A Concept to Challenge Your Status Quo
“Don’t lower your expectations to meet your performance. Raise your level of performance to meet your expectations.” —Ralph Marston
If only leadership were as simple as setting a high bar and expecting results. Reality? How you challenge people matters as much as what you demand.
Imagine leading like an expert coach:
- With only high standards but little real connection, you’re the drill sergeant whose team works out of fear and leaves at the first chance.
- With only deep relationships, but soft standards? You’re the beloved coach whose teams celebrate but never win.
But when you bring both, uncompromising standards AND authentic relationship, people run through walls for you.
The CEO’s Real-World Equation
Low Relationship + High Standards = Dictatorship.
Results may come, until the talent leaves or loyalty vanishes.
High Relationship + Low Standards = “Love Them Out” of the Role.
People may adore you, but mediocrity slowly infects the mission.
High Relationship + High Standards = High-Performance Culture.
You’re building champions who trust you and push themselves farther than they thought possible.
Years ago, I kept letting a senior leader slide in a time they were having a number of personal matters impact their performance adversely, convincing myself it was compassion. By being overly sympathetic I confused kindness with avoidance. That caused the leader and their team to underperform and created a financial challenge for that leader on top of the personal challenges.
Yet when standards returned, so did results.
Caring means having the courage to hold the line, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Challenge for the Week
- Audit your direct reports: Where do you lead with standards but little relationship? Where’s the reverse?
- Share this newsletter, then discuss as a team:
Which quadrant does your culture live in?
What would shift if you brought high relationship and high standards together for every leader?
Forward this to your executives, begin a conversation that might just rewrite your company’s legacy.
