You Are The Standard
In this episode of The Leadership Hustle, Andrea Fredrickson and Michelle Hill explore the truth that every leader is the standard for their team. What you say matters, but what you do matters more. When leaders promote values like collaboration, accountability, or trust but fail to live them consistently, their actions send a louder message than their words.
Andrea and Michelle discuss how leaders can unintentionally undermine their own expectations through mixed signals, selective accountability, or inconsistent behavior. These gaps can lower trust, damage morale, and drive top performers to leave. The conversation highlights how to close the gap between intention and perception by seeking honest feedback, acting on advice, and aligning daily habits with the standards you expect from others.
Listeners will walk away with tools to improve self-awareness, strengthen trust, and model the behavior they want to see across their teams.
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE
Expand Your Leadership Skills.
You Are the Standard: How Leaders Set the Tone Through Their Actions
As a leader, your words matter, but your actions matter more. In this episode of The Leadership Hustle, Andrea Fredrickson and Michelle Hill explore one of the most important lessons in leadership: you are the standard. Every choice, every reaction, and every silence shapes how your team behaves.
Leaders often communicate values like collaboration, accountability, or integrity, but if their behavior does not align, those words become empty promises. When leaders fail to live up to the standards they promote, the result is confusion, low morale, and lost trust.
Actions Speak Louder Than Expectations
Andrea and Michelle explain that what you model sets the true benchmark for your organization. Employees learn how to act by watching how you act, especially when you are not aware they are watching.
“Whatever you say is irrelevant. It’s what you do that is relevant.”
— Andrea Fredrickson“Let’s not forget what you don’t do is really relevant because people watch. They’re watching when you don’t know they’re watching.”
— Michelle Hill
Even when intentions are good, mixed messages between words and actions can erode trust. A leader who says collaboration is important but promotes only individual achievers teaches competition instead of teamwork. Likewise, a manager who says accountability matters but avoids difficult conversations models avoidance, not accountability.
The Ripple Effect of Inconsistency
When leaders behave inconsistently with what they preach, the impact spreads quickly through the organization. Employees stop feeling safe to speak up. Trust decreases. Morale drops. The best performers, who crave fairness and clarity, begin to leave.
Andrea and Michelle describe how teams quickly recognize when leaders protect certain employees, ignore poor behavior, or make exceptions for themselves. These actions communicate that standards are optional, not shared.
The result is a culture where people mirror what they see rather than what they are told.
How to Realign Behavior and Expectations
Andrea and Michelle encourage leaders to reflect on how their behavior compares to the standards they communicate. To start the process, they recommend three simple actions:
Seek Honest Advice, Not Just Feedback The word “feedback” can make people defensive. Asking for advice instead opens the door for honesty. For example, “What’s one thing I could do better as a leader?” Advice feels safer to give and helps leaders discover blind spots.
Check for Consistency Compare your actions to your expectations. If you say collaboration matters, do your decisions and rewards support it? If you say accountability is essential, are you holding yourself to the same standard as your team?
Model What You Expect Leadership behavior sets the tone for the environment. When you demonstrate respect, curiosity, and ownership, your team will follow.
Perception is Reality
One of the most important insights from this conversation is that perception shapes truth in the workplace. Feedback from employees may not always be fact, but it reflects how your leadership is experienced.
If you want to change how you are perceived, you must change what people see. Consistency, transparency, and follow-through help align your intentions with your impact.
Key Takeaways
Leadership is defined by behavior, not position or title.
Your team learns more from what you do than what you say.
Inconsistency between words and actions damages trust and culture.
Feedback is perception, and perception defines your leadership reality.
Asking for advice helps others share the truth safely.
Self-awareness and reflection build credibility and accountability.
Final Reflection
Andrea and Michelle end the episode with a powerful reminder: leadership starts in the mirror. You cannot expect your team to model what you are not living. By aligning your behavior with your expectations, you create clarity, strengthen trust, and set the foundation for a healthy, high-performing culture.
“You are the standard. What you get is based upon you.”
— Andrea Fredrickson
Listen and Learn More
🎧 Listen to this episode of The Leadership Hustle: https://www.revelagroup.com/podcast
About the Hosts
Andrea Fredrickson
Andrea Fredrickson is a thought leader and consultant at Revela, an organization based in Omaha, Nebraska specializing in the development of leaders, culture alignment, and business strategy for private and family businesses of all sizes. Revela is one of the region's most experienced thought challengers, helping individuals and companies find their greatness. Andrea has built an amazing team by believing that fundamentally people want to be successful and become better versions of themselves.
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Andrea has degrees in education, management, and business. She is the author of Insight Unseen; How to lead with 20/20 business vision. She helps people see things differently, self-reflect, and never stop looking for ways to improve themselves on a personal and professional level. Andrea has spent more than 30 years researching and developing methods to help people communicate and lead more effectively.
When Andrea isn’t working with clients, you’ll find her spending time with her family & friends and making memories by exploring new cities.
Michelle Hill
Michelle Hill is a master facilitator and coach at Revela, an organization specializing in the development of leaders and aligning the culture of privately held and family businesses of all sizes. Revela is one of the region's most experienced thought challengers, helping individuals and companies find their greatness.
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An ambitious leader, Michelle has the natural ability to create forward momentum to build teams and get results. She inspires others to look within themselves and to challenge the status quo. She helps create high-performing environments. Michelle brings a diverse background: operations, employee development, and sales in the steel, hospitality, and consulting industries.
Outside of work, you will see her competitive side engaged in her daughter’s sports and ISU athletics. She loves life, her four-legged companions, and captures all the moments through her camera’s lens.
TRANSCRIPT
Andrea Fredrickson: On this episode of The Leadership Hustle, we're going to get you out of the habit of always assuming that there's an attitude problem. Hello, and welcome to the Leadership Hustle for executives whose companies are growing fast and need leaders who are ready. Hi there, and welcome back to this episode of The Leadership Hustle. I'm Andrew Fredrickson and I'm joined with my co-host Michelle Hill. Hi. Hello. How are you? I am here. It’s been a week. It's been the same place at the same time, so I'm glad I know how to do this.
Michelle Hill: It feels like we have to have a podcast to be in the same room. I don't know, it's coming. It's starting. Yeah, it's starting to feel that way now that you say that.
Andrea Fredrickson: So anyway. Today, um, the the topic is one that I know I say this almost every episode, but more recently this has been the topic of choice for some unknown reason. Maybe it's just on my mind, but literally yesterday I was talking with, uh, a group. So this was, um, a leadership, a Second level leadership team like a location. And we were discussing the concepts of, you know, what behaviors have they gotten into the habit of tolerating and excusing like, oh, that's just Joe or yeah, I'll just it's just faster to do it myself and that kind of thing. And I said, you know, so, you know, what are you doing about it and working through it? And somebody finally said, well, what if they have an attitude problem? I'm like, hmm, funny you should bring that up.