The workplace takes on the persona of its leader. The same pet peeves, emotional tics and catchphrases practiced by the leader are often magnified by his or her lieutenants. Culture, in any community, is the shared behaviors of the group. It is up to the leader to ensure that these behaviors are habits emanating from repetition of actions that meet the standards that the leader has established. One of the bitterest pills for first-time managers to swallow is that leading their crew by example is very, very rarely enough.

When Richard Reddington was the Executive Chef at Auberge du Soleil in the early aughts, all of a sudden his cooks grew goatees that matched the Chef’s. At The French Laundry, Chef Thomas Keller called all of the Sous Chefs and line cooks “Chef”, and everyone went around the kitchen all day, every day calling each other “Chef”. No first or last names, just Chef.

In a sincere show of flattery, your crew will imitate your mannerisms. They will unconsciously suppose that you like yourself the way that you are, that you project the image that you wish them to behold, and that every act you commit is premeditated and intentional. Unless you are a sociopath, these suppositions of you will be less than completely true.

They will repeat, with emphasis, the things that you have said that you wish you could take back. And that one time you took a shortcut and didn’t use a scale for a recipe? They will take that as a signal not to use a scale either, despite the three hundred times they did see you use a scale. Ninety-nine out of a hundred of your team members will take the path of least resistance and do things the easy way.

I’m not perfect. Are you? I make mistakes and I take shortcuts and hate myself when I do so. I also have a sign posted in the mop sink at Hawthorne & Wood that reads “Character means doing the right thing when no one is watching.” I don’t mean for ‘character’ to be a moral trait, but rather a code of accountability and self-discipline. If you leave the mop sink a mess at my restaurant, you are creating a delay and an inconvenience for the worker who has to clean up after you. This creates a higher labor cost and a less satisfactory work environment, both of which are a detriment to my business.

Take that information and look ten years into the future, when you own your own restaurant with its own mop sink and you leave it a mess and your Sous Chef finds it. He thinks to himself What am I doing working in a place with such low standards that the owner can’t even clean up after himself? He quits. Maybe another cook quits, fed up with the extra work he has to do and the standards that have further slipped since the Sous Chef quit. Then you’re back to cleaning the mop sink, and also working at line-level positions in the kitchen. All of which is a detriment to your business, not to mention your satisfaction and work-life balance. And it stemmed from your lack of accountability and self-discipline.

I’m almost certain that you are a far more charismatic person than me. I don’t particularly like public speaking, I don’t enjoy talking to guests tableside, I don’t smile all that much, and I don’t enjoy arguing or having to convince people. I’m aware that most people do not learn well from my example. That said, in every job I held since I decided to get serious about cooking (from, say, 1999 and on) I decided that I was going to work harder and do better than anyone else in the kitchen.

Did some other cooks work harder than me? Were some of them faster and cleaner and just overall better? Yes indeed. Many of them are famous and successful chefs and restaurant owners now. They did not achieve their professional success through laziness or good luck, they did it by being better than my best in cutthroat kitchens where every second counted, every word and gesture mattered, and you were only as good as the last plate you put on the pass.

So that’s the leader you have to be. Not necessarily the best, but most certainly your best. Every day. Will you hire people who are better than you at certain tasks or systems? Yes, if you’re lucky. And it’s the ones who can exceed even your demanding standards who should receive raises and promotions.