The Platinum Rule

Not just great leadership, great business

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the New Golden Rule. Since my readers are awesome and brilliant, I was quickly informed that this concept already had a name (much better than I came up with) and is in fact called the Platinum Rule. First off, thank you for sharing your knowledge with me, and secondly, that’s an awesome name! I also really like the me-centric vs you-centric concept of this.

Now that we all realize why nobody lets me near advertising or marketing creative, let’s talk about why this Platinum Rule is so important. We talked in the last article about how this approach is foundational to great leadership but we didn’t cover how this is critical for businesses. Treating people how they want and need to be treated, attracts and retains the best people. It also allows them to do their best work.

Let’s start with a simple physical example such as an obstacle course. I’m pretty limited in my flexibility so if we’re negotiating an obstacle that requires a lot of bending, I could definitely use a hand. But I’m relatively tall so if there is an obstacle where I can use my height to help someone else, that is just natural for me. If we each have to negotiate the obstacles on our own, most of us are going to find at least a few of them to be really challenging. But, we almost never do anything alone. If you are in business, you are in the people business. Nothing significant ever gets done without teams and teams of people bringing our diverse knowledge, skills, and abilities to task. The Platinum Rule is how you unlock that potential in people.

Want your best engineer to innovate instead of burn out? Understand what motivates them, not what motivates you. Want a high-performing team to stay high-performing? Support each person according to their working style, communication preferences, and goals, not a generic playbook. This is not coddling. It’s leadership in practice.

And when people inevitably stumble, the Platinum Rule still applies. Not everyone wants a pep talk. Some people want time. Some want action. Some want you to just quietly have their back. The point is: leadership means learning the person in front of you, and responding accordingly. It means adjusting your behavior to support their growth.

So let’s retire the one-size-fits-all approach. Let’s stop assuming that how we would want to be treated is automatically the right answer. Let’s learn to observe, ask, and adapt. Because when we do, people don’t just feel respected, they feel understood. And people who feel understood show up with trust, creativity, and a willingness to go the distance. That’s not just good leadership. That’s good business.

It’s one thing to know the Platinum Rule. But in practice, in the real world of rapid-fire decisions, tight deadlines, and Slack messages flying faster than thoughts? We default. We default to what we would want. We default to what worked last time. We default to the style of the person who led us, or the one who impressed us.

That’s not because we’re bad people. It’s because it’s easier. Faster. More familiar. And because empathy, real, operational empathy, isn’t automatic. It’s a muscle. And muscles don’t grow from ideas; they grow from reps.

That’s why turning the Platinum Rule from principle to practice takes intentionality. It takes us to pause. It takes asking questions before acting on assumptions. And most of all, it takes a willingness to be surprised, to learn that what makes someone else feel valued might be completely different than what works for you.

Want to start building that muscle? Start small. Really small. Ask one person on your team, “When you’ve done something great, how do you want to be recognized?” Ask another, “What kind of feedback helps you grow?” Then follow through. Adjust. Iterate. Do it again.

The goal isn’t to master everyone’s user manual overnight. The goal is to listen long enough to stop guessing. Over time, that shift, away from me-centered response and toward you-centered support, becomes a habit. What starts as a deliberate choice becomes something deeper. A reflex. A default worth trusting. And that’s when leadership moves from instinct to intention. From transactional to transformational. From good to great.

If the Platinum Rule is powerful one-on-one, it becomes transformative at scale. That’s where culture comes in.

We often talk about culture like it’s a fixed trait, something an organization has. But culture isn’t a static artifact. It’s a living system, shaped by how people behave when no one’s watching and how leaders behave when everyone is. It’s not just the words on the wall; it’s how meetings are run, how performance is judged, how people get promoted, and how safe it feels to disagree.

A culture shaped by the Platinum Rule doesn’t mean an endless choose-your-own-adventure manual or softening expectations to make everyone comfortable. It means building systems that recognize and support differences while aligning around shared goals. That’s not chaos. That’s maturity.

In a Platinum Rule culture, we stop confusing “fair” with “the same.” One person might want public praise; another might prefer a quick note behind the scenes. Some thrive on real-time collaboration, others on deep, focused work without interruptions. Neither is wrong. Both deserve room to succeed.

The organizations that get this right don’t just tolerate variation, they design for it. That could mean offering flexible communication norms (voice, text, async), revisiting what “face time” really means, or even letting team members set their own recognition rituals. You don’t need infinite options. You just need enough trust and flexibility for people to feel seen and supported on their terms.

The reward? A culture where more people can do the best work of their lives, because they don’t have to pretend to be someone else to do it.

Let’s be honest: the Platinum Rule sounds great until it doesn’t.

Because at some point, someone will want to be treated in a way that conflicts with how you naturally lead, or how the company operates. Maybe they prefer total autonomy, but the project requires coordination. Maybe they want direct feedback behind closed doors, but your culture emphasizes transparency. Maybe they need time and space, but the deadline is immovable.

This is the tension that separates aspirational leadership from actual leadership. It’s easy to treat people how they want to be treated when it aligns with your instincts. It’s harder when it doesn’t. But that’s also when it matters most.

The Platinum Rule doesn’t mean saying yes to everything or abandoning standards. It doesn’t mean letting go of what the business needs. What it does mean is engaging with people from a place of respect rather than rigidity. It’s not about pleasing everyone. It’s about understanding them, and holding that understanding as part of your decision-making process, even when the answer has to be “no.”

Sometimes that means flexing your style. Sometimes it means explaining your constraints. And sometimes it just means being honest about the tradeoffs, and offering support through the friction.

It’s not easy. But leadership isn’t about ease. It’s about earning trust over time. People don’t need a leader who always agrees with them. They need a leader who sees them. Who cares enough to ask. Who listens even when the outcome stays the same.

The Platinum Rule is powerful not because it makes every moment smooth, but because it gives us the right compass when the terrain gets rough.

The Golden Rule asks us to treat others as we’d like to be treated. The Platinum Rule asks more. It demands that we notice, listen, adapt, and sometimes stretch beyond what’s comfortable. It doesn’t offer shortcuts. But it does offer results. Stronger teams. Deeper trust. Better outcomes.

When you lead with the Platinum Rule, you stop managing from a script and start leading with presence. You stop guessing what people need and start learning what helps them thrive. And when that becomes your reflex, not just your intention, you don’t just create a better team, you create a better place to work.

And that’s a competitive advantage no playbook can match.