A Situation You May Recognise
When I was watching Slow Horses, Gary Oldman’s character Jackson Lamb reminded me how people in positions of power can break rules in ways others would never get away with. The way he consistently ignores basic expectations took me straight back to my first boss in HR and Industrial Relations.
He was well regarded across the state and people relied on him for the difficult judgement calls. But he also ignored rules that applied to everyone else.
It was the early days of workplace smoking bans. He would sit in his office in his brown fabric swivel chair with a cigarette always burning. The ceiling tiles were yellow from years of it. Every time he went on leave, the Head Wardsman would take the chair away to have it professionally cleaned because it was so nicotine soaked.
What still stands out to me is that he would sit there smoking while meeting with the head of security, the person responsible for enforcing the no-smoking bylaw. They both knew the rules, and there were no consequences when he openly flouted them.
The irony, of course, is that he was the person responsible for what we now call People and Culture.
Why this matters for leaders
When leaders talk about values, people look for clues about what will count in the real work. They hear the words, but they watch the behaviour even more closely. When the two do not match, people do not just notice it. They adjust.
They start working out which expectations are firm and which ones seem optional. That shapes how they judge what matters and how they make decisions.
It also puts more on people’s shoulders. Time and energy get spent interpreting mixed messages or dealing with frustration when others ignore standards that are meant to apply to everyone. That is when you start to see delays, repeat conversations and work that needs to be redone because people were not working to the same expectations.
These small shifts add up and slow delivery more than leaders often realise.
The evidence behind this
Gallup’s research shows that managers look to senior leaders to understand which values are real and which expectations are non-negotiable. When what leaders say and what they do don’t match, managers inherit that ambiguity and pass it down the line.
Gallup’s meta-analysis reinforces the cost of this. Highly engaged teams, shaped by clear and consistent signals from their leaders, deliver 23 percent higher profitability and 18 percent higher productivity than disengaged teams. These gains come from people knowing what is expected, making decisions with confidence and not wasting time interpreting mixed messages.
When leaders model the values they talk about, managers can set a steady course. When they do not, the uncertainty compounds and teams adjust around it.
A useful frame
A leader’s behaviour often works like a lighthouse signal. People use it to understand how close they are to the edge and how to steer. The signal does not come from formal statements. It comes from what the leader does when things are busy or uncomfortable.
When a leader makes an exception from values-aligned behaviour for themselves, the signal shifts. People notice it and adjust their own behaviour, often without realising they are doing it.
And in complex organisations, even small shifts in the signal change how people prioritise, escalate and make decisions.
Ralph Waldo Emerson made an observation in Social Aims, which was later paraphrased as:
“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you want to stay steady as conditions shift, start here
- What signals could people be taking from how you behave under pressure, not from what you say?
- Where might the exceptions you make for yourself be creating ripples that lower standards or shift expectations for others?
- What do you need to prioritise so your behaviour lines up with the expectations you rely on others to meet?
