We all lead, whether it’s in the boardroom or the living room. But what truly defines your leadership style? This week, April Shprintz dives into a powerful concept: leading by exception. Imagine a scenario where a rigid system threatens someone’s career due to a technicality. Do you throw your hands up, or do you fight for your people? Join April as she explores how going the extra mile, questioning the rules, and finding the empowered few can not only make a profound difference in someone’s life but also unlock true loyalty and engagement within your team. Get ready to discover why putting people first, even when it means challenging the status quo, is the hallmark of an exceptional leader.
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Leading By Exception
Defining Leadership & Leading By Exception
I am so glad you’re here. I have a question for you. What is your leadership style? Wait, don’t say “I’m not a leader” because I don’t care who you are, what position you’re in, what you do, you are a leader. We all lead in different ways. Maybe you’re an official leader in a corporate company. Maybe you’re the leader of your family.
Maybe you’re in the lowest totem pole position in wherever it is that you’re working, but you influence people and you help people, so you’re leading them. What I’m wondering is, what is your leadership style? This week, I had such an encouraging and fun moment teaching part of my leadership style to a client of mine. My leadership style is to lead by exception. Here’s what I mean.
People are the best part of leadership. Helping bring out the best parts of them, who they are, who they can be, and how they can help others. I find that the best way to do that is to know when we need to pursue or make an exception for someone. I had a client this past week who is a military officer and encountered a weirdness with the rating system for someone whom he supervised a year ago.
If you don’t have a military background, just understand it’s the government. The systems are not always user-friendly, the rules do not always make sense, and sometimes you’ve got to figure out how to make it work. By making it work, I mean getting around the system. In this particular situation, there was an administrative error, and it meant that someone’s rating wasn’t as high as it should have been, and that could impact their promotion. Again, it’s somebody that this person had supervised over a year ago.
When they let them know, they initially were like, “I’m going to write a great letter for them in their promotion package so that they know that this person was supposed to be rated the highest of the group, and it helps them.” In having this conversation, I was like, there is someone somewhere who can fix this. He told me that he’d already thought of that. He’d called and said, “There was an issue. How can we fix it? The folks who monitor and run the system said it can’t be changed. It is what it is.”
That’s when true leadership happens—when you make exceptions, find ways around or within the system, and always do what best serves your people. Share on XI remember thinking, “There’s always an exception. We just have to find who’s empowered to make the exception.” He got really excited because he knew that this person deserved the best that they could get, that he wanted to help them, and he wanted to lead by exception. He spent that extra time researching who it was that could help, who it was that could change that rating, and really not just make this person’s day, but possibly make their career, and they deserve that.
How To Lead By Exception
Now, was that a part of this leader’s day? Was that on their to-do list? No. That is when leading really happens, when you make exceptions for people and you figure out how to either get around a system or work within the system, but to always do the thing that will help the people that you serve the most. Before we become leaders, it’s all about us. Once you become a leader, whether that’s official or not, it becomes about everyone else, and how can you go out of your way to help enable them to be successful?
That is exactly what my client did in less than a day. He got this fixed for the person he used to supervise, something that couldn’t be done. That just couldn’t happen less than a day, and it made an incredible difference. What if you want to do this? What if you’re looking to be the exception, make the exception, lead by exception?
Just remember that the day-to-day people that you first encounter are probably not the ones who are going to be able to do this for you. Not because they don’t want to help, not because they’re bad people, but because they’re told what the rules are. Your job as a leader is to find what rules apply and what rules need to have an exception made for your people.
Ask the questions, be curious, keep your cool, and find the person who has the power to make the change for you. When you ask them and you go about it in a polite and self-assured way, you rarely do not find someone who is willing and able to help you, and going that extra mile for your people is incredible. It is what makes the difference. It’s what makes their lives better. It’s what increases engagement, loyalty, and retention. Candidly, helping people is the entire reason that anyone wants to be a leader in the first place. Any good leader, anyway. Here’s to your success.
