This is another post that seems just beyond super basic for a leader but I have been surprised how little honesty I’ve encountered in my time working. I believe that a leader should always be honest even when your own pride is at stake.
When you are working with other people there needs to be a strong foundation of trust that you’re leading them in the right direction. If there is a foundation, than they’re going to do the work you ask of them. If you provide the vision and guidance than they will provide the outcome. This is applicable to all aspects of life.
In business, you lead your team to create a product or service that they build or execute for you.
In sports, you lead your team with shot calls or plays and your team executes on those plays.
In school projects, if you give your team the knowledge and information they will help complete the project.
So it is very important that your team trusts you or else they’ll begin to doubt you. When teammates start to doubt your honesty they will either abandon you or under perform because they aren’t fully committed.
One of my favorite Leadership books is Creativity, Inc. by Edwin Catmull. In this book Edwin describes the history of creating Pixar and re-establishing Disney Animations to their prime. One of the most important aspects of the book was about creating and protecting Candor within the company.
Edwin has spent over 30 years on protecting Candor within their company and explaining the benefits that being honest can have on a company. It can build your culture in a positive way as well as improve the products you’re releasing. Therefore, creating Better products. You and your team will “Be Better” if you’re developing an honest culture around candor.
When I talk about being honest I don’t mean that you should reveal confidential information or expose things that are irrelevant to the current goals. I am focused on the honesty between a leader and a follower.
In our previous blog post, I described that showing up consistently will build trust. Well, when you do eventually miss work (Let’s face it we all get sick, life gets in the way, and emergencies happen) you need to be honest about this! I’ve been in positions where leadership was late to work and promised they were on their way into our office 3 separate times, and by the end of the day they say they’re just going to stay home. I’ve also had leadership promise that certain work would get done from home only to find out the next day that it did not get done. Honesty in both these situations wouldn’t have given away any confidential information. The honesty in these situations would have built a greater understanding and trust with the leader.
If you are a leader or want to become a better leader, one of your major goals will be to gain the trust of your team. A team that trusts their leader and each other will perform better than a team drowning in tension built from distrust.
How can you implement more Candor into your life as a Leader?
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