The Standard You Hold For Your Team But Not Yourself

As humans, we all tend to come down hard on others while allowing ourselves lack. A report turned in inexcusably late by an team member might seem excusable if you’re the one turning it in – if only everyone knew the workweek you’ve had!

Often, we stumble in this way not because we are trying to be hypocritical, but because the fault is genuinely hidden from us. That is the harder problem.

C.H.E.W. with Me

New here? What is CHEW? — a 30-second practice that grows into a day woven with God’s love.

C – Clarity: The Excuse You’d Never Accept From Anyone Else

Every leader holds a standard for the team: follow through, own your mistakes, do not let “busy” become the permanent excuse. And most leaders quietly exempt themselves from at least one of those same standards — not out of arrogance, but because the double standard is invisible from the inside.

It rarely shows up as a single dramatic failure. It shows up as a pattern of small exceptions: the deadline you would flag instantly on a direct report’s project, waved through on your own; the follow-up you would expect from your team, quietly let slide on your own calendar. None of it registers as hypocrisy in the moment. It just registers as being busy, or tired, or having a good reason this one time.

H – Hear: The Faults You Can’t See Are Still Faults

“Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults.” (Psalm 19:12)

The Hebrew behind “hidden faults” is nistarot, from a root meaning “to hide or conceal” — these are not sins you are suppressing, they are buried too deep even for self-examination to find on its own. And “declare me innocent” is naqqeh, a legal term for being formally cleared, not merely excused.

David is not asking God to overlook his blind spots. He is asking God to expose them so they can actually be dealt with. That is a very different posture than the one most of us default to, which is hoping nobody — including ourselves — looks too closely.

This verse sits inside a psalm about how thoroughly God’s law searches a life — reviving the soul, making the simple wise, warning the servant. Self-examination, in David’s hands, follows naturally from trusting the law’s goodness — not from anxiety about getting caught.

E – Exchange: Trading Self-Protection For An Actual Look

The instinct to avoid your own double standards is not really self-respect, it is self-protection dressed up as confidence. David models something better: inviting the exposure because he trusts what is underneath it is grace, not condemnation. The standard you hold your team to was never meant to stop at your own office door.

Because God’s love is a light that exposes hidden faults only to clear them, never to shame you with them, how does that change your willingness to actually look at your own double standard today?

W – Walk: Name The Standard, Out Loud, To Someone

Pick one standard you hold your team to. In the next ten minutes, say out loud — to your spouse, a friend, or straight into your own notes app — one specific way you have quietly excused yourself from it this month.

Weekly Practical Tool — Double-Standard Audit

This week’s practical tool: a two-minute written audit.

1) List three standards you hold your team to without exception.

2) For each one, rate 1 to 5 how consistently you hold yourself to the same standard.

3) For any score under 4, write one specific, dated correction — not a resolution to “do better,” a concrete next action.

Closing question: Which rule do you enforce for others but quietly waive for yourself?