Learn to Lead – 11 Examples of Expedient and Principled Behavior

I love eating Krispy Kreme donuts! WOW! They are lip-smacking good! Have you eaten a Krispy Kreme donut when they come out fresh and are still warm? They literally melt in your mouth!

Eating a Krispy Kreme donut requires little discipline. It is an expedient, emotional experience.

Until I weigh in the next day. Double WOW!!

Because I love to eat and I need a stress reliever, I’ve made a principled decision to stay active on a regular basis. In fact, I’ve been exercising 6 days a week, almost every week, for over 30 years.

I have ridden my bicycle about 100,000 miles. A few years ago I even did CrossFit. These days, I just focus on bicycling and long walks.

Discipline is doing what you don’t want to do today, so you can do what you want to do tomorrow. – Bobby Albert

Donut eating and regular exercise are personal examples of expedient and principled behavior, respectively. But we can use these categories in other areas of our lives.

Every person can strengthen their own discipline by reviewing practical examples of expedient and principled behavior.

Most of the situations we encounter, present us with a choice. We can choose to act in an expedient or principled way.

Consider the following examples:

Human Resource Examples

Expedient – Hiring in haste…and regretting at your leisure.

Principled – Screening applicants carefully, and always checking references.

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Expedient – Making quick and easy promises to employees without verifying the promises can be fulfilled without violating company policies and procedures.

Principled – Checking with your own supervisor before promising or doing anything to a subordinate about his or her employment.

 

Business Meeting Examples

Expedient – Arriving for meetings at your convenience.

Principled – Considerately arriving on time so others aren’t delayed.

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Expedient – Holding meetings without prior information about the purpose of the meeting.

Principled – Announcing the purpose of the meeting along with the time and place.

 

Customer Relations Example

Expedient – Making unrealistic commitments to customers in order to get their agreement to buy.

Principled – Being clear and forthright with customers and prospects regarding the nature and timing of deliverables.

 

Personal Examples

Expedient – Interrupting others early and frequently without trying to understand what they are saying.

Principled – Listening to others without interrupting.

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Expedient – Postponing or avoiding periodic checkups and preventive activities because you have other more pleasant priorities.

Principled – Taking care of your health and your possessions with periodic physicals, lubes and oil changes, etc.

 

Leading and Managing Examples

Expedient – Continually reacting quickly when things go wrong repetitively.

Principled – Tracking and analyzing patterns of problematic occurrences and designing preventive measures.

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Expedient – Deciding or doing something quickly, but without checking with others.

Principled – When facing a challenge or opportunity, immediately seeking out people who can help you make a better decision, will have to carry out the decision, or will be impacted by it.

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Expedient – As a supervisor or key staff member, doing everything you can in order to stay in control and be sure things are done to your liking.

Principled – Delegating to others whenever possible even though you probably could do it more quickly – and more to your liking – by yourself.

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Expedient – Orally giving the same instructions repeatedly each time a challenge or opportunity arises.

Principled – Investing the time to develop helpful systems, procedures, and checklists for repetitive future use.

The above examples of principled decisions require the faith and discipline to invest in appropriate communication, coordination, and cooperation with others, but the reward is growth and success.

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.  Hebrews 12:11  ESV

 

Do you like eating Krispy Kreme donuts? Do you have the consistent discipline to make principled decisions? Which example from above are you going to put into practice? Please share your comments <here> and share this blog post with a friend or co-worker.