Sincerity-The Forgotten Leadership Principle
Saw this Winston Churchill quote in Winston Churchill website. I see this as the forgotten leadership principle:
“The key to impact as a leader is your own sincerity. Before you can inspire with emotion, you must be swamped with it yourself. Before you can move their tears, your own must flow. To convince them, you must yourself believe.”
Ah, so true.
Workers have suffered from a great deal of manipulation at the hands of authority placed over them, and are pretty sensitive to it at this point. Turnover rate at some businesses is off the charts.
I say all this because week by week I give thought on techniques for better leadership here. But if all we do is master technique, then we are manipulators, and no one will want to work for us. That is getting more important year by year. We could yet see 50% turnover in departments if we have not seen it yet. Let’s stop the bleeding and get right leadership in place. See also Be a Popular Leader.
So, today I wanted to note that we all need to take a hard look in the mirror. We need to ask ourselves if we, and the leaders we have hired sincerely care for workers or are just using them.
The Forgotten Leadership Principle is “Who Are You?”
Do people work for my company because they want to or because they need a paycheck? We, as leaders, are responsible for this difference. Do not kid yourself and say everyone has turnover. This is even more so because turnover is the least of our problems. For the people who stay are the ones who could not go. And they only do what they must each day with as little passion as possible.
You need to meet with your direct reports monthly and let them talk. We also need to have all your subordinate leaders do the same. However, if you do that as a technique but do not have sincerity, then the technique will help you little.
Workers make the product and give the service that ultimately gets us paid. They are the ones and not us. Let us not see them as a dime a dozen. They are people like us with hopes and dreams. Therefore, take a look in mirror and see if you are trying to become the right person or just trying to learn the right techniques. Being the right person will take you far even if you lack techniques.
I have quite few blogs on this general topic of “Be” rather than just “do” on my China site here.