Most of us have heard the phrase you inspect what you expect. It’s a cornerstone of good leadership. You set clear expectations, then hold people accountable without hovering over their every move. It’s a way to ensure progress without becoming the kind of manager who measures value in every mouse click. But a few weeks ago, I heard a different phrase that’s been quietly gnawing at me ever since. One that doesn’t just nudge you toward accountability, it smacks you in the face with it. You get what you accept.
Let that sink in for a minute.
Because while inspecting expectations is about managing outcomes, accepting is about managing standards. It’s not about what you say you want. It’s about what you’re willing to live with. And for leaders, that distinction is everything.
When Context Replaces Clarity
Sometimes we inherit teams or step into roles where people are already in place. There’s a history. There are loyalties. There are reasons. But what happens all too often is we begin to lead with context instead of clarity. We start accepting where someone is today as the ceiling, instead of focusing on what the role requires. And that quiet compromise begins to shape our culture. Over time, performance doesn’t slip all at once. It just settles.
A sales rep who misses quota four or five months out of the year becomes “consistent enough.” A team member who’s been around forever but doesn’t put in the effort becomes “loyal.” And soon, we’re not leading to a standard, we’re managing around exceptions.
The Real Cost of Avoidance
The hardest part about this is that it often feels like empathy. We tell ourselves we’re being understanding, supportive, human. But there’s a difference between being patient with growth and accepting stagnation. When you allow repeated underperformance without a real coaching plan or a clear decision point, you’re not being empathetic. You’re being avoidant. And your team notices.
This is one of those moments that requires some internal reckoning. Not a dramatic one. Just a real one. A moment where we as leaders ask ourselves the harder questions. Are we holding our people to the standard of the role, or to what we think they’re capable of right now? Are we protecting comfort over progress? Are we more afraid of turnover than we are of mediocrity?
Our culture doesn’t come from what’s written on the walls or said in team meetings. It comes from what we tolerate when no one is looking. If we continue to accept just enough effort, that becomes the bar. If we continue to keep people in roles they haven’t grown into, we send a message about what matters most. And over time, it shows.
Leadership means honoring the needs of the role above the comfort of the moment. It means making decisions that are hard but necessary. Sometimes that means coaching people up, and unfortunately, sometimes that means coaching them out and helping them move on. But it always means standing firm on what the work requires.
You get what you accept. Not just from others, but from yourself. And that truth has a way of reshaping how you lead, if you’re willing to let it.
