New leaders set the tone

As I’ve said before one of the things that is your job, and that you must never shirk, delegate, or otherwise avoid, is to set the tone. “Tone” is the general atmosphere that you create in your workplace or for your team.

This is one area where you really should lead by example. You should start by communicating the basics of what you stand for. How you do this depends on the size of your team, and your personal style. There are many ways to approach this problem, but two broad classes are distinguished by whether you build from the bottom up or push it down from the top.

A big push or dribble over time?

If you are comfortable talking about the softer things in life, your values and life philosophy, and if you have a medium- to large-sized team, then you may want to consider having a team meeting where you outline your values explicitly. This approach falls in the big push camp.

This is a pretty good life exercise because it gives you the opportunity to give some thought to what you actually do stand for, and the act of articulating it for others will crystallize it for you.

Standing up in front of a group and articulating what you stand for, possibly even with slides, will bring visions of 7th-grade poetry recitations and night sweats to many of you. If you aren’t comfortable doing this, it will be clear to your audience, and your message will get lost in your discomfort. You’ll likely lose more than you could possibly gain.

If you have comfort issues with this kind of formal presentation, you do have other options.

In the dribble over time vein, you could look for opportunities in everyday interactions to highlight the values behind the decisions you are asked to make. For example, consider a situation in which you are working on a project report with one of your teammates. Faced with a decision to finesse the project progress numbers or be honest about a schedule slip in a project, choose the path of honesty, and tell your teammate why you made the decision to be honest.

For example, instead of just saying “let’s put the real numbers in,” say something like “well, I’ve always believed that it really is best to be honest. It’s going to mean some tough questions from the boss, but I think this is the best way to go in the long run.” That sort of thing.

Doing it the hard way is sometimes a must

There may arise a case when you must consider finding a way to deal with any discomfort you may have about a values presentation.

If you are suddenly assigned to a large organization in which you have had no previous leadership role, you almost have to have an introductory all-hands meeting where you introduce yourself and your values to your new team.

In articulating your values be sensitive to change

In general I think it’s true that most people hate change. What they seem to hate even more than change, however, is not being on the train with everyone else as it leaves the station. In changing the culture of a workplace, you can use this stay-in-the-gang mentality to reach the most hardened staff members and bring them over to the new way of thinking.

Set the tone in your organization by telling everyone what you stand for, and what they can expect from you. If you are, or can become, comfortable doing it in a formal all-hands presentation, then do it that way. This will put you on record with a public commitment that you won’t soon break.

This post is inspired by material in my book, The Only Trait of a Leader.