Why Leadership Principles?
When things go sideways and the pressure is on, the time is tight, and the stakes are high, leaders don’t rise to the occasion. They fall to the level of their principles.
Leadership principles are not corporate fluff. They’re operating systems for how a leader thinks, decides, and behaves under pressure. In fast-moving environments, where ambiguity is constant and stakes are high, clear leadership principles create consistency, speed, and trust.
“Principles are ways of successfully dealing with reality to get what you want out of life.”
Most of us don’t stumble into great leadership. It’s not magic, instinct, or pure charisma. It’s something we shape over time through mistakes, reflection, and a lot of deliberate effort.
They turn instinct into alignment
Every leader has instincts. The problem is, instinct doesn’t scale. It lives in your head. It works when you’re in the room. But as your team grows, gut calls and “it just feels right” stop being enough.
Leadership principles take that instinct—the years of experience, the pattern recognition, the hard-won judgment—and translate it into something others can use.
Without them, decisions get stuck. People hesitate. Teams second-guess. You spend your time re-explaining how you think instead of moving forward.
With clear principles in place, your team can understand your logic, not just your conclusions. Even when they disagree with the outcome, they get why it happened. That builds alignment, not resentment.
For example, Amazon’s “Customer Obsession” principle doesn’t just sound good. It gives every team a shared lens for making hard trade-offs, like walking away from short-term wins to protect long-term trust.
This kind of clarity isn’t just helpful—it’s strategic. When teams share your mental model, they can act faster, argue better, and stay pointed in the same direction—even in the face of ambiguity or conflict.
Leadership principles externalize your judgment so it becomes collective wisdom. It’s not about making everyone agree—it’s about ensuring they’re aligned on what matters, and why.
They scale without cloning you
As a leader, you set the tone—but you can’t be everywhere. You can’t sit in every meeting, weigh in on every decision, or personally approve every detail.
That’s where leadership principles come in. They act as surrogates for your judgment, not by forcing people to mimic your style, but by giving them clarity on how you think.
The goal isn’t to create mini-yous. That doesn’t scale. The goal is to create alignment: to help your team make confident decisions that reflect your standards, even when you’re not in the room.
“What would Richard do?” isn’t about imitation. It’s about internalizing the principles I use to decide.
With strong principles in place, your team doesn’t need constant oversight. They know the boundaries. They understand the trade-offs you care about. They’re empowered to act. Not because they’re guessing what you’d want, but because they’ve internalized the logic behind how you lead.
This is how you scale without bottlenecking. It’s how you grow a team that moves fast, owns outcomes, and makes decisions you can trust, without burning out or hovering.
When done right, leadership principles create autonomy without chaos. Direction without micromanagement. And influence that multiplies instead of dilutes.
They turn culture into action
Too often, companies throw around vague values like “integrity” or “innovation.” But without specifics, those words don’t mean much. They don’t guide action. They don’t resolve conflict. And they definitely don’t scale.
Leadership principles turn values into concrete behaviors—the kind you can see in a meeting, hear in a 1:1, or reference in a performance review.
For example:
“We make the invisible visible” → We proactively share work, not just finished products.
“Assume good intent” → We seek understanding before judgment.
“No pixel gets left behind” → We sweat the details, even when no one’s looking.
These aren’t just slogans. They’re tools. Teams use them to give feedback, justify trade-offs, and align around quality—without waiting for top-down directives.
When principles are lived, not laminated, culture becomes self-enforcing. New hires pick it up quickly. Veterans reinforce it naturally. And the organization becomes more consistent, even as it grows.
They create safety and speed
When deadlines loom with high stakes but little details—most teams slow down. They get cautious. They look for sign-off. They wait for certainty that never comes.
That’s where leadership principles become essential. They provide pre-agreed shortcuts for how to act when things aren’t obvious.
Instead of freezing up or asking for permission, teams move forward with confidence because they’re not guessing what’s “right.” They’re guided by principles everyone already understands.
“Default to candor, not consensus” → We speak plainly, even when uncomfortable.
“Always be ready to share” → We keep work in a state that’s clear, polished, and reviewable.
“Act like an owner” → We don’t punt decisions we’re qualified to make.
These kinds of principles do more than just speed up execution. They create psychological safety because people know the rules of engagement. They know what’s expected. They know what won’t get them punished.
And when people feel safe, they speak up sooner. They take initiative. They ask the hard questions before it’s too late. In that environment, trust builds fast, and with trust, speed naturally follows.
Leadership principles aren’t rigid rules. They’re mental defaults that reduce hesitation and emotional friction, especially when the clock is ticking and there’s no time to phone a friend.
They can evolve with you
Leadership principles aren’t set in stone. They’re snapshots of who you are right now. As you grow, your principles should grow with you.
Early on, they might be tactical:
“Done is better than perfect.”
“Be the most prepared person in the room.”
These help you move fast, earn trust, and build credibility. But as you level up, what matters starts to shift. You go from managing tasks to shaping systems. From leading projects to leading people. From execution to impact.
And your principles follow suit:
“Be the most prepared” might become “Create clarity for others.”
“Move fast” might evolve into “Prioritize for durability.”
“Ask for feedback” could become “Build a culture of reflection.”
Each revision reflects not just new responsibilities, but a deeper understanding of your own blind spots, values, and impact. They become a living document of your leadership maturity.
More importantly, evolving your principles signals your team that growth is expected, not just for them, but for you. It gives them permission to examine their own instincts and adapt with intention, not just experience.
If your principles haven’t changed in years, it’s worth asking: Have you?
Great leaders treat their principles like great companies treat their products: constantly iterated, pressure-tested in the real world, and refined with feedback.
Because leadership isn’t static, and neither is your operating system.
Final Thought
Leadership principles are not about being liked or looking smart. They’re about creating clarity so you can scale yourself, empower others, and build a team that outperforms you.
Without leadership principles…
You react based on mood, bias, or politics
Your team second-guesses your decisions
Culture is inconsistent and leader-dependent
People get promoted for the wrong reasons
You burn out solving the same problems over and over
Develop Your Leadership Principles with AI
Developing your own leadership principles used to take a lot of time thinking, writing, re-writing, thinking, ..you get it. However, with AI, things can be done much quicker with similar results.
Reflections On Leadership
Follow these prompts, then add the answers in the corresponding sections in the prompt below.
1. Reflect on Healthy Teams
Capture traits or actions about past teams you’ve been on, or seen working, that you admire. Think back to a team you were part of or worked with that worked exceptionally well. It could be from a past job, a volunteer group, or even a sports team. What did people do that made things click? How did they communicate? How were decisions made? What behaviors stood out as rare or admirable? How did they handle setbacks, disagreements, or deadlines?
…
2. Reflect On Leaders You Want to Emulate
Capture leaders, and the things you appreciate about them. Think of great thought leaders you admire that you might recommend to a friend or colleague. For each one, describe the specific actions, behaviors, habits, or outcomes that have inspired you, something they modeled that you try to emulate, or wish more leaders did. What behaviors, mindsets, or decisions stood out?
…
3. Reflect On Things To Avoid
Capture your anti-principles—things you want to avoid. Think of past teams, leaders, or work cultures that frustrated or demotivated you. What behaviors or patterns do you never want to be part of again? What do you want to avoid in your own leadership or team culture?
…
Iterate with AI
Now, take these answers, put them in the appropriate sections of the prompt below, and run them. I tested this on ChatGPT, but you’d benefit from using any LLM you prefer, as it likely has a preference and some memory about you that is already stored.
At the end of the prompt, there will be a few questions to help you reflect and iterate on the principles generated. If any of those questions stir up new ideas, add them to the prompt and run it again. Keep this up until you’re satisfied with the output.
The prompt will purposely generate more principles than necessary. Some will resonate with you, others won’t. Pare the list down until you have something that feels right. You can continue to work with AI by asking it to merge multiple principles or split one to be more specific.
The Prompt
At the start of a response, create a summary table at the beginning, if appropriate and helpful to answer the question. Provide a maximally detailed answer with multiple levels of depth. Use detailed examples, facts, and figures. Be comprehensive and detailed by using bulleted answers where appropriate. After a response, provide 5 follow-up questions. Format Q1, Q2, Q3, etc. in bold, and put them in a bulleted list. Suggest solutions that I didn’t think about—be proactive and anticipate my needs
Be opinionated rather than neutral when appropriate. Consider new technologies and contrarian ideas, not just the conventional wisdom. You may use high levels of speculation or prediction, just flag it for me. No need to mention your knowledge cutoff. No need to disclose you're an AI.
I want you to work as a leadership coach and team strategist. Embody the writings and wisdom of Simon Sinek, Patrick Lencioni, Daniel Pink, and similar thought leaders.
I want you to assist me in distilling my own personal leadership principles that will be used to help me build and run empowered teams and deliver meaningful business results. Use the insights below and generate 5 to 10 leadership principles and a brief explanation about each one. Principles should be short and easy to memorize. Use alliteration, rhythm, or visual metaphors to make them stick where possible. Explanations can be as long as needed.
Here are the team traits and characteristics I’d like to develop or incorporate in my team:
<<insert your notes from item #1>>
Here are a few leaders I admire, and the parts I admire about them. Search all your resources to find more information, insights, and quotes from these leaders and incorporate them where possible in the leadership principles you develop.
<<insert your notes from item #2>>
Lastly, these are traits or behaviors I want to avoid in my team. Ensure these are not included in the principles, or create principles that explicitly denounce or avoid these traits:
<<insert your notes from item #3>>