RULE 39

Set the standard

If you slouch in late, argue with your customers, are disrespectful and produce shoddy work, chances are your team is going to go to hell in a handcart. If, on the other hand, and I assume this is more likely the case, you arrive not only on time but early, do your work well and on time (see Rule 38), behave like a decent, honest, civilized human being and use your talent, chances are your staff will go to the top.

Everyone needs someone to look up to, someone they can respect and want to emulate. Sorry, matey, but that someone is you. Tough call, I know. If you think heroes are so out of date, old-fashioned and redundant, then think again. Every one of your team has a special relationship with you. You are their leader, their inspiration, their boss (there’s a word to make you shudder, but that’s what you are), their mentor, guide, teacher, hero, role model, champion, defender, guardian. To be all these things means you have to set an example. You have to play the part. You have to set standards. You have to be that role model.

The bottom line is: if you don’t care, why should they? You’ve got to set an example in everything you do. Think before you speak. Consider how you react. ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ doesn’t work. Be what you want to see in them.

You’ve also got to go beyond that and raise their stakes. You’ve got to give your staff something to aspire to, something to want to raise themselves up to. That’s you.

Ideally, you’ll have some style, some flair, some spark of originality that will set you apart from the herd – we’re thinking Lauren Bacall and Cary Grant here, not Meat Loaf and early Madonna.^*

You’ve got to look the part, act the part, do the part – method acting here: feel the manager, think the manager, be the manager.