Lisa Haneberg on standards for managers, including:

Managers ought to have the courage to make tough decisions and solve difficult problems.

I agree, but consider this story. During a meeting to discuss our strategic plan, one of my colleagues asked, “What’s the biggest problem for managers around here?”

Before any of us could respond, he went to the whiteboard and wrote his answer:

C R U C I F I X I O N

He was right.

Lisa correctly focuses her attention on middle managers, but if we’ve learned anything from Enron it’s that a company’s culture can require heroic efforts from employees to simply do the right thing. And the cultural environment, while impacted by middle managers and employees, is really determined at the top.

Standards are good. We need them for managers and we really need them for leaders.