The Law of the Picture (13)

People Do What People See

The Law of the Picture is based on the idea that people do, not what you tell them, but what they see you do.  You can talk a great talk, but people follow your walk.  To follow the Law of the Picture, you must identify how you want to live your life, what you want to be remembered for, and what virtues and what example you want to set for your followers in the area of character.  

Its starts with leading from the front.  Your followers must realize that you are always willing and able to do everything that you are asking of them.  Military Legen Dick Winters, known for being "the best combat leader in World War II," had a philosophy of "officers go first."  Whenever his troops needed to assault an enemy position, Winters was in front leading the charge.  He once summed up his approach to leadership saying, 

"I may not have been the best combat commander, but I always strove to be.  My men depended on me to carefully analyze every tactical situation, to maximize the resources that I had at my disposal, to think under pressure, and then tot lead them by personal example."

 All good leaders and coaches have a vision and a plan.  What seperates a lot of them is that they understand that when leaders show the way with right actions, their followers copy them and succeed.

People do what people see.

Great leaders always have to qualities: they are both highly visionary and highly practical.  They create a great vision, but at the same time, they are practical enough to know that vision without action achieves nothing.  They make themselves responsible for helping their followers to take action.  That can be difficult because followers often cannnot envision the future as the leader does.  They can't picture what's best for the team.  They lost track of the big picture.  Why?  Because vision has a tendency to leak.

Vision is like making a copy from a copy machine.  The more copies you make, the more watered down the vision becomes.  You have to model and live your vision everyday to prevent the vision from being watered down as it trickles through the organization.

Communication is critical.  Good leaders must communicate the vision clearly, creatively, and continually.  The leader's effective communication of the vision makes the picture clear.  But that is not enough - the leader must live the vision.  The leader's effective modeling of the vision makes the picture come alive!

Good leaders set the example and the others are going to do what the leader does - for better or for worse.

You can issue all the memos and give all the motivational speeches you want, but if the rest of the people in your organization don't see you putting forth your very  best effort every single day, they won't either - Colin Powell

A good supervisor is a catalyst, not a drill sergeant.  He creates an atmosphere where intelligent people are willing to follow him.  He doesn't command; he convinces."  Nothing is more convincing than living out what you say you believe. - Whitley David

One of the biggest challenges that leaders face is raising our standard of living to our standard of teaching.  Make an effort to not teach out anything that you do not live out.  

Leaders tell but never teach until they practice what they preach.  Always work on changing yourself before you try to improve or change others.  Your standard of excellence should be higher for yourself than those you set for others.  The people that you lead want leaders whose beliefs and actions line up.  They want good models who lead from the front.

Leadership is more caught than taught.

You cannot ask those who work for you to do something you're unwilling to do yourself.  It is up to you to set your standard of behavior. - Rudy Guiliani

Applying The Law of the Picture

1 - Combine the Law of Process with the Law of the Picture to ensure that you are growing yourself first so that you can meet and live the expectations that you set for others.  The primary example that you set for your followers comes in the area of character, and that is the area you need to address first before trying to change others.

2 - Give yourself a character audit - write down the characteristics and qualities that you expect from yourself and others.  Then think about your actions and gauge whether they line up or whether you need to make growth plans.

3 - Identify the 3-5 things that you wish your people did better than they currently do.  Now grade your performance for each.  If your own scores are low, then you need to proceed by changing your behavior first.