Leadership From The Heart · 2026-04-15 · 17 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
34 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Team inconsistency isn't a people problem; it's a systems problem rooted in the absence of shared standards. Romie Montpeirous, host of Leadership From The Heart, walks leaders through the process of implementing team operating guidelines - collaborative agreements that define how a team functions together. The episode addresses a fundamental leadership gap: the assumption that people inherently know how to behave at work. Montpeirous shares her own experience implementing these guidelines with her team, including specific examples like "reply to emails within 24 hours," "assume positive intent," and "acknowledge people when you walk through the door." The approach involves giving the team a master list of potential operating guidelines, having each member select their top five priorities individually, then using majority rule to land on a final shared set (typically five to seven). This method creates buy-in and ownership because team members co-create the standards rather than receiving them top-down. Without these agreements, teams run on invisible, individual rules that create repeated conflicts, lack of accountability, and inconsistent execution. Montpeirous also introduces her Leadership Accelerator Program for leaders moving into new roles and mentions her Leadership Circle community (currently on waitlist, with founding members receiving lifetime free access).
Team operating guidelines (or team norms) are explicit agreements on how a team will work together, covering things like communication response times, respect, punctuality, and transparency. They solve the problem of team members operating under different invisible rules based on individual values, which causes inconsistency and repeated conflicts.
Present a master list of potential guidelines, have each team member individually select their top five priorities, then use majority rule to identify the top five to seven that the entire team agrees on. This collaborative approach creates ownership and buy-in from team members.
Items that don't make the majority-rule cut are still acknowledged as honorable mentions so the team understands what matters to different people, even if those specific items aren't formal team standards. This broadens perspective without diluting the core agreements.
Guidelines should be revisited annually because once the team is functioning within the agreements, those behaviors become second nature, but new challenges may emerge that require refinement or new priorities.
It requires the leader to initiate collaboration, facilitate without imposing their own preferences, and hold the team accountable to standards the team itself created - meaning the leader must trust the process and the team's judgment rather than controlling the outcome.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode centers on a single, relatively straightforward concept - establishing team operating guidelines through consensus - which is presented clearly but without substantial novelty or depth. While the core idea (teams need agreed-upon norms to operate consistently) is sound, it's explained via simple examples (Sally vs. Joe and email response times) rather than complex, non-obvious insights. The supporting examples are generic and the reasoning is intuitive rather than intellectually challenging.
your team is feeling inconsistent, depending on the day, it's likely that they don't have standards or they don't have an agreement upon how they're going to operate together
different things matter to different people
The concept of team norms or operating guidelines is well-established in organizational development literature and management practice. The approach described - having a team vote on top values from a larger list - is a standard facilitation technique. The framing around vulnerability and courage is emotionally resonant but not intellectually original, and the contrarian or first-principles thinking is largely absent.
team operating guidelines, also known as team norms
I gave them the list of operating guidelines and I asked them to pick the top five that mattered to them the most
This is a solo episode with no guest present. The host, Romie Montpeirous, shares a personal anecdote from leading a team and promotes her own coaching programs and community. While the host may have relevant experience, the absence of a credible external guest with demonstrated track record at scale severely limits the dimension.
Romie Montpeirous: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Leadership From The Heart. I'm your host, Romy, and today I'm writing solo
The episode includes some concrete examples (Sally and Joe, the 24-hour email response standard, the five agreed-upon norms: assume positive intent, reply within 24 hours, acknowledge on entry, active listening, open communication, timeliness). However, the examples lack scale, quantified results, or external validation. No metrics are provided on the effectiveness of these guidelines, no timeline is given for implementation, and no comparison to other approaches is offered. The host mentions a framework with 26 items but does not detail it.
reply to an email within 24 hours
the majority ruled top five rules and it was beautiful things like assume positive intent, reply to an email within 24 hours, acknowledge people when you walk into the door for the first time
As a solo monologue, there is no genuine conversation or back-and-forth dialogue. The host does not test her own assumptions, invite pushback, or explore counterarguments. The delivery is earnest and self-directed but lacks the dynamic questioning and intellectual sparring that would demonstrate strong conversational craft. The episode reads as a prepared speech rather than a curious inquiry into the topic.
I know I went off in a tangent already
And so with that, I closed today's episode
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
If your team feels inconsistent depending on the day… it’s not a people problem. It’s a standards problem. In this episode, Romie breaks down one of the most overlooked leadership tools: Team Operating Guidelines (a.k.a. Team Norms). Because the truth is - people don’t just “know how to act.” Without clear agreements, your team will default to: personal preferences unspoken expectations and invisible rules And that’s where misalignment, frustration, and inefficiency begin. What You’ll Learn: What Team Operating Guidelines actually are (and why they matter) Why “common sense” isn’t actually common on teams How misalignment shows up in everyday situations (like communication expectations) The simple framework to create alignment without adding more work How to get team buy-in (so you’re not enforcing… they’re owning) Why collaboration - not control - is the key to high-performing teams Practical Action Step: Ask your team this one question: “What are the top 5 things that matter most to you in how we operate together?” Then: collect responses identify common themes align as a team and commit to them together
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Romie Montpeirous: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Leadership From The Heart. I'm your host, Romy, and today I'm writing solo we're going to be talking about team operating guidelines, also known as team norms. That's kind of our series for the week. And want to kind of take it back to where I learned team operating guidelines and why I think they're so important.
If you're running a team, if you're leading a team, I think this is one of the quickest ways to get ⁓ things accomplished without having to work harder, right? This is team alignment. So if your team is feeling inconsistent, depending on the day, it's likely that they don't have standards or they don't have an agreement upon how they're going to operate together. And this isn't really, any of anybody's including you as a leader, right?
Before I knew about team operating guidelines or team norms, I operated with this understanding that people just knew how to act. that's one of like the mysteries of is that you don't know what don't know. And, but once you learn it, it's going to hard to look away. And this is one of those, this is one of those episodes for you guys.
⁓ And the difficult part about team operating guidelines, I say is the courage to actually do it, right? Because when I first learned about it, I was sitting in a leadership seminar they introduced team operating guidelines. you at you're like, wow, that sounds really nice. It sounds nice to have all these things.
And you're like, absolutely, I'm going to do it. And then it comes time to do it. And the reason why it's hard is because it takes courage. It's because you know, there's a part of you that doesn't want to look kind of like nerdy or geeky.
At least that was my story. I knew that where I had to come from was a place of something bigger than myself. And I wanted our team at the time to be in right? And not necessarily harmony, like everything's all good all the time, because I don't think that that really exists.
However, I did to address some things that the team thought were... necessary to address. so team operating guidelines, they're important, right? It's important for a team to know this is how we're going to function.
you see this a lot in families, right? Like the parents set the rules based on the values that they uphold. And having a team is no different than that, right? So let's get right into it.
I know I went off in a tangent already, but you know, one thing I could definitely tell you that you're gonna walk away from this episode knowing how to collaborate with, ⁓ help your team agree on how they're going to operate. And the most beautiful part is that it's not necessarily about you. It's about the team and what they agree on. And so, we as leaders, managers, ⁓ definitely default to holding people accountable, right?
So, ⁓ I'm going to make up some names, like, let's say Sally and Joe, and Joe doesn't like the way Sally's writing back to her or not writing back to her. everybody has different things that they find important, right? Especially at work. So while Sally may be, a little that Joe doesn't respond back to emails to Joe responding to emails is not really a big deal, you know?
And, and, ⁓ and so the level of responsibility for him responding. is not really that high. And so what we don't understand is why Sally cares about the way or if Joe answers emails. And Joe doesn't understand why Sally cares so much because in his realm, in his world, not responding to an email, it's fine.
It's not offensive. And these are the different types of dynamics that we can see when we're leading a team is that different things matter to different people. And as many times as we want to have the conversation about why Sally shouldn't feel this way or how, you know, Joe should acknowledge how Sally feels. It is just much easier to say, you know, to have everyone say, these are the things that matter to me.
And when you don't, or when you do do them, this is how it makes me feel. And so team operating guidelines, basically just an agreement of things that we're going to say we're going to work on, right? No matter what. And so, Once we have this shared agreement, and it's not necessarily a list of 20 rules that we're all going to apply the way I did this, was gave them the list of operating guidelines and I asked them to pick the top five that mattered to them the most.
And it was very interesting because everybody sent me individually, of course, their top five, and then I as the leader ⁓ was to put them together and I found, you know, the majority ruled top five rules and it was beautiful things like assume positive intent, reply to an email within 24 hours, acknowledge people when you walk into the door for the first time. There things that you would think ⁓ are but they're not automatic for everyone. And then there of course were some that didn't make the cut because they were only important to certain people.
so while those didn't make the cut of we're gonna focus on these values, they were, you know, values. And so the way I addressed it was, hey, these are the five values that we appear to agree on, right? And I think I did top so we could land at five. That's exactly what we did.
So I did top seven so we can land at five. And what did with the ones that didn't make the cut was I just want you guys to be aware of the other things that matter to people. actually gonna go ahead and pull up these team operating guidelines so I can read a few of them. These are also called team norms as I said before, but a few of them are active listening, respect to treat every team member with respect and courtesy and acknowledge value of their contributions and perspectives.
Open and honest communication, which is encourage open, transparent and honest communication, ensuring that team members feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and concerns without a scuffle, without a, you know, judgment and stuff like that, timeliness, set expectations for punctuality in meetings and for meeting project deadlines to ensure workflow, right? Because things like being a couple of late to meeting may not matter to one person where someone else, they hold punctuality at a very high regard.
And if you're not punctual, then you're ⁓ in their mind disrespecting them. And so there are about 26 on my list. If you reply to this episode and or email me at info at leadership from the heart.co I will email you the framework and how to apply this and the best ways to do it.
But these are all things that we think are common sense. And while they are common sense, there are a few things that matter to you that may not matter to other people. And so the purpose of agreeing to these is to say, like I did with the team, right? So We all picked our top seven, the top five made the cut.
There were some honorable mentions. And so people just had an understanding, a wider perspective of what mattered to people. And once you have a wider perspective of what mattered to people, then you automatically became a little bit more courteous, a little bit more, how do you say that? A little bit more conscious of, of what care looked like to them, you know?
And if you don't establish these agreements, then your team will run on the invisible rules that they define. And it's all gonna be about what matters to them. So what happens without the team operating guidelines is inconsistent execution because everybody's kind of in it for themselves. have a lot of repeated conversations and leader is constantly trying to mediate how Sally from ⁓ what Joe and how Joe feels from what Sally said.
and there's a lack of ownership in all of it, right? And the thing is that it's not a people issue, it's just a system that we have to create within the people realm of Teams. And this is how Teams function, right? We have to agree how we're going to move forward.
And one of my favorite things that the team agreed on was replying to an email within 24 hours, because that mattered to them a lot. I think it was part of ⁓ team operating guideline choice, and yet was really adhering it. So was fascinating for me to watch how this mattered to everyone. And yet we were still having issues prior to this agreement with people to each other.
⁓ So it an open dialogue of communication. It created ownership because once they pick, right, and it makes the majority rules list, there's ownership in that. they have set the standard for themselves. They have set the standard for each other.
my one that they picked was assuming positive intent. Maybe because an optimist. However, I ⁓ usually assume positive because ⁓ I'd rather go the world thinking like that than the opposite. But it definitely brought a lot of optimism to the team.
where somebody would automatically think something was being done maliciously whenever somebody would start that. Just because you pick it doesn't mean it starts happening right away, right? It's still conditioning. And so somebody would say, team operating guidelines.
And we automatically start to say, all right, we're going to assume positive intent. And then we would have an honest conversation or that person would address the person. And it was a better conversation to have because Now they were actually curious as to why they did or didn't do whatever it was them creating what we've talked about the story in your head, you know, and managers to have the courage to do this. Right.
And, it, while the team pick the, the ones that matter to them the most, this is a top down implementation. You have to be the one to initiate this and then make people feel secure and safe enough to do it. You have to get their collaboration in it without their collaboration. If you're the leader and you think you're just going to pick, then nobody has buy-in and there's going to be this resistance because people are going to wonder why do you get to pick?
Those obviously matter to you, but they may not matter to me. And so That's why you always want to collaborate. I am a high collaborator. It is easy for me to collaborate and ask people what their opinions are.
I realized that, however, in things like this, you already are the leader. There's nothing to prove, you know? And so you want to collaborate with the team and you want them to pick their own team operating guidelines so that there is less effort from your part and there's more alignment from their part. Now I do want to preface this.
You may not love the things that they pick and that's okay. Your job is not to love all the things. Your job is to and help lead this team into the most harmonious, high performing team you possibly could. And, know, I'm reflecting now ⁓ on how we able to maintain this operating guidelines, this agreement that we had.
⁓ And it was honestly about 12 months before we had to revisit it. ⁓ coolest part is like revisiting it annually is something that I would recommend because once you've established the agreement and you guys are actually functioning within those agreements, that kind of becomes second nature. Now, now we've created new conditioning and other things may start to fall apart or need refinement is what I want to say. Not falling apart, need refinement.
And so in 12 months, you could either come up with a new list or send out the same list and ask them to pick, you know, their top five again. And maybe we work on three the next year, but the goal is to get as close to harmonious team execution as possible. it is possible. If, if you're a leader of people, I you, I almost need you to believe that you can have a kind heart, a good team, a high performing team.
⁓ and make money. Like it's not one or the other. coexist together. They have to coexist together.
And the team buys into these kinds of things as nerdy as they might seem, I think that the nerdy part is old. It's the old regime and we're no longer in that. And I think people want to come to work and be in harmony with one another. It's not that they're gonna never have a disagreement or conflict resolution.
Conflict resolution is one of my favorite things to talk about because people are people, right? And we're messy we're gonna get it wrong and we're not gonna be in a good mood and we're not gonna wanna talk and all those things are gonna still happen. ⁓ if we have a default, then we know at the end of the day, we only have each other in this department and that's cool because like at the end of the day, I have your back. And if I...
don't have your back, want to be able to tell you I don't have your back. And not because I want to walk around with, you know, this that you're only in it for yourself, but I just want to know the truth. so like for me and my team, I tell them all the time, guys, we don't have to like each other. We just have to be able to work together.
But the truth is we do like each other and everyone does get along and everyone does see the other person's strengths. And that's the of it. And when get to that point where push comes to shove, we're gonna stand up for one another way more, way more than we're gonna stand up for, we're gonna allow anyone else to penetrate our department, right? And there is a special thing when that happens.
⁓ And think these agreements, they help you get there. And so I encourage you to send the email to info at leadershipfromtheheart.co. or reply to this in the show notes and ask for them have the courage, have the courage to ask your team what they think.
Have the courage to ⁓ implement. it's gonna be scary, guys. It's gonna be scary. It's a very vulnerable thing to do.
But that's how you know it's right. That's how you know it's the right thing to do because it is a little scary and it is a little vulnerable and you're the And so that's your role. Your role is to lead people. if you ⁓ stepping into leadership or you are a leader, this is your next step.
a couple of in-house announcements is I a new leadership accelerator program just launched. This is for any leader who is stepping into a new role, lead going into supervisor, supervisor going into manager, manager into director, director into VP, VP into SVP or C-suite, whatever the case may be. There's an orientation that I put on for you. ⁓ And I'm only targeting organizations, I am open to doing one-on-ones with people who are inside my community.
And that's the other announcement is that I have a community that we're building the leadership circle and it's currently on a wait list. I am offering the first 50 founding members in for free for life. The rest is $29 a month, which is nothing. I wish for myself that I had a place to land during my leadership journey.
Luckily for me, I had wonderful mentors, but if you don't have a mentor, You don't have someone to bounce ideas off of. You don't have someone to ask the questions. Then allow to be that for you because I do feel very deeply my heart that that is my pay it forward. And so you can always email You can always ask in the show note chat, whatever happens for the link and we'll it right over.
You know, most of the leaders I work with inside my mentorship, they start here, but I don't really bring people into the one-on-one because I want to make sure that you're ready for the work that we're going to do because leadership is not you fixing the people outside of you. It's about you fixing you so people outside of you kind of mirror you and rise to standards. And that's why a lot of my videos, a lot of my content always go back to you as the leader. And it's not to point out the flaws of the leader, but everything is just a mirror.
And so if you can fix what's happening inside, then the outside will just be a reflection of that. And it is the deepest work you'll ever do, but it is the most rewarding work you'll also ever do. And so with that, I closed today's episode and I want to thank guys for listening. I know this one was a quick one, but it's just, it is what it is, right?
It's team operating guidelines. It's very clean cut. There's a, there's a framework. that we can use or that I can send you.
And I hope you have a great week. And we'll talk again next week on another episode of Leadership from the Heart. Thanks for listening. See ya.
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