What Leading by Example Actually Requires

Every leader says they lead by example. The question is which example are they actually setting. Jeff Hill

Key Takeaway: Leading by example is not a value you hold. It is a behavioral discipline you practice every day, whether you are paying attention or not.

Ask any leader if they lead by example and the answer is almost always yes. Not defensively. Genuinely. Most leaders believe this about themselves, and they are not wrong to believe it. The problem is that "leading by example" as a statement of intent tells you almost nothing about what is actually happening.

Your team is watching you more carefully than you know. Not to judge you. Because they are trying to understand what is really expected here. Not what the values poster on the wall says. What the person at the front of the room actually does. That is the example which teaches.

If the example you are setting is clear, intentional, and consistent, that is a leadership asset. If it is inconsistent or unexamined, it is a source of confusion you may not even realize you are creating.

The Behaviors That Constitute Leading by Example

The Gap Between Intent and Behavior

Most leaders who struggle with modeled behavior are not struggling because they have bad values. They are struggling because they have never mapped the specific behaviors which constitute those values in practice. And when the map is missing, the team fills in the blanks, and usually not in the way you would choose.

"I value transparency" is a starting point. But what does transparency look like at 4:45 on a Friday when something has gone wrong and you do not have all the answers yet? What does it look like in a team meeting when someone raises a concern you are not ready to address? What does it look like when the board or your leadership asks you to hold something close and your team can tell something is off?

When the behaviors are not defined, the values are effectively aspirational. And aspirational values, lived out inconsistently, teach a specific lesson to your team: the stated values are what we say, and the behaviors are what we do. Your team will follow the behaviors. They always do.

A prime example of this is a senior leader who professes, "My door is always open." However, if you open that door to provide feedback which contradicts their plans or self-perception, and they react negatively, the behavior often becomes known as "I do not have an open door policy" to the organization.

What the Praxis-to-Being℠ Framework Addresses

Being the Leader Means Always Teaching Something

Praxis-to-Being℠ starts from a simple and demanding premise: at the level of leadership, your behaviors are always communicating. There is no neutral moment. Every meeting you are five minutes late to teaches something. Every time you interrupt someone teaches something. Every time you follow through, stay calm under pressure, or give credit publicly teaches something.

This is not an invitation to paranoia. It is an invitation to intention. The leader who understands this stops asking "am I leading by example?" and starts asking "what am I currently teaching?" Those are very different questions, and the second one is far more useful.

The shift from intent to impact is the center of this framework. You are not being evaluated on your intentions. You are being experienced through your behaviors. And the gap between what you intend and what your team experiences is the exact territory where leadership development lives.

Making the Implicit Explicit

The most practical step available to any leader who wants to close this gap is also the most underused: write down the five behaviors which you believe most represent how you lead, and then spend 30 days tracking whether those behaviors are actually showing up.

Not to grade yourself. Not to produce a performance review. To see clearly. The goal is observation before intervention. Most leaders who do this exercise find at least one behavior they believe is consistent which is actually quite sporadic. And they find at least one behavior they were not thinking about at all which is landing loudly with the team.

When the implicit becomes explicit, you have a workable target. You can track it. You can build habits around it. You can ask a trusted colleague to reflect back what they are seeing. Behavior modeling is not a talent. It is a habit system. And like every habit system, it becomes reliable when it is designed rather than left to chance.

Leadership Application

If you are ready to explore what that looks like in your specific context, I would enjoy the conversation.

Schedule a call here 👉 30 minute introduction

About Jeff Hill

Jeff Hill is a leadership coach and the founder of Jeff Hill Consulting, LLC. He works with leaders in nonprofit and for-profit organizations to build the clarity, systems, and behaviors which make sustained leadership possible.