The heading of my musings on leadership this post is a South African proverb. It’s a good thing to think about on this first business day of the year.
The start of a new year gives you a chance to throw out the old and begin fresh. All too often we ignore, avoid, or just forget to take advantage of this opportunity. When this proverb popped into my head as I sat down to write, I immediately started thinking about what I had done last year that showed less than stellar behavior…behavior I hope never to exhibit again.
Unfortunately I thought of a number of such things.
We all have done things like this. We all remember when we showed in our behavior something at variance with our words. As near as I can tell, when this variance occurs, the behavior is always worse than what the words express.
Unfortunately what resonates with those who see and hear us is the behavior and not the words. The words disappear while the behavior sinks deeply into our core. One instance of poor behavior lingers. It takes many counter examples of good behavior to change how you are perceived.
On the other hand, one example of poor behavior can wipe out a history of good. We immediately perceive the bad as the true while the good was merely a coating we used to cover up our true nature. It is a sad commentary on the way we think, but we do tend to remember the bad and share it with others much more than we remember and share the good.
This has a debilitating effect on your ability to lead for that incident of poor behavior all remember and re-tell lingers, and colors what follows for quite some time. We have long memories for slights and disconnects between words and actions.
And so, as the new year begins take a few minutes and think about how you’d like to be perceived and what you need to do…and not do…for this to come about. Notice that I say do and not do rather than say and not say.
Lead by example. Those who see will understand what you mean whether the words are spoken or not.
But beware, eyes are always watching. These days all your actions are captured and with the speed of writhing fingers spread across the world.
Leadership has become more complicated, but also more powerful as your actions can be viewed by millions. This is the good new…but also the bad. As always, culture comes from the top. Make sure you’re acting to engage and build passion rather than drive away and create distrust.
It’s all in how you act.