{"id":31916,"date":"2019-04-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-10T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hyken.com\/leadership-sets-the-tone-of-the-culture\/"},"modified":"2024-01-18T20:02:52","modified_gmt":"2024-01-18T20:02:52","slug":"leadership-sets-tone-of-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hyken.com\/customer-service-training\/leadership-sets-tone-of-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Leadership Sets the Tone of the Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"<\/a>One of our Shepard Letter subscribers, who asked to remain anonymous, recently shared a story worth telling. To protect him from the backlash he\u2019s concerned about, we\u2019ll change his name to \u201cprotect the innocent,\u201d as the saying goes, just in case someone from his company reads this. So, we\u2019ll just refer to him as Bob.\r\n\r\nAs part of his onboarding process, Bob was put through customer service training. He learned about how to treat the company\u2019s customers with dignity and respect. Leadership came in and talked about how important it was to deliver a great customer experience to what they referred to as one of their most valuable assets: their customers. Bob was proud to be a part of this team.\r\n\r\nSeveral weeks later, the same executives that emphasized the importance of their customers started to complain about some their customers and make disparaging remarks about them, such as how certain customers were cheap or that Bob shouldn\u2019t waste time with customers who don\u2019t buy enough. (Personally, I think that customers are customers regardless of money spent, which means they deserve the same dignity and respect as anyone who pays good money for the company\u2019s product.)\r\n\r\nBob was conflicted. Didn\u2019t these same executives, not that long ago, talk about how their customers were so important, about how they must be treated with dignity and respect? He began to lose respect for his leadership.\r\n

The problem was incongruent messages.<\/h3>\r\nWhen leadership complains about customers, it gives permission for employees to do the same. It is a domino effect. Employees seek guidance from their leadership and often look at them as role models. It doesn\u2019t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the way a customer is treated or referred to by leadership affects how employees will treat the customers.\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s often said that imitation is the highest form of flattery. It\u2019s also our primary method of learning as human beings. As babies, we learn to smile by watching our parents. As children, we learn in school by watching our teachers. And in the professional world, we learn to embody our company\u2019s core values by watching organization leaders set an example.\r\n\r\nLeadership sets the tone. They are the role models for the rest of the employees. They can\u2019t demonstrate an attitude of, \u201cDo as I say, not as I do.\u201d Everyone\u2019s eyes and ears are focused on their leadership. If you are a leader \u2013 or in a position that may influence others \u2013 how do your behaviors and attitudes reflect the essence of how others act? Even if you aren\u2019t a president or CEO, you can set the standard for how you want those around you to behave.\r\n\r\n\r\n
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