It was a float trip day in the summer between my sophomore and junior years of high school. Cindy would be a senior in the fall, and I’ll admit I was taken by her beauty. Everyone in our group began pairing up for the day’s float and she looked directly at me and said, “let’s go.” I was in awe that she chose me as I’ll admit I was smitten (I hadn’t yet met Deb, the one true love of my life) and excited to spend the day with her. As we readied our canoe, I learned what her guardrails were for the day, which were not about socializing with me. With a captivating smile on her face she said, “Dale, I need to work on my tan today and need help. Your job will be not letting this canoe tip over and keeping water off me.” She then removed her cover up, revealing a wonderful swimsuit, put on some baby oil to enhance her tan (yes, girls did that 50 years ago), laid herself back in the canoe, and I went to work. I’d paddle on the right, then pass the oar behind my head to the left side and paddle on the left. I repeated that simple process throughout the day and to the best of my memory, somewhat clouded by my view, I did a good job managing those two guardrails. We didn’t tip over, and the splashes of water from my paddle and from other boats were minimal throughout the day. It was successful.
Guardrails are important. They exist for the purpose of keeping a driver on the road. Bad things can happen when we don’t have guardrails.
The same is true for leaders who have the responsibility of setting guardrails for their teams. Guardrails are expectations about what a leader expects and won’t accept. For reasons that I struggle to understand, I find many leaders don’t set them and leave everything to chance. The leader is for some reason both surprised and disappointed in the results that follow not being what they hoped for or expected. Having no guardrails is a little like the old saying, “if you aim at nothing, you’re guaranteed to hit nothing.”
In my experience, I find leaders don’t set guardrails for a variety of reasons. Here are the most common.
They assume – Yes, they just simply assume everyone knows what they should do and shouldn’t be doing. You can assume people know only after you’ve clearly defined expectations and what you won’t accept and managed to those. Once they’ve repeated behaviors you expect over and over, only then can you assume they’ll do what’s right.
They don’t know what they want and don’t want – It’s hard to imagine a leader not knowing, but some don’t give it a thought. They know what they would and wouldn’t do but find it difficult to define expectations and what’s unacceptable. They forget their brain isn’t the default setting for everyone who works for them.
They forget they’re in charge – Sometimes a leader forgets they are in charge. They want to be friends with everyone who works for them. If you are the leader, you are in charge and if you don’t want to be in charge, don’t be a leader. Your job is to outline expectations and what is not acceptable. Staff truly prefer it when a leader provides clarity about performance and behavioral expectations. It makes it easier for them.
What should you do? Set guardrails for your team, don’t be shy.
- If you want people to work together, tell them you expect it.
- If you want them to show up to meetings on time, tell them.
- If you don’t want team members to have their camera turned off on a Zoom or Teams meeting, tell them it’s unacceptable.
This list can be as long or as short as you want it, but it’s your responsibility to create the list of things you expect and what you won’t accept.
Your team will thank you for it.
Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone. Romans 12:18 NLT
