Trust and Integrity - Meaningful Leadership in Crunchy Times

Are you willing to be measured on your integrity?

Free feedback coaching session with every Leadership Assessment - 195euro + VAT

"...the one thing has the potential to create unparalleled success and prosperity in every dimension of life.  Yet is it the least understood, most neglected, and most underestimated possibility of our time.  That one thing is TRUST" Stephen Covey.

Integrity and trust slip off the tongue as easily as they find themselves in corporate mission and value statements, and as easily as 'credit crunch' marketing that now proliferates our daily routines from lunchtime menus to early Xmas sales.   But perhaps if organisations really understood what it means to lead with integrity, we wouldn't be in this crunchy situation now.   

When reality hits home, these words are much harder to walk than talk.     And it starts at the top.

Our experience is that organisations fall into two camps:  those who are huddled in the throes of inaction and paralysis hell bent on survival at any cost by doing more of the same or "more for less", and those who have realised the playing field is forever changed and who are actively incorporating sustainability and social responsibility into their value chain, knowing that they must in fact do so if they wish to survive and thrive in the tumultuous times ahead.  These people realise that great strategy goes nowhere without the culture that desires to drive it to reality.

The Environment - A New Context for Business

While all organisations face the same basic mandate for innovation, when push comes to shove making a profit is the most influential institution in society today.  According to Peter Senge, in his new book "The Necessary Revolution" (Nicholas Brealey Publishing 2008):

"Understanding how sustainability is becoming a corporate priority at the CEO and board level is vital.  The first step is the simplest and the hardest: seeing the entire Industrial Age system with fresh eyes.  In this new way of looking at the world and business's role in it, the biggest circle is the environment; within that circle is human society, the economy, industries, and individual businesses areas much smaller circles that fit within both society and the environment".

As Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface, puts it, businesses need to wake up to the simple fact that "the economy is the wholly owned subsidiary of nature, not the other way around".   Similarly, continues Senge, there can be no healthy economy without a stable and vibrant social order.

So what does that mean in practice?

In 2007, Google announced plans to fund an internal research group with a mandate to develop cheaper renewable energy sources.  Taking the industrial age viewpoint, many analysts believed that the company was straying far from its business comfort zone when this was announced, but in fact the analyst got to the heart of an important question: "What are today's corporate priorities and who do they align with an organisations place in the large business universe?"  Pressure for quarterly earnings has traditionally driven executive decision making, but when these choices butt up against the realities of global warming, increasing threat of terrorist attacks and sustainability requirements, and their priorities must be re-examined.  The status quo can no longer hold.

In fact, Google, which uses an enormous amount of power to operate the servers at the heart of its business, is simply following its motto "Do no evil".  Google is walking its talk.

We believe that the starting point can and should be also be far closer to home.  Whilst it is good to focus effort on the external environment, the external is a reflection of the internal: if we have got ourselves in this position as a planet, it's a reflection of how we are acting and being internally and each organisation, each individual is a microcosm of the macrocosm.   Seeing and taking our roles within society and organisations at this level is crucial.  Physician heal thyself. 

There is much work to be done in building sustainability in how we relate to each other inside organisations and through the value chain amongst employees, managers, unions, customers, suppliers and leaders and in the way business partnerships are conducted - spreading , teaching, modelling trust and integrity is a fundamental foundation.   This comes down to inspirational and highly moral leadership and the conviction to do things with integrity, not for a fast buck or an easy solution on a lazy day.

Leadership Excellence - Executive Development from Xenergie

At Xenergie, we believe four things are important to get right at this stage:

1. Coaching leaders to lead: leadership is largely about a relationship between leaders and followers; therefore a central task for all leaders is to build and maintain a solid relationship with others - employees, customers, suppliers, stakeholders.... Leaderships is NOT management, leadership involves taking others on a journey and the reconciliation of various dilemmas on that journey.  Management is a science of catching people doing things wrong, leadership is about culture and vision - catching people doing things right and inspiring them to more of it.
2. Artful facilitation of crucial conversations that are necessary for trust to form: making time for talking and understanding different viewpoints, and making it OK to have opposing views.   In corporate life, more goes unsaid that said, and this ultimately is the biggest eroder of trust and productivity.    At Xenergie, we facilitate conversations that unblock unhappy teams, that fuel new ideas that help convert fear and anxiety in tough times, to hope and determination for an extraordinary future.  And this is not just something to do when there is a particular issue to be reviewed; it is something that should be as regular as your Monday morning team meetings.
3. Modelling and insisting on integrity, not profit, at all costs.  In the new world, integrity is the only way to profit because the environment does not sustain poor integrity.  This begins with building trusting relationships and treating all relationships with respect, and walking the talk of your brand messages.  For example, do you really put your customers first and do you really take the time to listen to them, consistently?  Are disputes ethically resolved or does "the process" press the button to call in the debt collectors?  Do you have clear briefs and contracts with all your suppliers, or do you rely on inexperienced practitioners to clinch a deal at whatever cost they can?
4.  Measurement of all of the above.  You cannot hope to walk your talk if you are not ensuring it happens and happens in a meaningful way.  What gets done is what gets rewarded - or penalised if not improved.   Simple as that.

The question is, are you up to it?  As a leader, are you willing to be counted?  Are you courageous to explore a more meaningful level of culture and relating in your workforce?  We suggest that if your corporate values include integrity or trust, you should be.   These are far reaching words, too far reaching to risk to blowing in the wind.

Is Xenergie up to it?  Measure us, Measure yourself with the Lore Leadership Assessment or Lore Behavioural Differentiation Survey

Special Offer:

Until 31 January 2009, survey your leaders for just 195euro + VAT including  FREE feedback session.

Since 2008, we now insist in Level 3 Kirkpatrick measurement in all our coaching engagements.   For example, we measure leadership excellence before and after our interventions, and even offer a money-back guarantee, because we believe in walking our own talk.  

We are offering you the opportunity to sample one of our 360 Leadership assessments for just 195 euros + VAT and receive a free feedback session, before end of January 2009.  Offer limited to 5 leaders per company.

Or, a 360 brand audit amongst your suppliers, customers and employees measuring your behavioural advantage - the extent to which you build relationships with stakeholders and go the extra mile beyond the norm.  Particularly useful for those in customer service or sales/consulting positions.

About the Lore Leadership Assessment

Of the various measurement tools we use, we favour the Lore International Institute Leadership Assessment, which measures five core competences, indicating that leadership is a multi-dimensional phenomenon.  It also benchmarks coachees against a normative database of other high potential performers internationally. 

These five dimensions are moral, intellectual, courageous, collaborative, and visionary/inspirational. Think of them as five ways people can excel as leaders. The way leaders are strong and weak in each of these areas indicates the type of leadership they will manifest and the type of impact that are likely to have on their followers.