When Average Becomes Normal: How to Keep Standards High
When you look at a team that frequently produces excellent work, you will see that all the members know what is meant by excellent work because their leader has made it clear, in specific and obvious ways, over time.
Those in leadership positions who value high standards almost never lose that commitment. What tends to change, even though no one decides it should, is the extent to which the standard remains visible to the people carrying out the work. When the standard becomes unclear, the team gives up trying to meet it and begins aiming for whatever is finally approved.
Why High-Performing Teams Raise Their Own Bar
When a leader has established a standard worth aiming for, competent teams then take responsibility for it. Your team will always respond to two signals:
- What is praised
- The things that are allowed to pass without being commented on
The way in which these two cues work together establishes the standard, no matter what the statement on the wall says.
Quality is only reached if you clearly state what excellence entails rather than merely outlining what does not meet that standard. According to Gallup, about one in five employees feels motivated to carry out outstanding work as a result of feedback that mainly focuses on their weaknesses. Just making corrections is not sufficient to establish a standard; it is essential to be clear about the aim.
What Drive for Excellence Looks Like at the Leadership Level
At senior levels, the Drive for Excellence changes from being about one’s own output to being about making the standard visible to all the people around you. This is one of the key capabilities contained within the Disciplined for Results pillar of Bright Wire. This pillar is part of Bright Wire’s Leadership Capability Framework, a comprehensive framework that highlights the leadership capabilities needed to achieve success in business today and for the future.
Leaders who do this well give feedback against the standard itself, not only when something falls short. They also model growth openly, so the expectation that everyone keeps developing does not land only on junior staff. That modelling matters more than most leaders assume because just a handful of leaders are considered strong at coaching and delivering quality feedback, and very few can set goals that genuinely challenge their teams. Capability gaps at the leadership level are usually the real reason for standards slipping, long before anyone on the team underperforms.
A Familiar Pattern
Suppose a Vice President routinely asked her directors to draw up reports for executive meetings. In the case where these reports did not have strategic depth, she would rewrite them herself, usually well into the evening, in order to ensure that the end result was of a good quality.
Although her directors were able to collect information, they had not acquired the judgment needed to decide what the executives really needed to know, which decision was under consideration, or which risks should be given attention. Unaware of this, they had begun to depend on her to carry out the most difficult kind of thinking for them.
After several months of executive coaching, she changed her approach. She set four expectations for every executive report:
- a clear decision statement
- relevant evidence
- key risks
- a recommended course of action.
If a report did not meet the required standard, she would meet with the Director, restate what was expected, ask questions which showed the discrepancy, and then send the report back for alteration.
At first this method took longer, but after a number of cycles it had produced directors who were able to meet the standard without her having to rescue the work; the standard remained high and responsibility for achieving it became shared.
A Framework for Keeping the Standard High
A leader can re-establish a standard by carrying out four steps.
Step 1: Look at what is getting through.
When quality slips within a capable team, the real issue is usually what work gets accepted, not who is underperforming.
Step 2: Restate the standard
A team cannot aim for a target it has never described. Revisit the standard explicitly, even when you assume everyone already knows it.
Step 3: Coach to the standard instead of personally producing it
Stepping in to redo the work tells your team the standard is your responsibility to protect, not theirs.
Step 4: Recognize the standard when it is met
In-the-moment acknowledgment strengthens a bar more effectively than any written policy, and it costs nothing but attention.
This matters because the formal system rarely does the job for you: according to Gallup, barely 2% of Fortune 500 CHROs believe their performance management system inspires employees to improve, and only about one in five employees describe their reviews as fair, transparent, or genuinely motivating. If the system will not reinforce the standard, the leader has to.
Excellence Does Not Maintain Itself
Leaders who maintain a high standard over a long period of time have one thing in common: even long after the initial discussion has ended, they carry on with it, both in speaking and in small instances. Psychological safety and high standards can exist together if a leader remains consistent. As long as the leader who has set the standard also participates in the difficult conversations, the team can maintain a high standard while still feeling safe raising concerns about it.
If the output of your team has begun to decline without an obvious reason, the situation warrants a more in-depth examination before it becomes a habit. The services that Bright Wire provides in leadership credibility and leadership growth include two of the factors that often lie behind a falling standard.
If you want support in developing this kind of clarity in how you lead, Bright Wire offers executive coaching for senior leaders specifically on this type of change. Get in touch when you are ready to have the conversation.
