Lead by Example: Meaning, Importance, and Examples

The famous advice of “lead by example” is frequently pointed to as essential to business success. In reality, leading by example in visible and memorable ways is rare and can be hard to do. Leaders are busy, and their actions and motivations aren’t always clear, all of which leads to confusion and misdirection for employees.

Yet time and again, leaders who stand out for excellence in management, a positive employee culture, and top business results are experts in leading by example.

Take Mary Barra, widely celebrated for her candid nature and commitment to accountability at General Motors. During her first year as CEO of GM in 2014, dozens of safety recalls were issued, and a defective ignition switch was linked to at least 13 deaths. From the start of the crisis, Barra quickly expressed her deepest sympathies to the families who lost loved ones and took accountability, stating that the ignition switch problem was “riddled with failures, which led to tragic results.” She then promised a swift and comprehensive overhaul of safety practices inside GM.

This response won her praise from the business community and champions of business ethics. “I strongly believe behaviors set your culture – and that’s not something you can fake,” Barra said in an interview with Stanford University’s School of Business. “During this time, we undertook what I believe is the most comprehensive safety review in GM’s history and created a safety-first culture to ensure nothing like this could ever happen again.”

Another well-known example is Herb Kelleher, the former CEO of Southwest Airlines, who died in 2019. Kelleher led by example in countless ways, namely by exuding the kind of folksy and approachable demeanor that he wanted his employees to apply with customers. Kelleher often said the most important trait that Southwest looked for in applicants was a sense of humor. He also worked to break down leadership barriers by showing up at company parties dressed as Elvis Presley, inviting employees to a weekly cookout, and working alongside baggage workers during the Thanksgiving rush.

What Does It Mean to Lead by Example?

Leading by example is a leadership style that embraces the idea that everything you do as a leader sends a message to your employees. Leaders set the tone for the entire organization, so if there are behaviors they want to drive, leaders must personally demonstrate those behaviors in their everyday work.

How does this look? Naturally, it depends on the context of the business, but here are some simple examples:

• A leader who preaches going the extra mile for customers in creative ways, visits and works alongside restaurant chain employees to learn about the challenges and barriers getting in the way of serving customers better.
• A hospital CEO tackling employee burnout during a pandemic meets with managers to consider strategies for easing stress and promoting employee well-being. The CEO also personally encourages his direct reports to take time off to decompress when needed.
• A company CEO in a software sales organization with a small percentage of women in leadership publicly commits to boosting the share of women executives. The leader begins the initiative by speaking to a range of women employees for input on how to meet new hiring goals.
• After a wildfire damages a manufacturing plant, the company CEO immediately flies out to offer support to employees, their families, and the community, then personally leads the process for resuming operations.

Leading by example is not micromanaging. Rather, it’s standing up for the organizational values that matter and ensuring that employees see the investment leaders are making in their employees’ success.

While leadership by example is especially helpful in a crisis, it is also critical for the day-to-day success of an organization and essential for helping organizations navigate change.

We conducted a recent study with the Harris Poll that highlights how overwhelmed employees are by the pace of change inside their organizations. The study, The Change Tipping Point, found that leadership engagement and visibility are central to whether major changes succeed or fail. Leaders rely heavily on tools like video messages, town halls, and meetings to drive communication, but employees often experience a gap, with 1-in-4 unconvinced that leaders communicate change effectively. This perception gap shows that while leaders see themselves as clear, employees are still left with questions and uncertainty.

The importance of leading by example is also highlighted in my new book, The Heart Work of Modern Leadership (now in pre-sale and already hit #1 on Amazon). Based on new research with The Harris Poll, the book details the six key attributes of exceptional leadership in today’s highly complex business environment.

Why Is It Important to Lead by Example?

Leadership doesn’t start with policies or pep talks; it starts with what people see you do every day. When leaders model the behaviors they expect, they set the tone for trust, engagement, and performance; when they don’t, the ripple effects are felt across morale, stress, and results.

1. Employees Crave Leadership that Inspires

You’ve likely heard about research pointing to this reality: people don’t necessarily leave bad jobs. Rather, they leave bad bosses. That’s because the behavior of bad bosses often causes widespread damage. Bad bosses set bad examples for the rest of their team, leading to a trickle-down effect of mixed signals, poor morale, and disengagement.

I sometimes refer to this as “the boss makes the weather.” Early in my career, I worked for a boss who was known to be moody. I typically would check with his assistant before meeting with him to determine which way the wind was blowing and adapt my style appropriately. In the workplace, how we lead (both what we do and what we say) can prevent weather disasters and – even better – create an environment where people want to do great work and treat each other respectfully.

As a leader of a less-than-inspired team, you might be looking around for someone to blame. But the reality is that the buck stops with you. Leaders can set bad examples when they dismiss employee feedback, fail to demonstrate the company values personally, or worse yet – engage in questionable ethical practices just to win business. All of these actions make for really bad weather.

2. Employee Stress and Disengagement Is Real

According to a Gallup State of the American Manager report, “Having a bad manager is often a one-two punch: Employees feel miserable while at work, and that misery follows them home, compounding their stress and putting their well-being in peril.” Global employee engagement declined recently to 21%, according to Gallup. This trend reflects how poor leadership qualities can have a lasting impact on employee morale and performance.

Many recent studies have found alarming rates of employee burnout, including a recent study we conducted with The Harris Poll. We found that the constant pace of change – often facilitated by top leadership – and a variety of new demands contribute to widespread burnout among employees and managers.

More than 75% of employees and 63% of managers feel burned out or ambivalent in their current position, according to the study. Yet managers aren't recognizing just how overwhelmed their employees feel, with 89% saying their employees are thriving compared to the actual thriving figure of 24% – a more than 3-to-1 discrepancy.

3. Invested Leaders Make All the Difference

The Grossman Group/Harris Poll research points to clear pathways for boosting employee morale and engagement. For thriving employees in the survey, the top indicator was a “manager invested in my success.” Other key indicators were leader empathy and approachability.

How to Lead By Example

It’s important to keep in mind that leading by example can go both ways. You can set a positive tone as well as a highly negative one with the actions you take as a leader.

One famous example was the Wells Fargo ethics scandal in 2016. The bank came under public scrutiny after it was discovered that employees in local branches created more than 2 million fake bank accounts without consent, all in response to leadership demands for higher customer quotas. The bank was later heavily fined by the government, yet leadership was slow to claim accountability for the scandal, which only contributed to the public outcry.

Based on our experience working with hundreds of leaders across a wide variety of businesses and contexts, here are my four top tips for leading by example in all the good ways.

1. Demonstrate Active Listening

The better you listen to others, the better they will listen to you. Here are some quick tips on becoming a better listener:

• Stop talking
• Suppress the temptation to think about what you’re going to say next
• Refrain from multitasking; focus closely on the speaker, with eye contact
• Ask questions to ensure you understand
• Paraphrase what you’re hearing
• Listen with an open mind, not with a desire to hear what you want to hear
• Pay attention to what’s not being said (such as body language or sarcastic responses)

2. Master Communication of All Forms

One of the biggest mistakes leaders make on the listening front is they don’t take time to do it; they simply don’t prioritize it. I often reflect back on a company president I worked with who made a point to regularly visit company sites and talk to every employee he possibly could. This included management and frontline leaders. He said he always learned something new and important from those visits that he couldn’t have possibly known otherwise.

This leader’s experience proves that actions speak louder than words. Employees need to know you will take time to listen to them and learn from their perspectives. To be a better communicator, leaders need to:

• Plan their communication. Good leaders know the importance of planning and clearly spelling out the path ahead.
• Seek out and provide context. Help employees and teams make sense of what they read and hear.
• Make information relevant so every employee knows how they fit in and how valued they are.
• Be open to new ideas and seek them out. This often means purposely soliciting opinions from the quietest people in the room.

• Use multiple vehicles to solicit opinions – face-to-face meetings, focus groups, manager forums, emails, and employee surveys.

3. Show Genuine Empathy

People want to know their leaders genuinely care about employee well-being and that their manager is invested in them and their growth and development. Some quick tips on being more empathetic and supportive as a leader:

• Conduct regular check-ins with employees and simply ask how they are doing, personally and at work.
• Survey employees to measure employee stress and burnout levels, as well as the areas in which employees need more support. When problems are identified, prioritize action to turn the situation around.
• Take time to recognize and reward employees for good work and team successes.
• Develop a culture of gratitude that encourages managers and all team leaders to celebrate wins.
• Find out what motivates your employees and keeps them engaged – and focus on it.
• Encourage professional development. High-potential employees are not satisfied with the status quo.
• Pair employees with mentors.
• Help employees build their networks and recommend opportunities within the organization and through professional organizations to build their networks and skill sets.
• Challenge employees with assignments that help them grow.

4. Be Accountable

Another way of looking at what it means to lead by example is a leader who “walks the talk.” This boils down to accountability. For instance:

• If challenging times require a pay freeze, the leader should freeze his or her own pay as well.
• If managers are accountable for a more diverse workforce, top leaders need to build pipeline programs and make their executive teams more diverse.
• If decreasing safety incidents is a top priority, leaders need to immerse themselves in the data and eliminate stress, long hours, and overload that may contribute to accidents.

I’ve heard some leaders describe this as simply not wanting to ask a manager to do something they personally wouldn’t do. The pandemic was a great example of this. Leaders willing to roll up their sleeves and work alongside their teams in the most difficult moments earned their employees’ respect and trust.

Favorite Examples of Leading by Example

Leading by example isn’t theoretical; it shows up in the small, human choices leaders make every day. The following leaders demonstrate how modeling values, curiosity, connection, and well-being can create cultures where people feel respected, motivated, and inspired to do their best work.

1. Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi

In addition to Barra and Kelleher, one leader I really admire for her willingness to lead by example is former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi. One often-cited example is that Nooyi wrote letters to the parents of the top leaders at the company, sharing her thoughts on their exceptional traits and why they were such valued leaders. She also followed up with personal visits. What a beautiful way to demonstrate genuine pride and respect for key employees (and of course, it made a huge impact on the leaders!).

Aside from that, Nooyi expanded leadership diversity and personally led efforts for healthier drink options and corporate sustainability practices. She spoke often of the importance of leading by example.

As described in a Forbes article, Nooyi also took two large bags of reading material home every night, helping set the tone of continuous learning and improvement. She has frequently said that improving an organization has to come hand-in-hand with improving yourself as a leader.

2. Svein Tore Holsether, President & CEO, Yara International

I also learned a lot from leaders who contributed their thoughts on what makes for a great leader in my new book, The Heart Work of Modern Leadership. In the foreword to the book, Svein Tore Holsether, President & CEO of Yara International, shared how he works to lead by example in connecting with employees at all levels. One way he does this is by having regular check-ins with union leadership to understand what’s on employees’ minds.

“As a top leader, there is always the risk that you distance yourself too much or that people don’t dare to be honest with you,” he wrote. “Yet honest exchanges of opinions are crucial, and with the union leaders, especially, I can always count on them not sugarcoating it. I’ve found that we all want the same thing: to build long-term value for Yara.”

3. Tom W. Watson, Partner & CEO, Forvis Mazars

Another leader whose book contribution resonates deeply is Tom W. Watson, Partner & CEO of Forvis Mazars. Watson said that he has been a Type A personality for much of his life, but realized as a leader that kind of approach wasn’t necessarily healthy for his team.

Watson doesn’t want to appear overly stressed or project that work-life balance isn’t valued within the firm. He tries to lead by example by sharing that he goes running daily and appreciates the importance of taking time off to reset.

“If you want to be a great leader for the long-term, you must find some time to separate your personal self from the leadership self,” he wrote. “Whether it’s quiet time to reflect, meditation, exercise, or prayer, taking some time to ‘be off’ will make you much more effective when you must ‘be on’ later. … Another benefit of embracing your personal well-being is that it can set a great example for your team. You cannot expect those you lead to find time to reset or decompress if you don’t do it yourself.”

How The Grossman Group Can Help

In an environment defined by constant change, communication isn’t just a support function; it’s what determines whether transformation succeeds or stalls. When communication works, leaders show up with clarity and confidence, employees understand what’s changing and why it matters, and trust holds even in moments of uncertainty.

We help organizations navigate major change – executive transitions, enterprise transformation, and culture shifts – by strengthening how leaders communicate and lead by example. Leaders move from reacting to change to anchoring it, setting the tone, behaviors, and expectations that help people stay focused, engaged, and aligned.

The result is communication that reduces confusion, builds credibility, and turns strategy into action. Instead of change fatigue, organizations experience greater momentum, stronger connection, and sustained performance because leadership communication becomes a stabilizing force during disruption, not a risk.

When organizations face major change, how leaders show up matters more than ever. Our research shows 1 in 4 major change initiatives fail due to burnout, workload spikes, dissatisfaction, and turnover – and change is 5.5x more likely to fail without visible leadership and strong leadership communication. If your organization is navigating transformation and feeling the strain, this is often the moment where leading by example makes the difference between stalled progress and real momentum. The right leadership communication can steady teams, rebuild trust, and help change succeed.

Contact us to explore how leadership communication can become a stabilizing force and a competitive advantage during your most critical moments of change.

The Bottom Line

In an age of AI where it’s harder than ever to decipher real from fake, leading by example is a skill that’s all the more important. Employees can tell when leaders truly care, want to engage with their teams, and are willing to roll up their sleeves when the situation demands it. Leading by example is a proven way to become an exceptional leader today, yet it requires commitment to reflection and new ways of communicating with your team. Leaders willing to invest in this work will undoubtedly transform their company culture, and we’re excited to be part of such a worthwhile leadership journey.

Can you point to one or two ways that you’ve led by example over the past year? In doing so, what impact do you think you’ve had on the culture?

—David Grossman

Based on new research with The Harris Poll, David Grossman's upcoming book, The Heart Work of Modern Leadership, reveals what few leaders do well – and how you can join those that do. Click below to learn more about the book and pre-order today!