Most Leaders Expect Results. Better Leaders Do This.

There’s something I wish I had understood earlier in my leadership career.

Like most leaders, I focused heavily on results.

Sales results. Performance results. Customer experience results.

If the results weren’t where they needed to be, I would talk with the team about improving the results.

Over time, I learned something that changed how I led.

Most leaders expect better results.

Better leaders focus on the specific behaviors and actions that create those results.

Results are lagging indicators.
Behaviors are leading indicators.

Here’s a simple way to know which one you’re doing.

If your conversations sound like “We need to do better with customers,” or “We need to improve our margins,” you’re focusing on results.

If your conversations sound like “We need to learn at least three things about every customer,” or “We need to find three new lines with higher margins in the next thirty days,” you’re focusing on behaviors.

When leaders get clearer about the behaviors and actions they expect, performance starts to change.

Next week, I’ll also be launching a new leadership program built around this exact idea, priced so leaders can easily participate.

What if this week you focused less on asking for better results and more on setting clearer expectations for the behaviors that create them?