The Best Leadership Advice: Forget the Golden Rule

Forget the Golden Rule. That's the best leadership advice, if you want to increase engagement in employees and volunteers. 

"What?  You'r ea pastor! You can't tell people that!" I know you’re thinking that. It's okay. 

In the workplace, I think we can do one better than practice the Golden Rule...not actually forget it.

Here’s what I mean:

Today, I dropped off my kids at school and my Kindergartner’s teacher handed me a “thank you” for volunteering this semester. What did she hand me as a thank you? You guessed it: meatballs. Let me be more specific: a meatball sandwich.

“So what?” you ask.

She understands the Platinum Rule from Ty Bennett’s “The Power of Influence” and the concepts taught in Gary Chapman’s “The 5 Love Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace.”

If you want to reward and thank your volunteers, employees and those you lead, you got to thank them the platinum way.

According to Ty Bennett,The Platinum Rule goes beyond the golden rule. The golden rule is to treat others as you’d like to be treated. That’s absolutely great advice. It means treating people with respect and dignity and kindness, etc. But The Platinum Rule goes beyond that. It’s about appreciation, love, and reward. The Platinum Rule is to “treat other people the way they want to be treated.”  

In my words, reward people as they want to be rewarded.

This is exactly what Chapman gets at with his book on workplace appreciation. In Chapman’s flagship book, he recognized people show love and want to receive love in 5 ways: words of affirmation, physical touch, quality time, gifts, and acts of service.  We all primarily feel loved when we receive a couple of these actions. The same is true for those you lead.

Here’s how meatballs came about. I’ve been serving in Kindergarten for two years. When my middle son was in this class, the teacher made a dessert to give to her volunteers. I think I took the desert and said, “Thanks. I’m not really into deserts. Give me savory anytime.” (And I wasn’t rude in my delivery, merely conversational and humorous…I hope).

The next time she wanted to thank her volunteers, she handed me a paper sack and inside was a meatball sandwich. She lived out the platinum rule and though I don’t expect a thank you for volunteering, I’m always ecstatic to receive that savory sandwich. Today was that day.

If you want to have an engaged group of people, practice the Platinum Rule. Learn what motivates them. Learn what fills their appreciation tanks. How? Ask! Ask them what way(s) would they want to know they're appreciated? If it’s a gift, ask “What kind of gift? A meatball sandwich?” If it’s a word of encouragement, as “do you like a private spoken word? A note? Do you like public recognition?” Ask the question and then do it.

John Maxwell said this about leading people, “I am more successful when I:

•    Listen well enough to lead through their eyes.

•    Relate well enough to communicate with their hearts.

•    Work well enough to place tools in their hands.

•    Think well enough to challenge and expand their minds.”

If you want engaged people, forget the Golden Rule. Practice The Platinum Rule. Reward them in a way they want to be rewarded and watch the results.