It is in whether you live the values yourself

Mostly, you have to model the behaviours you want and you cannot demand things of people that you aren’t prepared to do yourself. If you are the leader of a business or team, it means that you have to be an exemplar of everything that business stands for. You can’t do things that seem hypocritical when compared with the things you say. That’s very dangerous.

The biggest danger is saying that you want one thing but inadvertently sending a message that says you really don’t. This is a communication phenomenon called meta-messaging. A meta-message is an unspoken, implied message that we unknowingly deliver when we are communicating. The meaning of the meta-message is so strong that it overwhelms your message and leads to people interpreting what you say very differently. Meta-messages can kill trust and openness in the workplace. The very worst of these other meta-messages are those around company values. If you put the values up on a poster on the wall but all of your behaviours are inconsistent with the values, then people will treat the organizational values with the contempt they deserve.

Why go to the bother of putting values up if you have no intention in following them? It would be far better not to bother, because you would then at least not be creating dissonance – the ultimate thief of credibility.

I often advise leadership teams to be very specific about defining the behaviours that they need to deliver as a team in order to exemplify the values of the organization. This requires thinking about the behaviours that will send powerful signals into the organization, agreeing to abide by them, and holding each other to account when you don’t deliver on them.

It is in your responses

How you treat individuals when they are undergoing a personal crisis will be noticed. How you set your organization to respond to bigger crises, perhaps facing colleagues in other parts of the world, will be noticed even more. Whether you recognize birthdays, marriages or personal successes will say a lot about you.

I was once walking with a very stressed CEO from a boardroom to his office, when a secretary walking in front of him slipped and fell on a wooden floor. The CEO stopped and watched as another PA rendered assistance. He said nothing, and then resumed his journey to his office. I thought little of it at the time, because I know that he did stop to check that the secretary was being attended to. His head was filled with other things and he needed to make some crucial phone calls as his business was facing a major crisis.

The next day, I kept being told about how the CEO had simply ignored a member of staff in distress, and had cold-heartedly walked past her even though she was hurt and embarrassed. How he responded to the situation was misinterpreted, but widely transmitted the next day. His credibility as a leader took a severe dent.

Many of the leaders I have dealt with say one of the hardest signals they have to send is that of standing up to be visible, even during very difficult times. When things are at their most uncertain, and when there is honestly nothing to say because there is no news that will help anybody, simply showing up to listen to people and hear their concerns is an act of courage that wins enormous kudos from staff.

Being visible and available is a powerful signal of integrity.