The Boss Move That Gets the Wow

You know them when you see them. The ones who get things done and bring others with them. The ones who deliver results and leave the room better than they found it. They are not just ticking boxes. They are creating moments. That is what happens when someone nails both the what and the how. They give you a wow.

Two Kinds of Expectations

At work, we are always juggling expectations. But not all expectations are created equal. There are really two types:

• The What
  These are the tasks, goals, KPIs, priorities. The things that need doing. They answer the question, what are we here to deliver?
  And here is the kicker. The best way to define the what is bottom up. Let the people closest to the work take the lead. When they shape the priorities, they are more likely to own them.

• The How
  These are the behaviours. The unwritten and sometimes written rules about how we show up, how we treat each other, how we do things around here. These usually come top down. From leaders, from culture, from those mission and vision posters no one reads unless they mean something real. They are the “we don’t do that here” moments. Like when you were a kid and no one told you what toy to play with, but if you smacked your brother you got told, that is not how we behave in this family.

Both matter. But here is the rub.

As You Go Up, the How Matters More

The higher up you get, the less it is about doing the work and more about how you enable others to do it. And when it comes to leading teams, shaping culture, and making strategy stick, it is the how that becomes your secret weapon. As the saying goes (thank you Mr Drucker), “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

If you are a leader, your job is not to have all the answers. It is to trust the knowledge in the room. Get it out. Help the team prioritise. Create focus. Then role model the behaviours that give that work meaning.

Trust is not just a warm, fuzzy thing. It is oxygen. Without it, teams hold back. Micromanagement, for example, sends a clear signal; I do not trust you. And the damage goes further. It blocks growth, stifles judgement, and teaches people to stop thinking for themselves.

Simon Sinek puts it well in this talk. Every team knows who delivers results but leaves a trail of damage. The ones no one wants to work with again. High what, low how. You may tolerate them for a while, but they break trust. And once that goes, so does the team.

That is why the how matters. Because when you combine it with a clear and shared what, you get the kind of performance that people remember for the right reasons.

That is when you get a wow.