To me, it’s what you do when no one is looking, or it may be ignoring the 800 lb. gorilla in the room. Heaven forbid we talk about that. Lack of integrity can be the biggest leadership killer. It sends a message to your team that maintaining transparency and honesty is only valued some of the time. Now they have to figure out when it is valued and when it’s not. They are now shooting in the dark. Of course we all recognize the big gaps in integrity like stealing from the company, cheating on your accounting records, etc. But, what about the more subtle issues?
- You, as the leader, adhere to most of the rules, but you selectively ignore others, yet don’t take the time to get buy-in to change the rules either. You ignore it, hoping that no one will notice.
- You’ve promised something to your team that you haven’t been able to deliver on, and you don’t see how to find the time and energy to do it, so you keep ignoring it, hoping no one will notice.
The best path is to shine the spotlight on the gorilla and ask everyone to help solve the issues. It’s not a weakness and everything won’t fall apart. Counting on your team to help increases morale, gets buy-in and ownership, creates more committed team members and produces a lot of creative ideas that you wouldn’t have come up with on your own. Take the plunge and try it. Get rid of your gorillas.
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