Leading by example is the practice of setting the standard through what the leader visibly does, in front of the team, on the ordinary day when nothing dramatic is happening. In the book's argument it is the entire mechanism by which a standard is transmitted, since the team copies what it sees and reads what it is not shown.
The idea came from a gesture several hoteliers described independently. A general manager walking through the lobby sees an empty coffee cup on the arm of a chair, lifts it without comment, carries it to a back of house tray and keeps walking, without looking around to see whether anyone noticed. From outside the gesture looks almost preposterously small. Every great leader I have spoken with insists it is the whole argument. Aaron Kaupp, then at Le Royal Monceau in Paris, treats the lobby cup and the midnight wait for a VIP as a single category.
“If a general manager picks up an empty coffee cup on their way through the lobby, or stays in the office until the middle of the night to greet a VIP guest, that shows dedication and passion.” Aaron Kaupp, then General Manager, Le Royal Monceau, Raffles Paris
The kitchen version is quieter still. A chef stands at the pass at the end of lunch service and sees that a nineteen year old cook has set up his station for dinner in the wrong order, the chiffonade ahead of the brunoise, the citrus on the wrong side of where his hands will need it. The chef walks behind the line, switches two containers, slides the lemon to the right and says nothing. The cook will see the change when he turns back, and for the rest of his career he will set up his mise the way the chef set it up. Matthew Orlando, whose restaurant Amass in Copenhagen became a global reference for cooking without waste, drew the principle in one line.
“Because I set the tone at the top, I would never ask my staff to do something that I wouldn’t do myself.” Matthew Orlando, then chef and owner, Amass, Copenhagen
Leading by example is often confused with performance, and the team can tell the difference within about a week. Performance is the chef who is loud during service because loudness is what a chef is supposed to look like, or the general manager who walks the floor with a phone buzzing in hand because being seen on a call is what importance is supposed to look like. Presence is the leader bringing more of their actual motivation into the room than anyone else, having left the morning’s domestic weather at the back of house door. It is also confused with charisma. The leaders a team follows are the ones who do the small things in front of the team every day, and keep doing them after the novelty of the role has worn off.
What the idea asks of a leader is consistency and a willingness to be seen. Philip Barnes described staying in his own hotel as being stalked by six hundred people who knew what he ate for breakfast, and said that anyone who dislikes that scrutiny is in the wrong role. It asks the harder thing too, which is admitting error in front of the team. Peter Hopgood rebuilt his leadership posture at Outrigger Fiji in full view of six hundred staff, and the visibility is what made the change permanent. A private adjustment reverts under stress. The public one became the new standard.
The idea runs through Chapter 3, Leading by Example, and sets up Chapter 4, First the Team, since every gesture in the chapter means what it means because there is a team in the room watching.