How to Write a Leadership Philosophy

Somewhere in the next few months, you are going to have to make a decision that makes half the room unhappy. You will also not get advance notice for that day. It will likely just show up on an ordinary Tuesday in the middle of the week that was already full, and you will have about a day to decide.

That is exactly the type of moment that a leadership philosophy is for. Now, most managers who even think about the idea of a leadership philosophy treat it as a soft exercise, like something that you do at an offsite, write in a journal, but then never look at it again. And for a lot of people, that is exactly what it turns out to be because they build it the wrong way and then never use it.

And actually, the majority of managers never even think about their leadership philosophy. So either it's not done at all or it's done in a way that's not really useful. And when all goes well, right? When the team performs, when there's no reorg, when there are no retention issues, there's no strategic change that impacts your team, there's no conflict anywhere in sight.

A leadership philosophy might actually seem like just a nice-to-have

And I call these easy stretches of leadership sunshine leadership. During those times, nobody is really testing you or your principles. But then inevitably, something will break. A decision gets contentious. A strong performer starts to slip or quit.

Two people you like want incompatible things, and you have to make a decision. And that is exactly when you find out whether you have a leadership philosophy or whether you begin to shoot from the hip, are reactive, are making decisions based on emotions, and are starting to show some inconsistencies between what you say and what you actually do. And that is exactly the moment when your leadership will start to fade or fail.

And it is what we're going to cover today. My name is Ramona Shaw, and I'm the host of the Manager Track Podcast. So first, let's talk about why defining your leadership philosophy is worth your time when you already have 12 more urgent things on your desk.

Second, let's talk about the APS method and why that has to go on top of everything else. And then we talk about the three specific layers that make up a leadership philosophy so that you can turn this particular podcast immediately into your own philosophy that will help you make decisions, show up reliably and consistently, and be able to articulate quickly and concisely what type of leader you are to your current team, your stakeholders, and any new hires that you bring on the team and of course, and most importantly, I hope that you walk away knowing that a leadership philosophy is not just a document that's written words and somewhere in a folder, be it as a physical folder or somewhere on your computer.

But it is a document that you will open on a regular basis, iterate on, and then use it to optimize and elevate your leadership on a day-to-day basis

Okay, let's kick off with why a leadership philosophy matters.

There is no single correct way to lead, and that is more of a problem than it may sound. Because most leadership content hands you a method. "Hey, run your one-on-ones this way. Give feedback in that format. Delegate using this checklist." A lot of it is good, and we do that, too, a quick product placement here.

But if you adopt a method without knowing what you actually believe in, every technique stays borrowed, seems to be a script you're running. And if you then run that play, that script, and it doesn't quite fit or sit right with you or the person you're interacting with, you might conclude that the play, the script, the tool, the resource was wrong.

But usually, that is not the problem. That thing was fine, but it was not anchored to anything of yours. In our programs, I refer to this as if I am creating a block of clay, I'm creating the material, the thing that's actually going to become useful and turn into a tool in your arsenal of tools, in your kitchen or whatever you wanna use it, and I give you this piece of clay, it is then on you as the leader to take it and to shape it and make it into something that actually fits your kitchen, your situation.

So it has to be a hands-on process in order for this to be authentic and to work and to come across as true, genuine care and true, genuine leadership. Now, when you are clear on your leadership philosophy, the question of what to do with this clay or any of these resources becomes so much easier.

And when you find yourself in hard moments, knowing what to do next is a whole lot more clear than if you operate with a vague or no leadership philosophy at all

Because ultimately, with a leadership philosophy, you are checking a decision that you're about to make against something that you already settled on. Not in a moment of high pressure, not in a moment when you're emotional, but in moments when your rational, logical thinking is at its best. When you're self-reflective, when you're observing, when you're by yourself and you're actually thinking things through.

That is when you come up with your leadership philosophy. So that in stressful moments, you have the compass, the guide that will help you make those decisions. Now, managers who skip this work will end up re-litigating their own values every time something goes sideways,

And it can feel draining and stressful, but the most expensive cost of it all is that it erodes trust. Because one of the fastest ways to erode trust with a team is to hold your principles only as long as things are going well, and then you get really loose with them the moment there's real pressure.

Like you say transparency really matters, and then something goes wrong, and you went quiet. You said you do not do last-minute deadlines, and then a client pushed, and suddenly the team is working on Saturdays. Wait, what? And your team will notice a deviation very, very quickly.

You in your head, you might still argue or justified because of your emotional decision, because we make emotional decisions and then justify them with this logic we come up with. But your team members are not as, as emotionally involved in it, 'cause they're not the ones fully responsible.

They will see right through it. They will notice the inconsistency between your word and your action. And what they learn in those moments is which of your stated principles are real and which ones are just kind of decoration during that sunshine leadership period. And that is where leadership and trust starts to erode but if you do have a leadership philosophy, and this one is defined, it will come with you from this role to the next role and the next team. Yes, you will make small adjustments for the people that you're working with, but you are not starting from scratch every single time.

It is like a life philosophy that you don't change, but just because you're moving to a different house. The life's philosophy will go with you, and of course, adapt through different stages, just like a leadership philosophy. Now, many managers will rebuild their whole approach to how they lead with every job change because they become so reactive to what their boss wants from them, what the company culture seems to dictate, what the teams ask them to do, that now they're becoming acting in service of everyone else.

That is not strong leadership. Yes, that component of adapting will always have to be part of it, but it can't be ninety percent of it. If you have a leadership philosophy, it-- you have your values defined, the adjustments that you make are somewhere, and I've-- I'm making this number up, but just to give you an idea, somewhere between twenty and maybe forty percent, if at all.

That seems pretty high as I say it. The majority of how you show up, how you demonstrate your leadership is at the core of who you are, and your goal is then to make sure that you find positions and companies with cultures that align with the type of leader that you are. The higher up you go in leadership, the more important it is for you to invest in interviewing the companies and finding that match so that you thrive, and you can feel like you're genuinely adding impact and having influence with your authentic leadership style.

And of course, that amount of adaptation that needs to happen in any situation based on a company, the culture, the demographics that you're in, the people that you're dealing with, and the stakeholders you're serving.

Now with that said, and really highlighting the importance of developing a leadership philosophy, I also wanna quickly touch on where it lies in the overall context, so to speak, of leadership development. Our proprietary framework is called the APS method.

APS stands for awareness, principles, and system, and it is at the core of what leadership development is about. Awareness is what you know about yourself and the people around you, your natural style, your overdone strengths, how you react in conflict, what your team members actually need from you,

which may not be what you would want of your manager if you were in their seat. That is awareness building, and it's an infinite journey. We never reach nirvana where there's nothing more to become aware of because dynamics, relationships, situations, jobs, responsibilities. They're all dynamic and constantly changing.

So awareness is one of the three buckets that we have to continuously fill through observation and reflection.

The system, so A-P-S, I'm gonna go to the last one now. System is your visible operating structure, your one-on-ones, your team meetings, how you give feedback, how you plan the quarter or the month, how you prioritize, how you keep track of commitments, how you handle performance issues, the PIPs that you use, the onboarding plans, the routines that make you predictable to your team and your team knows how you as a whole team together operate well.

All that makes up your leadership system. Now, between awareness and system, or A and S, there's the P. So principles sit right in the middle, and that bucket in the middle is what people find hardest to build. So awareness feels like reflections.

Systems feel like tactics. Okay, we get that. But principles feel like neither or a heavier lift to do. And so a lot of people, a lot of managers will skip them, or they write them down as slogans like a book title or a quote that they read on LinkedIn or Instagram.

But they're written that way without much meaning or clarity on how these things that sound good may feel good, but we don't know how to implement them. So the rest of this episode is how to build that middle layer properly. And in order to come up with these principles, we actually need to look at three different components: values, the principles, and then the actions underneath those principles

So the first layer is the values. These are single words or short phrases like quality, growth, candor, ownership. This is the anchor and sort of the highest level of the three. You might have done a values assessment or an exercise about your personal life of like, what do you value in life?

So the same question you wanna ask about, what do you value as a leader? So it's the highest level of where we wanna start. Now, there are two rules to identifying your leadership values. One, cap it at five. Yes, that might be hard. You might feel like you have so many more values, things that are important, but try to find as much overlap as possible and really identify which ones above any others will have to be prioritized.

So cap it at five, because when you get past five, they get so broad and hard to remember that they stop really guiding your work, and you end up with a list that's just, you know, a list on a document, but it won't really be used to justify or guide your decisions.

The second rule is do not generate them from a list of nice words. Generate them from your own experience. So think about the leaders you admire most and what specifically did they do? What did they stand for?

Then think about the leaders who were hard to work for because those are equally good teachers, just in reverse. So what did they do that you promised yourself you would never do, never repeat as a leader? Then think about the books that shaped you and what was the main message, the values that these books tried to convey to you.

And what is already working for you now that you want to keep. Like, if you say, "Honesty is a value of mine, and that's really been serving you well, that might be a value to build on and incorporate. So values first, three to five max. Then the next layer are the principles, and principles are like values, but more concrete.

It is the sentence that turns the abstract single word into a rule you can actually follow. If I said, "I am an honest leader," and I would have 10 people on my team, and I would ask them, "What do you think that means?" You bet I would get 10 different answers to what they think being an honest leader actually translate to that would be clear to them on how it shapes my leadership and my interactions with them.

So this is the layer that people will skip, and skipping it is the entire reason value posters on walls in offices really do nothing. Like the word quality on a wall, what does that mean? What does quality really translate into? But when we create the principle underneath the word quality underneath that value, now it starts to be a lot more clear and easier to interpret what we're actually looking for.

Here is an example from a manager I've worked with recently. This manager specifically runs an IT team, and his value is quality. His principle is do the right thing, not the easy thing, and not the fast thing.

So in his world, oftentimes people are incentivized to close tickets quickly, 'cause that will make the user happy and might even be sort of a KPI that's measured, and hence that behavior will be incentivized 'cause it boosts their performance on paper.

So clarifying that principle that the way that he's going to assess his team and the way that he leads and what he wants to prioritize, that principle of we always do what's right and what will lead to the highest quality outcome given the resources available, not the easy or fast thing, that will do real work for him.

It will tell him exactly what to do in the moments when there's a shortcut right in front of him, or when a team member is proposing a shortcut, and it actually may sound compelling. But then he would go back to his leadership principles and philosophy and say, "Hold on.

That goes against of what we stand for, against of who we want to be as a team, and against to what I believe in as an IT leader." Another example from a client. This person runs an accounting function, and

Their value is growth. And the principle underneath those, which by the way, one value can have multiple principles. Again, I keep it to about three or so, but it can have multiple different principles. One of those principles might be to embrace change, because stagnation in environment that's constantly changing would be decline.

So growth is the value. What does that mean for the team? But it means specifically that we're, in order to grow, we have to constantly lean into change. Because if we don't, and if we continue to repeat things that we've done in the past and how we've always done it, then we would default to being stagnant, and stagnant would be decline, which is the opposite of growth

Now, in terms of how many of those principles should you identify, when I do this with my executive coaching clients, we usually land somewhere between seven and 12, and that is the range where it's specific enough to be useful, right?

And cover a good enough range of what you're actually responsible for and what you will deal with on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis. But it's also short enough or concise enough, where you can remember it and clearly communicate it to others as well.

If the list includes 40 principles, it's an overwhelm and no one will really pay attention to any of them. Now, not all of your principles are for public consumption or to be shared with your team. Some principles you want to communicate explicitly because you want your team operating that way too, like the quality over doing the easy and fast thing.

Now, other principles might be private standards about the kind of leader you are trying to be and how you want to show up. Both sets of principles are legitimate and should be part of your overall leadership philosophy. Now, we looked at values first, right? The single words, short sentences, then the underlying principles up to about three per value, and now we're gonna go a layer further or deeper, and that layer is the actions.

This is what people can actually see. Now, if nobody can observe your principles, it's not really operating. Like, no one can really identify that, then, then what is this about? So going back to the IT manager, if the principle is do the right thing, not the fast or easy thing, then the action underneath that is that in his weekly team meeting, he might spotlight a ticket that got solved properly and address sort of a repetitive issue or a bigger change that needed to happen rather than one that got closed fastest.

He may name the person, he calls out what they did, and he explains or has that person explain why it mattered and how they came up with the solution. With this, his team will organically and naturally learn what he values just from watching what gets recognized, not from hearing him say the word quality or putting the principle on a poster.

Go back to the other, example here, the accounting leader. His principle is embrace change. The action is what we are changing, testing, or improving, and that being a standing category in the quarterly goal-setting process. It's not a mood. It's not just a statement. It's an actual line item in the quarterly plans or the monthly plans that he builds with the team at large and every single person on his team.

There's always one section that's about innovation, changes, upgrades, improvements, and all of that.

So that's how the principle actually comes b- to life and is an observable behavior or practice that your team will pick up on. Here's how to test this layer. If I followed you around for two weeks with no access to your stated values, could I reconstruct them from watching your behaviors? Could I come up with the actual principles, the actions, and your values all on my own just by observing your behavior?

If not, you either have no document, no philosophy at all, or you have a document with written values and principles on it, but not actually a philosophy that shapes your actual day-to-day leadership. Now, one more quick thing here to pay attention to, 'cause this is a trap you could easily fall into. let's assume a client tells me that her values are servant leadership, inclusivity, and let's say empowerment.

And then she tells me that her top goal is to become a stronger advocate for her own work and to get more visibility with senior leaders. You might start to recognize, like, wait, your biggest career goal right now is to get promoted, and you know that the gap is not about the quality of your work or your performance, but the visibility into your performance. And so you have that gap, and then you have the values. Nothing in those values give her permission to advocate for herself, because every value she named points outwards or towards other people.

So when the moment arrives to speak up and talk about her own contribution, that internal authorization of, "Why should I do this?" isn't there, and so she won't. She will redirect the credit to her team because she's a servant leader. She wants to empower other people.

She wants them to shine, not her to shine. Now, the fix is that you become aware of this first. If you write your values and your principles, and then you map them against your stated career goals, the things that you actually want to pursue, and you notice there's a conflict of incentives or of interest between the two.

Now you have to look at some of your values and your principles and make that bridge, make that connection. So in the example that I just shared from that client, it could be something such as, I do good work and I talk about it because if people do not know what I'm doing, they will not bring me into the work where I could add the most value.

Where I can be most servant to the organization. Now, with that principle, self-advocacy sits right under servant leadership instead of being contradicting to it. So right, we have to redefine the principle, make sure that there's clear alignment, and that will resolve the tension between who you are, who you want to be as a leader, and what you're trying to accomplish.

Now if what we're covering here today is landing, and if you are someone who wants to take this all the way, I wanna tell you about the Leadership Accelerator. It is a 12-week program that we run specifically for new and early-stage managers.

People who are good at their jobs and now need to become great at leading. We go deep on exactly this kind of thing, including defining your leadership philosophy, and holding your principles in the moments they actually get tested. The program is cohort-based, small cohorts, where you do not go through it alone, but we do have live coaching, on-demand training, and one-on-one support. It's personal enough that everyone knows each other and works through problems together so that what you're learning actually sticks through real examples and personal support in your day-to-day work.

Whether this is for you or for managers that you support or work inside your organization, check the link in the description to learn more. Now, back to the episode.

The way to get started with your leadership philosophy is to actually write things down. And yes, there's research that pen and paper is actually better than typing it on a computer. But you know what? As long as you write it, I'm kind of good with it. So find the best way for you to put things down, things that you already know.

Values, principles, lessons learned from your experience, what's working, what isn't working. Some of this may sound aspirational. You're not quite there yet. That is okay. So I recommend blocking 30 minutes this week. Put this on the calendar and mark this as a meeting. You don't need to structure it first. It really is just a brain dump. Put it all down. Once that's done, then you can start to organize and sort of separate what are values, what are principles, what are behaviors or actions, the things that I actually do. Many people will stall on this because they want the first draft to be good and organized, and they will try to come up with the values first and then go into the principles and then go into the actions.

But that's not how I recommend starting. I really suggest looking at it as a brain dump first. Anything that comes up that you know about what kind of leader you wanna be, good, bad, writing down the dos, writing down the, the don'ts, leaders that you admire and why you admire them, put it all on paper.

And that's, and that's then a really good starting point. After that, you wanna organize it into the three different sections and mark what of this leadership philosophy that you just created you want to communicate. And I do recommend creating a separate document or something where you indicate clearly, "Here are the things that I wanna share with my team," my current team, my manager, other stakeholders.

Sometimes it's even clients that you wanna incorporate a message about who you are as a leader, what they can expect of you, or what you expect of the partnership. It's also a great way to make sure that people that you hire already know what kind of leader you are, and then can self-select if that works for them or if it doesn't.

So in an interview process, you say like, "Hey, I wanna tell you a little bit about how I think about the way we operate as a team, what kind of values I'm trying to cultivate so you know what to expect." That builds so much trust. Now, assuming that you don't just talk about it, but you also execute like we've talked earlier so that the trust can be built.

You become consistent, reliable, clear, trusted, and you act effectively in moment when it matters most because you're not making reactive emotional decisions, but your decisions will be grounded in those principles, in the leadership philosophy you've established. That will elevate your leadership massively.

So like I said in the beginning, if you have to make a tough decision and you know that someone is going to be disappointed, when you then feel like you're now reaching for the option that keeps everyone comfortable, that is the moment to check the decision against your philosophy instead of going with your instincts.

Like, your natural style might feel good to you because it's yours and it's comfortable. It probably also reflects your strength. But as leaders, we're not optimizing for comfort. We are optimizing for effectiveness, and your natural leadership style, like in- including har- like maintaining harmony, being kind, being supportive, may not be what is called for in that moment.

In that moment, you might need to make a tough decision that's going to be hard for someone but is what the entire team or the company actually needs from you

In writing your leadership philosophy is the starting point, right? It's not a one-off thing. Actually, you want to build in a regular review, and I would tend to say quarterly is probably a good sort of cadence. But in the beginning, when your, leadership philosophy includes also aspirational things and it's not quite second nature yet, I highly recommend to read it weekly, if not daily, so that it becomes more second nature and it's easier for you to recall what your principles are in those tough moments.

And then on a quarterly basis, you review those principles because your role changes and your team changes, and some of them may need adjustments. Just like anything else, this leadership philosophy should also not be stagnant so the version that you will write this week is a first draft, not set in stone

So let's go back to that Tuesday, from the very beginning of this episode, that Tuesday where you're going to have to make the tough decision. The decision is going to arrive, and you will not have time to work out what you believe in while you are deciding and what your values might be.

You built the compass before you need it, or you're going to make a call on instinct and hope. You think about sports teams, you think about business strategy. These things don't happen day to day, and people are trying to invent what play we're going to do today.

No, it's strategically thought about ahead of time. A team will come up with its plays, will practice them, will have specific values on how they will operate as a team and how they will show up. Businesses decide on those values and strategies as well, and you see it in many other domains of life as well.

So here is the assignment for this week, and it's small on purpose. Write down your values. Block out the 30 minutes this week, and it does not have to be a full fleshed-out philosophy at the end. It just needs to start with some values, maybe some principles, and feel like a bit of

a brain dump and a starting point. If this episode was useful, please subscribe. Share it with team members. Share it with other managers and leaders that you know about. If this episode was useful, drop a comment on what is your main takeaway from this episode. Give it a like or subscribe so that you won't miss a future episode of The Manager Track Podcast.

You might also wanna share it with other managers or leaders in your organization or a friend or a colleague who would benefit from developing their leadership philosophy but doesn't really know how to go about it.

And if you want to do this work with structure in a group of managers doing it alongside you, then the Leadership Accelerator might be the right program for you, so check out the link in the description. Now, one last thing. Your leadership philosophy is not what you say you value. It is what your team can predict about you when things go wrong, 'cause they've built the trust that you know

your leadership philosophy and you will act it out no matter how difficult the situation is. With that, I'll see you next week with another episode of the Manager Track podcast. Bye for now. If you enjoyed this episode, then check out two other awesome resources to help you become a leader people love to work with. This includes a free masterclass on how to successfully lead as a new manager. Check it out at archova.org/masterclass. The second resource is my bestselling book, The Confident and Competent New Manager, How to Quickly Rise to Success in Your First Leadership Role.

Check it out at archova.org/books, or head on over to Amazon and grab your copy there