WHY EMPLOYEES DOUBT YOUR INTEGRITY, EVEN THOUGH YOU ARE HONEST.

You are honest and you have integrity. No doubt. That, however, is not the issue. The challenge you have to deal with is how to manage the inconsistencies that make you appear to be dishonest.

Trust and leadership go hand in hand, for very few people are willing to be led by someone they do not trust. If a leader is not trusted, that lack of trust becomes contagious, and members of the team soon start distrusting each other. The contagion can quickly spread in a company and out to customers and other stakeholders, destroying business efficiency and potential.
A lack of trust is one of the unfortunate by-products of this COVID-blighted world, as we view everyone with suspicion. Does that person have the virus? Is this company doing enough to protect me? Is my boss planning to get rid of me? Suspicion is only natural now but can have dangerous consequences.
Leaders have to focus on building trust, because trust is possibly the single most important element of building effective teams. However, you cannot build trust if people don’t trust you. To do that, people need to know who you are. They need to know that you know what you’re talking about. And they need to believe that you have their best interests – and an honourable cause – at heart. They trust you for your character, your competence and your integrity.
They don’t trust you when you remain aloof, hard to read and mysterious. In this case, they will always wonder what your agenda really is and whether you’re being completely truthful. More than anything else, this will undermine their willingness to give maximum effort, and they will be inclined always to keep one eye on you and one eye on their work, thus dissolving their focus and effectiveness. Worse still, that wariness will translate itself into a lack of willingness to trust colleagues.
Once you start a chain reaction of mistrust, you also trigger a lack of respect. A lack of respect translates into a lack of respect for teammates, and for customers. And all of that inevitably leads to disastrous results. When you build trust, you build strong relationships, which lead to better business. The business benefits of trust are enormous.
 
It is essential that a leader is trusted, gives trust and fosters trust in the team.
For leaders to be trusted, they have to be authentic, principled, humble and honest. They also have to be highly visible and visibly committed to every person in the team, to the vision and to the culture of the team. These are all skills which can be practised for maximum effect. To be skilled in all of these areas, however, leaders must be self-aware. Again, this is another skill, which can be developed and honed.
Perhaps the single most important trait, though, is honesty.
If I was to ask you whether you thought you were honest, whether you behaved with integrity, and whether you had a strong set of principles, I have little doubt that the answer would be yes, of course. I also have little doubt that this is true.
The problem comes in inconsistent behaviours, inadvertent hypocrisy, and a simple lack of self-awareness, along with a lack of understanding of your impact on others. It is in these areas that trust breaks down.
While managers say they are honest, a worryingly large number of employees disagree. Overall, 90 per cent of managers I have interviewed believe they have a strongly authentic persona. They believe absolutely that they have integrity and are sincere. Sadly, only half of employees agree and nearly a third actively disagree.
Among employees who have their doubts about their managers (and there are many) there are likely to be feelings of uncertainty, wariness and even danger. Their managers will appear to them to be unpredictable, hypocritical and insincere.
 
Without integrity, leaders will soon fail.
If, for example, you keep choosing what’s convenient over what’s right, your team will quickly lose faith. As leaders, we always have to make decisions that, in some ways, define who we are. Without a strong set of values to help guide us, our decision-making will soon become inconsistent at best, and potentially confusing and damaging at worst.
Leadership is an act of courage and being courageous often means standing up for the things you truly believe in, even in the most difficult of circumstances. Those without integrity will stand up for very little, and hypocrisy quickly follows.
As leaders we are being scrutinized every single moment, and everything we say, everything we do and every decision we make will be picked over by our teams, who will be quick to interpret those actions through their own set of filters.
To avoid being thought of as potentially dishonest, or lacking in principles, it becomes necessary to be radically transparent with people – absolutely straight with them about what decisions you’re making and why. It is then especially important to ensure there is no gap between your words and actions. This is an area, from my experience, that most leaders are simply unable to see as a weakness. Followers often pay more heed to what you do than what you say.
If you say bullying is unacceptable but do nothing about the super- salesman who is domineering and a bully, the signal you are sending is very different to your words. Followers will take their cue from how you behave, not your words, and the damage is done.
This gap between your actions and your words is potentially one of the most toxic to your leadership effectiveness. Your followers will be watching for consistency – both in your language and in your behaviour. If you even slightly change your story or treat one member of the team differently to the others, this will send danger signals that you are not to be trusted. You have to be acutely aware of being consistent or explain fully why not when you behave in an inconsistent manner.
I have no doubt that you are honest, sincere and principled. To convince your followers, you need to practise the behaviours that demonstrate your honesty and integrity every day. Without fail.
 
The following are some potential ‘authenticity gaps’ to watch out for:

• Employees will judge your integrity based on whether you do what you say you’ll do. If you make a promise, deliver it or your integrity will be questioned.
• Ambiguity is your enemy. If you’re not crystal-clear about things, people might develop false expectations or misunderstand, and the next time you act they’ll think you’re being inconsistent simply because they never understood you first time round.
• Defensiveness can be a killer. When people believe that you are closed- minded about a situation, they will hesitate to bring you problems. They will especially avoid you if you tend to go on a counterattack whenever you are confronted with an issue. You have to practise being open and receptive to problems, even those of your own making.
• Being too egotistical can also lead to people doubting your integrity. If people see you talking up your own achievements, or trying to demonstrate your intelligence too much, they will soon begin to doubt whether you have their best interests at heart. The worst thing you can ever do is take credit for things your staff have done.
• Never, ever lie. Even slight inconsistencies in what you say will be picked up by members of your team but being called out on a lie (or even denying a truth) is fatal to your credibility. If you are challenged on something and are unable or not allowed to respond, for whatever reason, it is always better to simply say that you’re not able to talk about that at this stage. Promise to get back to them as soon as you can.
• Think carefully about how you should behave differently, when you expect employees to change what they’re doing. These visible signals will encourage change, because employees will be watching you intently to see whether you’re prepared to change as well, and only when your behaviours reinforce a new culture, will they believe you.

GIVE MORE PRAISE, GET BETTER RESULTS

Leaders seldom praise enough, even though positive feedback is the breakfast of champions. It’s even worse, now.

 
Leaders are often possessed of the quality of being driven people, which means that they think nothing is ever good enough and everything could be improved.
It is that drive that made them leaders but made it also makes it difficult for them to find things to recognize and praise. They are too busy finding the things that could be improved.
Such leaders are possibly even worse now – with the huge pressures on them to find solutions to the myriad problems induced by the COVID-19 crisis.
How to generate more revenue, faster? How to save costs? How to cope with social distancing requirements? How to get employees to come back to the office? How to arrange the office to conform with legal requirements? The list goes on and on and focusing only on that list will mean they won’t focus on the one thing that will do more to help them achieve their goals than anything else.

Praise triggers neurochemicals that enable creativity

Being praised boosts our self-esteem and our engagement, because it triggers the release of dopamine, the neurotransmitter that helps control the reward and pleasure centre of the brain. Dopamine also contributes to innovative thinking and creative problem-solving. It is win–win.
These effects, however, are short-lived, which is why the leaders who are considered most effective are the ones who are giving feedback regularly, heavily biased to recognizing good work and encouraging improvement.
When managers are effective at recognizing their employees, they are not only more trusted, but they have lower staff turnover rates than other managers and achieve better results. There is a caveat, however. The praise must be deserved, for empty praise has little or no value – in fact, it can reduce a leader’s credibility. It can do more harm than no praise at all.
We want feedback that is positive and fits with our view of our performance. We don’t want critical feedback that is unhelpful or useless. We need to know exactly what alternative behaviours look like, and why they will produce better results.
We don’t want praise for our personal characteristics, though that is nice; we would much rather have advice that was specifically about behaviours, either ones that are desirable or ones that will not be helpful in future. Instead of telling us what we are doing wrong, focus rather on what we should do instead, in detail, if you want an improvement.
‘That was a good job on the sales assignment,’ is too general, and yet this is exactly where leaders fall down because this is how they so often give praise. Positive feedback needs to be specific and needs to be timely. Instead of this generalized statement, be more specific. Your praise will be appreciated even more if you said: ‘I love the work you did on why consumers don’t go into stores anymore. It was the key insight that gave us the edge in our sales pitch. Great job.’
Appreciative leaders spend time trying to catch people out on the good work they do, not on the bad work. Their praise is sincere and heartfelt, and it is frequent and varied. They will have thought about the role every member of the team played in a winning effort and will be sure to specifically recognize that role. Each and every time something good happens. Their praise takes many forms. It might be delivered in a one-to-one meeting in the corridor. It might be publicly recognized at a team session. It might be in a personal handwritten note.
Good leaders create a culture of recognition. They encourage employees to bring them examples of great work, so that they can praise people. Better yet, they encourage employees to recognize each other. They regularly remind people how they feel when they’re at their best and encourage them to visualize those moments to enable them to repeat them.

Praise the unsung heroes

It is easy to recognize heroes, but affective leaders look for ways to praise the unsung heroes, the reliable backroom boys and girls who made every- thing possible but were not individually able to shine. One manager who worked for me always impressed me when he would go to our IT department after a new client pitch. He would tell them that we won that pitch in part because the IT department had done such a good job in ensuring that the presentations went smoothly and without a hitch. Next time he asked for a special effort from the IT department, he never had a problem getting the technical people to go above and beyond.
He also talked to the receptionists and told them how their warm greetings and helpfulness had wowed the client. That not only put a smile on their faces when receiving the praise, it ensured they would be smiling heartily at other clients when they came in our door. I would often hear him really digging into work to find out what people had done and why what they did was important. Then he would go out and praise someone.
He was also brilliant at coaching his teams to better performance. He would never offer criticism himself, but in any team review he would start by praising what had gone well. He would then ask members of the team to suggest ways that they could make it even better next time. He would often counter critical comments by suggesting they were being too harsh on themselves, but still nudging them to improve. I always thought that was a brilliant trick – he got them to be self-critical and then built them up, focusing them on the improved ways of doing things. Although now aware of an area for improvement, members of his team still felt the nourishing effect of his praise.

Be a strength finder.

The strongest leaders are strength finders. They look for the strengths in others and look for ways to enhance those strengths. They bring together the strengths of all of their team members and ensure that everyone on the team knows what each other’s strengths are. When you link great work to a person’s strength, you become more effective in giving praise. For example: ‘Anna, I know how creative you’ve always been, and those illustrations for our sales pitch this morning really brought the data to life. Well done, we wouldn’t have won that proposal without you.’ You’ve done three great things in here – you’ve used her name, you’ve identified her strength, and you’ve related it to specific work in a timely way.
Great leaders always find a way to link good work to the purpose of the organization. We all want to feel that what we do is meaningful, and that what we do is important. It is soul destroying to believe that all the effort we put in is neither recognized nor worthwhile.
When you are both specific in your praise, and you link it to a higher purpose, you are now operating at a very high level of praise giving. Something like this: ‘You did a great job today finding a way to get that part to our maintenance people. That was so important. Had they not got that part we would have disappointed a customer, and we would have failed in our mission to be the best service organization in the world.’
Praise that is specific, timely, sincere, linked to a person’s strengths and connected to the purpose of the organization is high praise indeed.
Don’t fall into the trap of being quick to criticize and slow to praise. Most managers believe themselves to be more effective when they give criticism, and vastly underestimate the power of positive reinforcement.
Ask an employee how they feel, however, and they’ll tell you that too much negative feedback diminishes a leader in their eyes. Bosses who respect them, recognize them and encourage them are the ones they will always rate the highest.

Here’s your appreciation checklist:

• Do you avoid giving feedback either positive or negative?
• Do you criticize more than you praise?
• Do you praise members of your team frequently enough?
• Do you give constructive feedback, always leaving employees feeling good about it?
• Do you constantly look for strengths and good work in order to give timely recognition?
• Do you make your praise specific?
• Do you link your praise to the purpose of your organization?
• Do you praise everyone evenly enough, even unsung heroes?
• Do you praise person-to-person, and publicly?
• Do you send letters of praise?
• Do you encourage a culture of praise and recognition

TO BELIEVE YOU CAN ACHIEVE THE IMPOSSIBLE IS NOT NAIVETY… IT IS LEADERSHIP.

Leadership is not a position; it is an attitude of mind. It is about choosing to take a lead, and to make something happen. If you are a leader, you see and take responsibility, and change things. Whether people want to follow then becomes a matter of how they see you, which is determined by how you project yourself.

Leaders with a quiet confidence, an aura of self-belief and positivity, give others a sense of certainty, which has a powerful positive effect on their brain chemistry. We like certainty, we hate uncertainty and doubt, so we love leaders who believe that we can achieve the impossible.
That’s why, right now, after all the uncertainties and fears surrounding COVID-19 and the impact it has had on people, companies and the economy, positivity is a much-needed leadership trait.
It just takes the right mindset. Leaders who decide to have a positive mindset become more charismatic. Those who seek out problems and move to the sound of gunfire are magnetic. They draw followers to them because of their positivity, their certainty, their bias to action and their willingness to take accountability for their actions.
They don’t make excuses for a lack of results. They take accountability for everything over which they have even the smallest element of control. No excuses. That means thinking in advance of potential problems and having backup plans. That means considering all options and being ready to take a different course if necessary.
Positive leaders make it clear that the only thing they truly control is themselves, and they act as if success or failure is totally within their control. They never blame others, and they never talk about being let down by people they were dependent on. If they succeed, it was down to others. If they fail, it was down to their own failure as a leader. They are certain that there is always a better way to do things. They are always looking for the next challenge to overcome. They have high standards, know that they can be achieved, and expect everyone (including themselves) to attain them. They know that persistence pays dividends.
Certainty has a powerful positive effect on our brains
Positive leaders provide certainty, and certainty has a powerful and positive effect on the brains of their followers. A sense of certainty releases positive neurochemicals in the brain, like serotonin and dopamine, and these create positive feelings that encourage people to join in and give of their best. Nothing creates a greater sense of uncertainty than a leader who keeps changing their mind. Indecisiveness, or even an unwillingness to make a decision, is fatal to the confidence of followers.
Having made the decision, charismatic leaders paint as vivid a picture of success as they can, every aspect of it – from how it will feel, to who will be impacted, to what benefits will be derived. They convey this picture to every member of the team, so that every individual member can recite it as well as the leaders themselves can, and in as much detail. This creates alignment and a combined sense of certainty and conviction that is hard to resist. The more the leaders recall this picture, the more a conviction of success is hardwired into their followers. This conviction is priceless, and when all things are equal, can make a huge difference.
Optimism is charismatic and attractive, an essential ingredient of any significant achievement. Positive leaders reframe challenges wisely and are careful to avoid foolhardiness. However, they don’t let fear stop them, and it is sometimes their positivity alone that can make the difference.
How easy is it to achieve something if you don’t really believe you can achieve it? How likely is it that you will overcome challenges if you are critical of the team around you? How hard is work when the people around you are negative and defeatist? Impossible, right? On the other hand, one positive person who absolutely believes we can do this thing can make a huge difference to the team, to our mood and to our willingness to even try.
Every great leader that I’ve had the privilege of working with had what often seemed to me like naive optimism. There were times I felt like that optimism was completely unwarranted, but I then saw how it helped to generate the energy and commitment from the team that was necessary to achieve the results. Just the willingness to act made a difference.
These leaders taught me that optimism without action is simply wishful thinking. They knew the odds, and they knew how significant the challenge was that faced us. They also knew that nothing great happened without some element of risk. They were prepared to take those risks and be accountable for failure. Risk-taking is not the same as gambling – which is where you run against the odds in a foolhardy way on an outside chance of success. It is about calculated risks, where there are benefits even from failing.
Positive leaders give others confidence
The leaders who demonstrated positivity knew how necessary it was to give other people the confidence that they could achieve the impossible. They knew that positivity drove better performance. They knew that positivity was good for innovation and good for the well-being of every member of the team.
Consider what happens when pessimists dominate the team. Innovation depends on being open to new ways of thinking, lots of alternative ways of doing things, and a willingness to take risks and encourage other people to take risks. It’s hard to drown out the voices of those who keep saying ‘We’ve tried this before and it failed’, or ‘That will never work’, or ‘That seems really risky’.
Already the negative energy has killed off any impetus to try. It is easy to magnify problems, which often have root in our most basic fears. If you believe a project will flop, it will.
This is not to say that there isn’t a role for pessimism, because there are appropriate times when a cautious and risk-avoiding approach is necessary, to avoid the terrible consequences of ill thought-through action.
Optimism requires wisdom
Optimism therefore requires wisdom, and the flexibility to assess situations appropriately. There will be times when a ‘can do’ attitude is necessary, even in the face of challenges, and there will be times when it is simply unwise to proceed. As Winston Churchill said: ‘A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; and the optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty’. Good leaders practise the art of seeing the opportunity by reframing difficult situations as challenges filled with opportunities.
Optimism is charismatic and attractive, because it is such a crucial part of achievement, especially important when organisations are going through significant change. Optimists are more persistent and do not abandon hope at the first sign of trouble. They also tend to expect the best from others, and that expectation itself can drive better performance.
When you show people that you believe in them, they believe in themselves. When you expect more from people, they expect more from themselves. This phenomenon is called ‘the Pygmalion effect’, where high expectations of a person have a positive effect on that person’s performance. A corollary of the Pygmalion effect is ‘the Golem effect’, in which low expectations lead to a decrease in performance.
Positivity and optimism build a platform for creativity. Your team will always respond to it. It’s not a question of whether you can solve an issue or come up with a new idea, it’s only a question of how.
The belief that you can achieve the impossible is not naivety; it’s leadership.

INCLUSIVITY IS NOT A SPECIAL "INITIATIVE" – IT'S A WAY OF LIFE.

Great managers know that relationships are the engines of success, so they are inclusive, in every way. If relationships are their focus, then open and two-way communications are an imperative and, to them, being inclusive is not a special “initiative” – it’s a way of life.

The best managers embrace and actively encourage diversity in their teams. Then, they always facilitate involvement from all members of the team. (There’s no point having a diverse team if you then don’t engage everyone in the team.)
In addition, good managers seek involvement from a wide range of customers and suppliers, knowing that real diversity of thinking from inside and outside their organisations is what leads to more creativity and to better results.
They even include their teams in the leadership of their endeavours, by creating a team of leaders, not followers.
Inherently, we know that inclusivity is a ‘good thing’. However, I don’t believe we always understand that inclusivity has many dimensions to it. At its most basic level, it is about including every individual who is a member of a team and giving them a sense of belonging and equality, no matter their age, ethnicity, nationality, religion or gender.
First of all, inclusivity is about encouraging diversity, with all of the benefits that a wide range of experience, points of view and ways of thinking will bring to a team. Inclusivity is about a team of very different but equal people sharing ideas and throwing down challenges because they feel safe and included and encouraged to do so.
Inclusivity is also about bringing all of your stakeholders into your decision- making process, whether it be customers, suppliers, colleagues from other parts of the business, or anyone else who contributes to your success.
Great leaders create more leaders.
In addition, inclusivity is about including people in leadership itself. Good leaders create a brilliant team of followers. Great leaders – charismatic leaders – create around them a team of leaders.
As a leader, we get things done through others, so the more we include them in our plans, our culture and our way of doing things, the more likely we are to succeed. If we are truly inclusive, our mindset will be to create a leader out of every member of our team. The more leaders you have, the better your chances of success.
Every employee needs to have leadership mindset in order to be able to take the action necessary to quickly satisfy customers, deal with issues and make things happen, without having to go up and down a complicated chain of command.
They can only do this if they’re included in thinking about strategy, goals, success measures and have in their minds a vision of long-term success. They can only do this if they feel included in achieving the purpose and vision of the organization. They can only do this if they understand not only the what, but the how and why. They need to be included in the culture and values of the organization so that they can make appropriate decisions. They need to know why they’re doing things, why it is important and what success looks like.
If all of those things are truly embedded, and each employee has a leadership mindset, they will be able to make decisions that are good for customers, good for the community, good for the company and ultimately good for shareholders. Leaders who keep information to themselves and don’t include everyone in their thinking will soon find themselves with problems mounting up to impossible levels.
Employees with choice buy in to change
We all often fall into the trap of thinking that people hate change. They may hate the word change, but they love the idea of choice. When leaders include members of their team in creating choices for action, there is very little need to get them to buy into what needs to be done. It is their suggestion and all you have to do is get out of the way.
Charismatic leaders who do this shine because they’re not being held back by pride or fear. They don’t worry about whether the people they lead will develop and get into a position to take their job. They know that team members who can replace them enable the leaders themselves to progress higher up the chain. You can’t be promoted if you can’t be replaced.
To be truly inclusive, we have to change our mindset and ensure that we live the value of inclusivity in everything we do, every day. We have to watch for those inbuilt biases that may inhibit how we think about people. Each of us will have been brought up in ways that will have built unconscious bias into us, and to be truly inclusive, leaders have to search for and understand their own biases in order to prevent them from getting in the way of being truly inclusive.
You have to regard everyone as equal, and that everyone has strengths, no matter where they come from, how old they are, no matter their gender, race or nationality. Charismatic leaders always use inclusive words. It is always about us. We achieve this. They use gender-inclusive language, and they avoid generalizations or stereotypes. They don’t make sweeping statements about social groups, nor do they make personal assumptions based on gender or culture, age or social group.
To be more charismatic, good leaders take time to educate themselves about the words and phrases and perspectives that might offend. They cultivate a mindset that everyone has strengths, and everyone is equal, which means everyone should be included. Everyone has something to bring to the party.
Innovation is better with diverse teams
Inclusive leaders make sure that, when meetings are held, everyone is equal and everyone is involved. They know that better discussions are driven by diversity. Better discussions lead to better insights, which lead to better decisions. Better decisions lead to better plans and better outcomes. Not one of us is smarter than all of us. They know that differences can be challenging but encourage members to be respectful of different views. They nurture respectful disagreement and debate. This is why inclusive leaders always ensure that everyone in the team feels included, and never allow bad behaviour, which marginalizes or isolates anyone in the team.
Inclusive leaders seek to create a sense of community and build relationships for the long term. They know that relationships are the engines of success.
This is the inclusive leader’s checklist. Rate yourself on a scale of 0 – 10 on these points, where 1 is hardly ever and 10 is always:

• Do you genuinely believe inclusivity is a good thing? Do you behave in an inclusive way every day?
• Do you examine your unconscious biases, and seek to change them and the words you use in order to be more inclusive?
• Do you encourage diversity and take action to promote it?
• Do you strive to make every member of your team feel included and promote a culture of inclusivity in the team?
• Do you include your team in the leadership of your organization, and encourage them to develop their leadership mindset and skills?
• Do you include everyone in your vision and goal setting, and then ensure they know what to do because they understand their role and what decision-making powers they have to deliver the vision?
• Do you include all of your key stakeholders from outside your team when you are problem-solving or trying to create new solutions and new ideas? Do you believe in the idea of co-creation as the route to the best possible solutions?

Inclusivity and diversity enable teams to out-think and out-perform more homogeneous organizations, all the time. Workplace diversity delivers a far higher degree of innovation, has a hugely positive effect on company culture, and also has the less visible but no less important benefit of being able to diversify a customer or client base. All that leads to huge increases in revenue and productivity.