The authors' describe their strategies for setting the example by breaking each strategy down into more action steps. They also provide many examples of how these strategies work in the real world, presumably to clarify their validity to the reader.

The first strategy, "Personify the shared values", is described using several real world examples which culminate in four steps that can assist the reader's organization to exemplify their values. Those steps are to "spend time and attention wisely", "watch your language", ask purposeful questions" and "seek feedback". (78)

Spending time and attention wisely is described as "arriving early, staying late, and being there to show you care." and "being the first to do something that everyone should value." (80)

Watching your language doesn't mean don't swear, it means that "[l]eaders understand and are attentive to language. They know the power of words." Words also "evoke images of what people hope to create with others and how they expect people to behave". (82)

Asking purposeful questions is described as "being intentional and purposeful about the questions you ask" and making sure "that the questions you ask are directly related to the values that you hold dear." (83)

The final step for personifying your shared values is to seek feedback. The authors state that this is an area that most leaders tend to miss, yet is very important for assessing one's own effectiveness.

The second strategy is to "teach others to model the values." Three steps are provided for doing this. They are to "confront critical incidents", "tell stories" and "reinforce the behavior you want repeated". (88) Minus the examples the authors again use to legitimize these steps, the definitions for each of the steps are rather straightforward.

To confront critical incidents is to "respond to those disruptive occurrences in the life of your organization in ways that reinforce core values." To tell stories is to "publically give examples of what team members do to live the values." Finally, to reinforce repeatable behavior, "keep score and measure performance to determine consistency with values. Tangibly and intangibly recognize performance that's consistent with espoused values." (ibid)

With the completion of the authors' advice for setting the example, the next part of chapter four describes "action steps that you can use to improve and apply your capacity to Set the Example." (89) "Do a personal audit", "Develop a routine for questioning" and "Put storytelling on your meeting agendas" are the steps they recommend. (98)

Upon completion of this chapter I was struck by three things.

First, this all seems like common sense to me. But I've found that most useful information I've discovered is common sense written in a way that sticks with me. So I think from that perspective the steps the authors recommend are useful.

The second thing I was struck by was that this chapter could have been written in four pages instead of 25. The examples helped to a degree, but the points were straightforward enough that I didn't need so many examples.

Finally, the many examples the authors did provided seemed to express only a leader's perspective of their own actions, which seems very arrogant to me. Considering the value the authors give to feedback, wouldn't corroborating evidence be useful? I was at least hoping for an example in which someone who followed a leader described that leader's success. The lack of this actually made me question the validity of the authors' arguments, since it's not that uncommon in my experience for someone to exaggerate their own importance, or to adjust facts to fit a story they want to communicate. That makes me question the leadership of the very people the authors used in the examples.

What do you think? Are the authors invalidating their own argument by not providing legitimate examples? Are there leadership principles the authors themselves espouse that are missing because of this?

(please note: after making several attempts I was unable to access this blog on Sunday. I apologize for any inconvenience the lateness of this article has imposed upon anyone.)