad hoc, employing the communication styles and motivators necessary to achieve maximum effectiveness. Not only will your people thank you for doing this, but you will soon realize that it’s much easier to meet your people where they are, rather than pushing your ways upon them. This does take a lot of work, but if it was easy, it wouldn’t be leadership.

“Meet me where I am.”

I wanted to include a small section on this because it’s vitally important to the success of The Golden Leader model. Leadership is not about you, it is about your team. Meeting someone where they are doesn’t have to cause a ruckus, nor be something you shout from the rooftops about doing. It boils down to caring about the mental wellbeing of others. Meeting someone where they are can take many forms, too many to list, in fact. However, if you know that one of your people has a need, it’s incumbent upon you as the leader to see that the need is met as much as possible.

The Final Word

Leadership is an awesome responsibility and privilege. We all want to be treated well, and as individuals. As a leader, you have the power to let someone know that you care about them by learning who they are, getting to know their situation, meeting them where they are, and caring for them. In business, no amount of dollars and cents matter if your people are unhappy because of something within your sphere of influence.

When things are difficult and you’re struggling with leadership challenges, always remember The Golden Rule, to treat others the way you want to be treated.