I’m not a Pollyanna. I’ve been around the block a few dozen times, and I certainly am a realist about how the business world operates. So, please bear with me, even if it sounds a bit naive, when I say that it is critically important that the big boss set a high bar and be a good example for everyone else in the organization.

 I was thinking about this today when reading a column by Steve Lopez of the Los Angeles Times. Lopez has had fun for months taking to task a clueless bureaucrat by the name of Jaime de la Vega, who just happens to be the transportation chief for the city of Los Angeles. This guy leads transit policy for one of the most congested cities in America, yet as Lopez has reported, de la Vega drives a Hummer H3 to work every day.

“Not only is Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s transportation deputy shelling out a small fortune to fuel his Hummer,” Lopez writes, “but he’s got the added pressure of setting an embarrassingly bad example.” And as Lopez pointed out in an earlier column, “I don’t know how Mayor Villaraigosa can have any faith in a transit chief who drives a 2-ton monster in a city with notorious traffic and smog. It’s like having a surgeon general who smokes unfiltered Camels while snacking on Cheetos.”

Lopez makes a good point. How much faith can people have in a leader who sets such a bad example for everyone else? For example, I’ve written here about Tribune Co. CEO Sam Zell, a guy who seems to like to swear at his workers and say outrageous things. Not only does this set a terrible example, but it makes you wonder: Just what do you tell your workers when you have an owner or top boss who frequently says or does things that would get most other employees reprimanded or fired?

Back in the days before the Internet and e-mail (boy, does writing that make me feel old), I worked at a newspaper that had a proprietary internal messaging system. It was made clear to everyone when they were hired, and again when they had computer training, that hacking the system and getting into other people’s messages was a fireable offense.

Well, that was true for everyone—except for a very senior manager who was the head of my department. He had administrative access to the system and used it not just to perform administrative functions, but also to read the messages being sent back and forth by everyone on the staff.

To make matters worse, he wasn’t particularly discreet about what he was doing, and, like a voyeur, he inserted sordid details from very private messages into all manner of conversations with his subordinates. I found out what he was doing one day when I was making a pitch for more staff. He cut me off and said, “How can you tell me you need more people when Bob and Jane (two people on my staff) spend all day sending love notes back and forth?”

Was it right for the boss to engage in behavior that would get anyone else fired? Of course not. But more important, it was a morale killer for anyone who believed that workforce rules were important for everyone, no matter their rank or title.
A big part of leadership is setting a good example for everyone else, whether it be through words or deeds. It is one of the most basic rules of being a boss, yet sadly, it is one that all too many managers never get.