In
Leadership From The Inside Out, the late Kevin Cashman makes a powerful distinction between character, the essence of who we are, and
persona, the external personality we have created to cope with our everyday life. A leader who leads through character is guided by
authenticity, while the one who leads from
persona is guided by image.
The former has trust and compassion as foremost guiding principles,
while the latter is concerned about fear and self-interest. The leader
who leads through character is focused on creating value and
contribution rather than winning at all costs. Such a leader values
openness and inclusion, shunning control and exclusion, the hallmarks of
the leader who is driven by image.
Here are a few tips to inspire you in your leadership journey:
1. Make values actionable
Living your values every day is an important aspect
of character in action. Companies go through considerable expense having
consultants craft value statements that, unfortunately, end up being
nothing more than motherhood statements hanging on the wall in the
reception lobby. Prevent this from happening by making values
actionable. “We value open communication” is vague and left to
interpretation. Consider what happens if you clarify this by adding:
“There are no sacred cows in this team.”
2. Be known as a promise-keeper
In
The Leadership Challenge, authors James Kouzes and Barry Posner consider
“Model the Way” through
personal example and dedicated execution, as a foundational practice
for admirable leaders. One way to put this into action is to keep your
promises, to do what you say you will do. No matter how small the
promise is, no matter who the promise is made to, strive to keep your
word. While events may well prevent us from honoring commitments we
made, don’t let a commitment slip by without getting back to people to
let them know why you can’t fulfill your promise. Resolve to handle your
word as precious currency and watch how your value rises in everyone’s
eyes.
3. Don’t take shortcuts in quality
As Henry Ford put it: “Quality means doing it right
when no one is looking.” Do you preach to your team that quality is an
important value, yet when there is a crisis, you find yourself telling
people to take shortcuts at the expense of quality in order to get the
order out the door? Every time you do this, it erodes your authenticity
in the eyes of your constituents. Eventually, when you speak about
quality, they will discount it as lip service.
4. Be consistent in your dealings with others
Do you treat some people in your organization or
team better than you treat others? For example, do you unwittingly
complain about a member of your team to other team members? While we can
easily slip into such behavior, especially when we are tired and
frustrated by the day’s events, consider that this chips away at your
integrity as a leader.
5. Audit your decisions
At the end of every week, get in the habit of going
over each decision you made. Did your focus on the bottom line cause you
to forget the impact on some people? Did your biases affect the
objectivity of your actions? Are you proud? Do your actions reflect
positively on you as a person of character? What could you have done
better? Every action we take, no matter how small, has our character
stamp on it.
According to Biology Letters’
“Cues of being watched enhance cooperation in a real-world setting,” one
of the reasons we are more civilized when we know we are being watched
is due to concerns about our reputation. Reputation is the quality or
character that other people attribute to us; it’s the surface layer.
It’s our carefully crafted profile on Facebook; it’s the multitude of
recommendations that are posted on our LinkedIn profile.
Character, on the other hand, is what is deep inside us; it’s who we
are on a daily basis, when things go well and when things go wrong. It’s
who we are in the boardroom as well as in our living room. We have
reason to be proud when both reputation and character are a mirror image
of each other. Abraham Lincoln put it this way: “Character is like a
tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it;
the tree is the real thing.” Bruna Martinuzzi President, Clarion Enterprises Ltd
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My whole point in posting this was to make folks think about who they are recommending and why? Is it someone or company with Character and Integrity? or is it someone you just met and liked but have no real knowledge of their company or character.
So many times in life we pass the day away with no real thought other than to make sure everything is taken care. No thought of how we are affecting others with our decisions.....
Let's start the new year with a bolder vision of who we truly are both in the professional and personal venue. By bolder vision, I meant take your expectations of 2012 and go ahead and increase it by 10%. Sit down and find out why you hamper yourself with the constraints we put on ourselves everyday because we do not have this or that. If we put away the negative thinking and do a weekly "Character" check of our decisions I truly feel 10% is a no-brainer to achieve in a yearly basis.
Tonie Boaman, Dash Notary
