Non-Faked Values in Leadership
Leading People & Change with Authenticity, Integrity and Consistency
For a few months now I focused on values in my private life. I was thinking of what kind of myself I want to be and how I want to live my life by doing retrospective analysis and taking a look at possible futures. I thought about how I value my friends and relatives behaviors and how I feel being judged by others.
Of course sooner or later I transferred my thoughts and opinions to my working life and projected them on my last and actual project. Never I was deeper into change and disruption than now and I determined that values are key to many things I use to do leading these projects and also others in the past: Leadership, Cultural Mapping, establishing agile approaches, training people, etc.
In the end I identified three key values, besides the basic ones like honesty, respect, etc. I am convinced that those led to me, still being able to look into the mirror in the morning and to others accepting me and my opinion.
- Authenticity — being truly myself, also in my working environment, in different situations, also in stressful ones. Being recognized as a person that is not pretending and that is using methods and communication in a manner that fits to my personal strengths and weaknesses. The most important basis for authenticity seems to be self-reflection and being honest to yourself.
- Integrity — being a trustful person, that is keeping secrets and not selling the trust of colleges and employees for the own profit. Great quote: Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching. (CS Lewis)
- Consistency — Don’t be a moving target for colleges and employees. Instead be reliable in your opinions, target, etc. And if you have to change your mind, your organization, or the target, take everyone to the journey.
Context: Organization Change vs People Change
The hardest path you can take is to change the cultural and social aspects of an organization at the same time as changing the working environment like processes and responsibilities. How could you for example make use of lean principles if you don’t change the way people work together? And how can you change the way they work in a team without affecting the social culture between them?
On the other hand often the one thing goes hand in hand with the other and there is a higher chance for success with disruptive changes.
Your organization is a social environment. So ask yourself how you operate in other social environments and what values you hold as a person.
“Creating an Environment of consent and confirmation“
At first hand you might think this sounds good, because it transports the feeling of harmony and community. But no!!! It`s not good to just have Yes-(wo)men around. These people already use this behavior to push their own carrier or they become this type of person because with the time everybody tends to go the easier way or to give into the own frustration. If leaders value consent and confirmation higher than independent thinking and healthy criticism, the flow of productivity will stop. This is one of the factors that drive standstill and an organization that is only concerned with itself. Instead it makes sense to value the outcome of the team or the organization and to be an example for other leaders and those in charge. That does not mean that you can’t asses your employees individually — but still it makes sense to focus on the productivity and the contribution to the common goal.
In this manner your values and leadership capabilities are key to an active design of an environment, that leads to satisfaction and productivity in an ever changing world.
Deny the Comfort Zone
I can’t stand the quote any longer “Leave your comfort zone”, especially told by a leader or manager. It’s the damn job of us leaders to define a new comfort zone. Nobody leaves the comfort zone if there is no added value in doing it! Start valuing ideas, stop behaving inhumane when somebody is wrong. Focus your work on the people and the system instead of the functional aspects. Still, you will always have enough functional topics on your table!
Lead by example and stay true
Lead by example does not mean to do the things exactly the way others should do them. It means to transport values that build the foundation of your organization and not to contradict them. There is no perfect behavior as a leader. You can’t learn only via a seminar or training how to behave to get good and productive response and feedback. You have to find a way of communicating in a leadership manner, while standing authentic the same time. It’s all about credibility. You are a person, a character and there is no mistake in being honest about that! Be emotional if you are, be an absent-minded professor, if this your way of being creative. Don’t try to pretend, deal with it, tell people about it and you will get good response.
Target group oriented communication vs Crap Communication
It is normal to communicate specifically with individuals or different teams of your organization. But there is a big difference in communicating differently and communicating different things!!! If you care about common targets and transparency, the goal should be to trigger the perception of the same factual content in each counterpart. This is the main factor of being consistent and assessable for your colleges and employees.
If you are able put the people together, do so, or the grapevine will kill the rest of factual content left.
The Path of Insight
Essential for any independent employee is a path of insight to understand change and its outcomes. Either they have walked this path before or they need to be guided onto it. It depends on the people, their tasks and responsibilities and also their knowledge, how much you have to guide them. Of course it is ok to have a way in mind how working together in your team or organization could work, but if you want the people to identify with their work and you as a leader, you have to keep that in mind.
Leaders’ opinion
Of course you have an opinion and there is no value in holding back more than others in your team. It is more about three key behaviors in expressing your opinion
- Communicate opinion as opinion…
… and not as a fact. Make clear, it is an opinion. This is much more important for a leader than for anybody else. - Catch the right moment
Know your team and catch the moment to share your opinion. Still your position will effect the response, so the right timing is essential! - Value other opinions.
Of course you can also give feedback for bad ideas! But you have to stay with the principles of feedback (e.g. by Rouxelle de Villiers):
That’s it. Feel free to share and follow!
