#1 Law of Leadership: Full Dedication to Serving Others
Managers are frequently being confronted with difficult situations and decisions that materially impact the people on their teams both positively and negatively. Any manager can make the easy decisions, but only leaders have the conviction to make the difficult ones. In order to have the conviction to consistently make the difficult decisions, a leader needs to be fully dedicated to serving others. If a manager isn't dedicated to service, then all they are is a face in an org chart with some people under it. They aren't a leader.
Suppose you have a rock star employee that is performing way above their peers and you think they deserve to be promoted. Then suppose your boss told you that only you or your employee could be promoted this year, and that the decision was up to you. In situations like this our self aggrandizing ideas of Leadership are pressure tested. And if you're dedicated to serving others you will make the difficult but correct choice. If you aren't then you will take the promotion for yourself and lie to your employee about why they didn't get promoted.
So that's an extreme scenario, let's suppose a similar but murkier one. You still have your rock star employee and you think they deserve to be promoted. Simultaneously you think you might be up for promotion and are making a case for it with your manager, but you hear that a lot of people in the department are up for promotion and that a few will likely be taken off the list this year. Knowing this, do you champion for your employee to be promoted just as hard as you would if you weren't also trying to get yourself promoted? Or do you not want to rock the boat too much while you think your promotion may be at risk? If you are dedicated to serving others then you will fight as hard as you can to get your employee promoted. If you aren't then you will go quiet about your employee and focus on getting yourself promoted.
Suppose you prefer starting work at 7:30am, do you make all of your employees start work at the same time? If you don't make them start at 7:30am, what do you do in order to make them feel supremely comfortable that they are not harming their relationship with you or career prospects by starting at a different time? How do you prevent the feeling of an in-group and out-group if some of your employees start at 7:30am and others don't? If you aren't dedicated to serving others, then you will either make people start at 7:30am or create an environment in which they feel uncomfortable. This same concept can be used for any preference based work style topic: remote vs in-office, video vs no-video calls, etc. Do you make people convert to your preference, do you make people feel uncomfortable for not converting to your preference? A leader will sacrifice their preferences to create the environment that will enable their team to thrive.
Suppose your employee sent an analysis they did to the senior executives of your department and it was received poorly, so your manager asks you who's fault it was? How do you handle that? Do you say that your employee missed the mark and you don't know if they'll work out? Or do you take accountability saying that you should have managed the process better to ensure that your team never sends low quality work to senior executives?
Suppose your employee gets credit from your manager for something you did. Do you go out of your way to tell your manager that you actually did it or do you let your employee get credit?
There are countless scenarios in which managers will be faced with difficult decisions, many of which can seem at their expense in the short-term. If you aren't fully dedicated to serving others you will never be able to consistently make the correct but difficult decisions that are required of leaders.