How High Standards Affect Team Success

How can you bring out the best in people? I’ve been in leadership for over 20 years, and I’ve tried just about every approach—some were great, some flopped spectacularly. But there’s one formula that Frances Frei and Anne Morriss shared in the book Unleashed that works: Deep Devotion + High Standards. (Frances and Anne are amazing btw). Get the combination right, and you unlock the best in your people. Miss the mark, and your leadership falls into traps. High Standards, Low Devotion = Judgment You push for excellence but don’t offer the support needed to reach it. Your team feels crappy. High Devotion, Low Standards = Indulgence You genuinely care but fail to challenge. I’ll admit, I’m sometimes guilty of this with my kids 🙂 Low Devotion, Low Standards = Neglect You don’t expect much, and you don’t provide much. You will not get much. ✅ High Devotion, High Standards = High Performance You’re fully invested in people’s success while holding them to a high bar. This is where great leadership happens. So how do you make sure you’re leading with both deep devotion and high standards? Here’s what’s worked for me: 1. Set clear expectations (and don’t be vague) People should always know exactly what’s expected of them—no guessing, no surprises. Regularly communicate goals and hold your team accountable. 2. Give real, direct feedback No sugarcoating, no waiting for annual reviews. Be honest, be specific, and do it often. The best feedback helps people course-correct before things go off track. 3. Go to bat for your team If they need resources—more staff, better tools, your time—make it happen. Deep devotion isn’t just a phrase; it’s action. This isn’t easy, but leadership rarely is. The best leaders challenge and support in equal measure. How do you bring out the best in your teams?

When it comes to leadership, people don’t fear high expectations or a tough climb. They fear uncertainty and lack of clarity. Great people get energized by high expectations and being held to a high bar, with a big caveat. The goal must be clear, and the path must be visible. When the bar keeps moving, the goals are fuzzy, or the finish line is constantly shifting. That’s when morale drops. That’s when people start to burn out. It's not from pressure, but rather from the discomfort of ambiguity. Eventually, it leads to a lack of trust in leadership, and that is when you've really lost. I've definitely learned this the hard way. You can challenge people. However, only if you also provide them with clarity, transparency, a clear vision, and proper incentives. Your team isn't scared of the mountain. They just want to know which mountain you're climbing and why!

High Expectations Alone Don’t Drive Performance—Support Does You’ve seen it before. A leader sets the bar high, expecting results, but the team struggles. Instead of improvement, frustration builds. Pressure increases, but engagement drops. The leader assumes the team lacks effort, when in reality, they lack support. High expectations without support create resistance, not results. People don’t rise when they feel pressured—they rise when they feel equipped. If your team isn’t performing, ask yourself: Are they not working hard enough, or do they not have what they need to succeed? Leadership isn’t about lowering the bar—it’s about raising the level of support. The best teams don’t thrive because they’re pushed harder; they thrive because they’re given the tools, guidance, and accountability to grow. Here is what leaders do: ✅ Set Clear Expectations – Define success in simple, actionable terms. ✅ Equip & Empower – Provide training, feedback, and the right tools. ✅ Encourage & Challenge – Push them to improve, but make sure they know you have their back. ✅ Accountability with Care – Hold them to high standards while giving them the support to reach them. When people feel supported, they don’t just meet expectations—they exceed them. Expectations without support create stress. Expectations with support create success. #Leadership #LeadershipDevelopment #Coaching #HighPerformance

You are what you tolerate. Not what you preach. Not what’s written in your mission statement. Not what’s in your handbook. What you allow. Daniel Coyle, in “The Culture Code”, studied high-performing teams—from Navy SEALs to the San Antonio Spurs—and found a surprising truth: Culture isn’t set by big speeches. It’s shaped by the smallest tolerated behaviors. One study he shares found that just one toxic team member can drop performance by 30-40%. Why? Because humans are wired to mirror group norms. When leaders let negativity, missed deadlines, or blame-games slide, others unconsciously adopt the same behavior. Before long, mediocrity becomes the standard. Gregg Popovich, the legendary Spurs coach, understood this. He didn’t just demand excellence—he refused to tolerate disengagement, selfishness, or lack of effort. He reinforced accountability daily, not through punishment, but by setting high standards for commitment, respect, and responsibility. His teams knew the bar, and they met it. Great cultures don’t happen by accident. They happen when leaders decide, this is what we stand for—and we won’t tolerate anything less. If you want to dive deeper into how the best teams create strong cultures, I highly recommend “The Culture Code” by Daniel Coyle. #leadership #culture #accountability

I believe setting a high bar is one of the most powerful things you can do as a leader. For every team of lazy thinkers, there’s a doppelgänger team out there who refuses to settle: This team isn’t just ticking off boxes. They are innovating, challenging assumptions, and pushing. This team is scanning for inspiration and keeping an ear to the ground for what customers want. They realize they don’t have that many levers, and can’t afford to cavalierly pull levers in a half-assed way. They know there’s a spectrum of quality for any attempt. They know there’s no upper bound for how strong you can be at any skill where there’s craft and judgment involved, including writing, coding, design, sales, etc. They acknowledge that aiming for a high bar can feel challenging in the moment, but being great at your job is rewarding and fun. This team knows what excellence is and aims for it, sometimes hits it, and often acknowledges the gap in their vision vs their skill. The second team doesn’t even realize they have low standards: This team makes a half-assed attempt, then claims, “This channel (THE ENTIRE CHANNEL) doesn’t work.” This team uses excuses like “there’s a speed vs quality trade-off!” when they are not remotely close to moving fast enough or shipping work that’s high quality enough to breach that boundary. This team leaves money on the table, every week, and with every project, because they make dozens of mediocre micro-decisions when executing. They default to knee-jerk reactions like “if we set bigger goals, we need to hire more people” instead of realizing that a lean team of the right people can be just as effective. They cite popular aphorisms like “perfect is the enemy of good” to justify subpar work, instead of admitting there’s room to improve their execution. They do okay work, at an okay speed, but feel like they’re sprinting and producing A+ work. When you challenge them, they are insulted. There is a disconnect: They think they are producing high-quality work, but objectively, it’s simply passable. And therein lies the problem: Their standards are too low. ___ In tomorrow's newsletter, I'm diving into the topic of setting a high bar: Part I: Why you should set higher standards Part II: Challenges when raising the bar Part III: How to normalize a culture of excellence It's a meaty topic. Link in comments to get it in your inbox.

Teams rise (or fall) to the level of their leaders. I don’t ask anyone to match the hours I put into my job. I work as much as I do because that’s what the role demands. As executives, we’re the tone-setters. This isn’t just about hours logged. It’s about the signals we send every day: • How we show up on calls. • The energy we bring to conversations. • The professionalism in our actions, from being active on Slack to showing up to calls prepared (and not in pajamas). If we slack off, the team will pick up on it. If we don’t adhere to high standards ourselves, we can’t expect others to do the same. Being an executive doesn’t come with a hall pass to coast. A 25-year career isn’t an excuse for three-day workweeks while junior employees hustle to pick up the slack. Leadership is about modeling the behavior you want to see from others. If we want the team to meet high standards, we need to embody those standards ourselves. That means working hard, showing up prepared, and being present. When leaders push the pace, the entire organization moves faster, smarter, and better. It’s about creating a culture where excellence is the norm, not the exception.