Stephen Covey said, “You can’t talk yourself out of something you behaved yourself into.” It is one of those leadership principles that is so deceptively simple that the full power of it can easily be overlooked. So many times, as leaders (at home and at work) we fail to grasp how what we are saying is being undermined by what we are doing. So deep is our self-deception sometimes that we are genuinely surprised when our followers are not motivated or engaged or buying into whatever we are trying to sell.
It’s like if I tell my children, “I will give you licks (a spanking) if you do that one more time.” It barely has any effect because they have not seen the behaviour to back up my ‘ole talk’. My lack of disciplinary enforcement is the behaviour that needs to change before my words have any weight.
The same happens at the office… Two common examples of messages that are hardly ever ‘heard’ unless the behaviour to back it up is first evidenced are:
- We care about staff
- We are implementing a new…..
So many leaders are living in a dream world where caring means nicely worded all-staff communiques and slogans and presentations. The one truth about caring is that it must be felt and felt personally. Caring can only be communicated by action in the context of one on one interaction. The caring organization only exists insofar as the people at the top are truly caring for person X and person Y and person Z. Even if you implement a policy that is beneficial to all employees it will not move the dial much unless the staff experience it in how it is applied to them personally by their bosses.
An example of caring that I remember well is when many years ago I was feeling very ill and throwing up at work and my boss told his secretary to drive me home in his car. See what I mean! Personal, sincere behaviour. You can’t talk your way out of uncaring behaviour.
The other bug bear is the rolling out of a new anything if the management has a history of no sustainable follow through. No matter how fancy the launch or how sincere you sound this time, everybody knows it won’t last. The initiative is practically doomed to fail from the start because nobody is really going to bother much with it, confident in the knowledge that it won’t be around for long.
We should always count the cost of change. If it is a real change, it will cost something, and we have to be willing to back up our talk with the tough decisions. Our people know who we really are. If we are risk averse, they know the new entrepreneurial business idea will grind to a halt the first time that we have to stick our necks out and take some risk. If we are cheap, they know that upgrading to a 21st century IT system is not going to happen. We can’t talk louder than who we are.
Therefore, leadership is at the most fundamental level about self-development and personal transformation. Who we are being at home and at work dictates the efficacy of our leadership. If we want change in our families, places of worship and workplaces it literally begins with the change we are willing to make in ourselves.
Joyfully,
Copyright 2018, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.