From Management to Principle Based Leadership

Shifting from a restrictive style of management to principle based leadership is not for the faint-hearted. It will possibly be the personal growth journey of your life!

• Is your organization over-burdened with rigid policies, rules and procedures that stop team members from meeting customer needs?
• Rules that don't make sense and distract people from achieving the mission of any organization - to serve its customers?
• Policies that are costly both in terms of employee morale and dissatisfied customers?

If you were nodding yes to these questions, I can almost guarantee that your business is not performing at the level that you want! Read on for how you can influence this immediately!

More often than not the rules came about in an effort by a manager to control situations and people. Managers who are filled with fear that if mistakes are made it will reflect poorly on them. Managers who have a strong urge need to feel superior. This is typically known as the command and control model of leadership.

What does it mean to be a rule-based workplace?

A rule-based workplace makes decisions based on past history and precedent, following written down procedures/policies.

A rule-based workplace makes it easy for a manager to manage. S/he can consistently apply a decision, without having to think about it. The down-side is that rules can be used as a cop out for a weaker manager who reverts to statements like "Look,if it was left up to me I'd do it differently, but I have to follow the rules!" Generally weak leaders and under-performing team members love a rule-based workplace because they can hide behind the rules. They can use statements like "Look I know it doesn't make sense, but that's the rules and I have to do it that way" "I'm simply following policy".

The advantage of a rule-based workplace is that it does ensure that decisions are consistent. The disadvantage is that it may not always be the best decision in the given circumstance.

Here's an illustration of a rule based workplace that created a poor decision:

A team member is having family troubles. His wife has just been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, he's trying to organize care and school runs for children, wife to hospital, feeding the family etc. etc. Rather than take time off work (because he knows the team is short and will really struggle without him for those days), he's been coming in late each day and leaving early. Now this work place just happens to have a rule that says "Come in late 15 minutes and your pay will be docked".

What decision would you have made in this situation?

What actually happened, was that payroll automatically docked his pay. When the team member opened his pay slip that week he hit the roof - and rightly so! After several weeks of wrangling with the payroll office we were able to get the money re-instated. The outcome of this situation was from that day forward we lost what had once been a very committed team member, to one who became cynical and under-performing - and as a leadership team we deserved it!).

The problem with rules is they don't allow for flexibility and reasonableness in a given situation.

So what to do? Do we get rid of all the rule and have it as a free-for-all, so that we move from restrictive management to principle based leadership?

No, not at all. This is not an advocacy to get rid of all rules, policies and procedures.

By their very nature rules hamper people from being as efficient and as effective as they might. A few years back, I was working in an organization which had a rule that purchase orders over $50 had to be authorized by team leaders. This rule was costing us lost productivity of about two hours each day as people chased around looking for team leaders. We soon realized that needed to empower and trust our team members.

A rule about rules:

• Don't make one unless you have considered all its consequences,
• Will apply it to everyone, and
• Are you prepared to stand by it even when it hurts.

Your challenge is to find the rules that are senseless, that don't fit in with today's fast moving pace and unload them. For example rules, like a reserved car-space for the General Manager, Managers wear corporate clothes and front-line workers wear uniforms, only people above supervisor level are allowed to sign purchase orders etc.

So what is the difference between Command and Control Management and Principle based

Simply put, command and control (in other words rules) tell people what to do. Management by Principles provide guidelines that empower people to make good decisions.

Policies or Procedures define specifically what and how to do something - they define specific actions or behaviors. For example

A Principle is a fundamental or general truth that helps people determine the appropriate decision given the circumstance at hand. They are guidelines that provide an indication of what to do, but not how to do it. For example

In the principle example the focus is on the responsibility of the Team Member for ensuring they are in attendance at work. In the Policy example the responsibility rests with the Management Team to ensure they have a tracking system which will 'catch' people who have been absent more than three times and then hand out the appropriate punishment.

As you can see from the two examples above, the primary difference between policies and principles is that Principles are more empowering to Team Members. Take this simple quiz to see if you can discern the difference between a principle and a policy.

Why it is better to shift from Management to Principles

• Principles make it possible for the people within an organization to be flexible and creative in how they resolve problems
• Principles enable front-line and leaders to be responsive to the changing needs of the market place.
• Rather than sticking to the way it's always been done, principles make it possible for people to make good decisions that suit the circumstance at hand and the objectives they are trying to achieve.
• Principles enable leaders to re-design their organization and work processes to meet the needs of the marketplace
• Principles can inspire people to be a part of the vision they share rather than focus on the constraints they must be on guard against
• People are responsible for the decisions they make (in other words no more hiding behind the rule book)

Four Steps to Shifting from Management to Principle Based

1. Articulate the values that will drive the achievement of performance outcomes
2. Identify all policies and procedures that are irrational and inconsistent with your organizational vision
3. Develop the principles that will empower people to achieve the organizational vision
4. Apply the principles

Shifting from Management to Principle-based leadership is not for the faint-hearted. It means that you must make decisions based upon YOUR judgment. When you first start out with this style of leadership, you will have people reporting to you who will call you unfair, because you made a decision this way today and a slightly different way tomorrow. This can be tough...

So, when you first move to a principle-based environment, allow yourself to adjust your methods as experience teaches you what does and doesn't work.

Being a principle-based leader does not mean you allow a free-for-all. You must stick to your standards. Principles simply enable you to have the flexibility to choose an effective approach for each situation. Certainly at times people will make incorrect decisions.

If it is possible to have people manage themselves based on principles rather than on a whole bunch of rules, you save your company an enormous amount of money ... you are dollars ahead and you've created a great place to work.

Go to Effective Styles of Leadership from Management to Principle Based

Here's a terrific article on principle-based leadership in action Take the Principles vs Policies Quizz here

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