Do little things matter? Do style and format matter? Does the packaging affect the quality of a product? Does grammar matter?

The easy answer to those is yes, yes, they do.

Little things matter but they never will trump the overall delivery of a project, product or service. Think for a moment about proposal for a system change that will have a million-dollar positive impact on the organization, make people’s life easier and help you deliver much better service to your customer. The core content of this proposal is solid. The numbers are right.

But, there is a typo on page 4. The wrong form of the word there is used. There are really no interesting graphics to appeal to visual people. The paragraphs are too long and ramble. The style makes the proposal hard to look at and read. Nothing interesting or sexy or appealing in this document.

Will that have an impact? Absolutely it will. Intuitively, this strikes many of you as wrong but unfortunately, style, details and presentation quality matter. It explains why neatly packaged name brands consistently outsell the same product sold generically.

Effective leaders need to strike a balance between overall effectiveness and attention to quality. When this balance is out of whack, there are two possible outcomes. If effectiveness trumps quality, poorly appearing items will appear and adversely impact the image of the organization. If there is overemphasis on quality, opportunities and market share will be lost. This balance is not a nice neat little 50/50 split either. It depends on the nature of your product or service, core values and corporate culture.

For a leader to have a quality focus, you must engage in a couple of key strategies. Firstly, you must clearly articulate your expectations. Tell your team what you expect and what you will clearly kick back to them as unacceptable. Provide them with examples of high quality and examples of poor quality. Provide them with templates of documents and standards that you view as quality work.

The second strategy becomes a matter of great judgment for leaders. A quality focused leader must not be afraid to return a piece of work to its author or architect when it does not meet the stated standard of quality. Far too many leaders “clean up” or edit projects prior to final delivery rather that have the originator make the changes. Unfortunately, that sends the message poor work is fine, because the leader will always fix it up. It will also condition your team members to continue to supply you with inferior quality work.

Where this becomes a matter of judgment and challenge is when quality abuts a deadline. I would love to produce more quality but the deadline is this afternoon. Many times, this creates a significant compromise in the quality of work.

To validate your judgment, you need to know your organization’s values. Is there more emphasis placed on speed or quality. Where is there higher impact, a missed deadline or poor quality? You must make this decision. You may also have to have a courageous conversation and tell someone a deadline will be missed because the quality was not acceptable. Certainly, not an easy conversation, but a necessary conversation none the less.

One final note about quality. As you model both your tolerance for quality and quality of your own efforts, your team will follow that example.

Tim Schneider is the founder of Aegis Learning and has been working with teams and leaders for 25 years.   He generates results, impact and his sole focus is your success.

He is the author of The Ten Competencies of Outstanding Leadership and Beyond Engagement and a widely sought speaker, training facilitator and individual development coach.