On the AllVoices Reimagining Company Culture podcast, we sat down with Sarah Jones Simmer, CEO of Found, to dig into leading by example as an executive. Sarah Jones Simmer is an executive, investor, board member and C-level operator. In September 2021, she joined Found as CEO, with a mission to make evidence-based, sustainable weight care accessible for all.
The conversation moves past the usual talking points. Instead of treating leading by example as an HR theme, Sarah Jones Simmer treats it as an operational discipline that sits in the daily decisions managers make about people, priorities, and trust. Below, the takeaways HR leaders, employee relations specialists, and executive teams will find most useful.
The discussion below pulls on several threads from the episode and connects them to current research and what AllVoices sees across hundreds of People teams.
What Leading by Example Looks Like in Practice
Leading by Example is one of those words HR teams use freely, but the on-the-ground version is much messier. In the conversation with Sarah Jones Simmer, several patterns showed up that mirror what Gallup engagement findings on US workforce also highlights about effective people work. The gap between the slide-deck version and the daily practice is where most programs fall apart.
The data backs the case. SHRM's research on workplace priorities shows that organizations treating leading by example as a real discipline outperform peers on engagement, retention, and the cultural metrics that matter most over a multi-year horizon. Companies that treat it as messaging see short-term lift and long-term decline.
For HR leaders building Company Culture programs, that means starting with the everyday touchpoints where leading by example either lands or fails: hiring loops, onboarding, manager 1:1s, and performance conversations. These are the places where intention turns into experience, and where employees decide whether they trust the company enough to stay, speak up, and do their best work.
The pattern across high-functioning HR teams is consistent. They write fewer policies, run more pilots, and spend more time in conversation with managers who are actually doing the work. That discipline is harder than rolling out a campaign, but it is the difference between leading by example as a phrase and leading by example as a result.
How HR Teams Make Leading by Example Operational
The shift from concept to operation is where most teams stall. Two questions usually surface in workshops with People leaders.
Where should leading by example live in the org?
Ownership matters. Programs that sit only with HR rarely get traction. The strongest organizations pair central ownership in HR with distributed accountability across people managers, with a feedback loop into leadership. Employee Engagement can help build the capacity to run that distributed model without losing visibility, and gives the People team a single place to track what is actually happening.
What does success look like in 12 months?
Most teams need a one-year mark with concrete outcomes: a measurable change in values statement scores, a defined set of policy and process changes, and named owners for the work. Without that, the program drifts and budget questions become harder to defend. The honest version of a 12-month plan also includes two or three things you tried and decided not to repeat.
What Actually Works When You Lead Leading by Example
Three patterns repeat across People teams that get this work right. The principles cut across industry and company size.
Watch what leaders do, not what they say
Behavior compounds across an organization. The senior leader who skips lunch tells the company that lunch is for losing.
Make modeling visible
Leaders should show their work: the decisions they're wrestling with, the mistakes they're learning from, the boundaries they're holding.
Build a feedback loop to leadership
Leaders need data on whether their modeling is landing. Skip-level meetings, anonymous feedback, and pulse surveys close that loop.
These three principles also depend on the underlying culture. Without a baseline of transformational leadership, most operational changes get rejected by the organization's immune system. Build the foundation first.
Where Employee Relations Fits Into Leading by Example
Whatever the topic, employee relations sits underneath. Leading by Example programs that ignore the ER reality get blindsided by a case that should have been resolved early. AllVoices builds investigations management and HR case management so HR teams can connect the surface-level work on leading by example to the deeper work of resolving issues, tracking patterns, and acting on what employees raise. The two are tightly linked: when employees see issues handled fairly, they trust the rest of the work too.
How ER data informs Leading by Example strategy
Issue patterns, response times, and resolution outcomes give HR a clearer picture than survey data alone. When the ER data is integrated into Human Resources workflows, leaders can see how leading by example translates into the lived experience of employees who raise concerns, and what to do about it. The teams that move fastest tend to review case themes monthly and feed those insights into the broader people strategy, instead of treating ER as a separate, reactive function.
For a real example, see Sweetgreen's frontline approach. The same pattern applies: connect the strategic intent of leading by example to the operational rhythm where ER, HR, and managers actually meet employees.
Frequently Asked Questions About Leading by Example
What does leading by example mean?
Leading by example means demonstrating the behaviors, values, and standards you ask of others. It's more than visibility. It's the alignment between what a leader says and what a leader does.
Why does leading by example matter for culture?
Employees calibrate to what leaders actually do. If a CEO stays late every night, no policy will get the company to disconnect after hours. Behavior outweighs policy.
How do CEOs lead by example without micromanaging?
By modeling the behaviors at the principle level rather than the task level. Show how to handle a hard conversation, take time off, give feedback, or admit a mistake. Then trust managers to translate.
Is leading by example only a CEO thing?
No. Every manager leads by example for their team. Frontline managers usually have more daily impact on culture than the CEO does.
Can a leader lead by example without being authentic?
Not for long. Employees see through performative behavior quickly, especially in the era of social media and Glassdoor. Sustained modeling has to come from real values.
The Bottom Line for HR Leaders
Leading by Example is not a posture. It's a set of decisions, repeated over time, by people who control budgets, promotions, calendars, and the daily experience of work. The HR leaders who get traction stop treating this as a campaign and start treating it as ongoing operational practice. That reframing matters because it changes how you measure success and where you put your energy week to week.
That shift requires data, follow-through, and a clear point of view. Gallup engagement findings on US workforce and the broader research community make the business case clearer every year. The companies that act on it consistently win on retention, culture, and outcomes that show up on the financial statement. The ones that keep treating the work as branding tend to lose ground quietly, then noisily.
The conversation with Sarah Jones Simmer is a useful reminder that the work is doable. None of it requires a huge HR team or a massive budget. It requires clear thinking, consistent execution, and the willingness to adjust when the data tells you to. Pair that mindset with the right tooling and the right partners, and leading by example stops being aspirational and becomes a measurable part of how the business runs.
Want to see how AllVoices supports HR teams running this work? Book a demo.
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