Living with integrity – its impact on our leadership and brand

Living with Integrity can be tough.  It’s  how we behave when no one is watching, will we live our values or are we going to sell out or compromise.  Knowing that every time we do we are the one that pays the price.  Even if no-one else is watching or ever finds out, we know and our opinion of our self takes the hit.

And if people do find out, what’s the immediate and long term impact for us as an individual and the brand or company we lead?

Golf legend Tiger Wood’s much publicised fall from grace is an example of the catastrophic consequences a business can face when its brand is found to be inauthentic.  The recent stories about the private life of the world’s No.1 celebrity golfer expose a huge gap between the perceived values of the Tiger Woods brand and those of the man himself.

As a leader and as a business we are all judged on whether we live up to the values that are associated with our brand.

Values driven leadership is about ensuring you live up to your values and the values promised by your brand.  After all your customers and employees have bought in to your brand and what you stand for. Your behaviour and the behaviour of your employees then should also reflect the values of the brand.  Of course if the values are what you’d like, rather than what is real then this becomes a challenge to sustain.  So it is important to ensure your brand does not promise something you no longer believe in or cannot deliver.

If your values are aspirational then acting with integrity is going to be a serious challenge.

Every day we’re faced with choices, decision points, where we can uphold our values or not.  At work we can be asked to do something ‘for the good of the company’ and yet we know that it’s against the company’s or our values.  It’s a short term win and another nail in the coffin of that particular value that’s just been over-road.  We may wish to behave differently but go along with it to keep our job.

Consistently acting against our personal values undermines our self confidence and self esteem.  Keep this up and eventually we don’t feel good about ourself and neither does anyone else.    Being consistently asked to act against the corporate or brand values begs the question how real are they and what problems are being stored up for future.

Let’s go back to the challenge facing Tiger Woods, now he has to re-build his brand so he can move forward.  Some people I’ve talked to say it’s not possible.  I think there is hope.

After all, authentic leadership is about who you are being as much as what you’re doing.

Be Yourself

How much of yourself do you bring to work each day?

This happened to be one of the questions I asked a client recently.  The answer wasn’t anywhere near 100% or all of me.  So we explored the bit that didn’t come to work and why.

Years ago a colleague I worked with handed in her notice.  The boss was surprised and really wanted her to stay “why are you going?” he asked “because I have a PhD, and every day I arrive at work and leave my brains in the car park.  I won’t do that to myself anymore.”  He wanted to know what changes they needed to make so she could use her brains.  She pointed out that leaving them in the car was a safety precaution so she could remain sane working for this particular organisation.

From a  different perspective many people put on their work clothes as if it were some kind of armour behind which certain traits can hide.  In some instances people pretend to be something they’re not.  Often the underlying fear is that if they showed their true self that people won’t like them.  Have the confidence to be yourself, knowing that then the people who do like you, like the real you ,and you’re not deceiving anyone anymore, least of all yourself.

I think this sums it up nicely.

“When you stand in that sliver of space that is completely and utterly YOU, then you will be truly magnificent, wonderful and abundant” Joseph Riggio

What do you make people feel?

I love the BMW Joy advert.  From a branding perspective they’ve summarised what they believe they’re about.

What I really like is the bit where they say… ‘we realised what you make people feel is as important as the thing you make’ or words to that effect. I even spoke back to the TV, saying how true that statement was – and it is rare I am moved to talk back to the tele.

Now of course comes the challenge of getting that feeling of Joy into their dealerships.   Yes the cars when you drive them bring a feeling of Joy (I’ve had one and did enjoy driving it).   The dealership staff though never left me even close to Joy; unless you count when they handed me my keys back and I found that this time they hadn’t damaged the car.  Fortunately the fourth dealership and a commute later and I found one that didn’t think damaging your car was a normal side effect of a car service.

Having been this clear about their corporate statement then it has to be felt at every touch point.  Let’s hope they’re working on this so that something this powerful doesn’t just become a gimmick.

As a leader can you articulate your brand ethos so succinctly, your purpose, do you know how people feel when they’re with you and when you’ve just walked out of the room?

In a nutshell…Who you are, what you stand for and how you make people feel, are as important as the ‘thing’ you sell.

Self Image = Results

Your self image is determining your results.  Now maybe you’ve never seen your identity as directly linked to the results you’ve achieved or will go on to achieve.  In essence we can’t outperform our sense of self.  Well you can but only for a short while and then, like an elastic band, it snaps back to where it knows.

You’ve no doubt heard people say “act as if”, or ” you have to be it before you can receive it”.  We see this commonly in the workplace when people are doing a role before they get the promotion.

Self esteem, self confidence, results, success, resilience, adaptability are all tied up to self image / identity.

Any time you say “i am…” you’re making a statement about your identity.

Now most of us talk a lot but don’t really pay 100% attention to what we’re saying.   Your identity is unconsciously running you.

This autumn you can change all that.  You could decide you’re going to understand the power of self image and identity, and work on making sure yours is working for you, not against you.  Join me on my 8 week study group, we’re doing this by phone so it’s really easy to join in.  You can get the full details here.

Self Belief + Talent = Success

I haven’t avidly been watching Britain’s Got Talent, but I catch the odd episode and over the last couple of years I’ve noticed a theme.  Talented person comes on but lacks self confidence.  Simon Cowell goes through a few facial expressions, Amanda perhaps sheds a few tears and then we get the review at the end.  At this point they invariably comment on the talent and then Simon highlights the gap between being this talented and not yet having the success they desire and indeed deserve; it’s always down to lacking self confidence – or as Simon tells them – it’s about believing in yourself.  Their key instruction between then and the next stage is to work on their self belief, not go and practice your talent.

What are your talents, gifts and if you’re really not sure you have any of them, what are your strengths?

Do you acknowledge these in yourself and to yourself?

To what extent do you believe in yourself?

Most of us do fail to recognise our talents enough and then if we do we act modestly about them.  Actually the classic sign of lacking self belief is when someone compliments you and you reject it “oh no I’m not really that good / well it was alright but I didn’t do a/b/c”.  When did you last accept the compliment and just say “thank you”.  You don’t even have to bask in the feel good factor of a compliment if you don’t want.  Just stop yourself from slapping the giver in the face (metaphorically speaking) and telling them their judgement is not up to much.  Plus every time you do this you re-enforce out loud the fact you don’t believe in yourself and if you don’t why should anyone else.  Fortunately they often do, but after a while if you persist then they’ll stop, or at least stop re-enforcing their belief in you and the possibility to achieve more success than you perhaps first thought possible.

Don’t let your talent go to waste.

Increase your Self Esteem

Your level of self esteem is an often overlooked but important attribute for success.

If you have high levels of self esteem you can achieve the results that matter to you most by tapping into a self worth and a core confidence that is powerful in every situation.

Remember the following principle… Whatever you focus on you get more of.

If you focus on problems you’ll get more of them, if you focus on solutions you’ll get more of them.  Start focusing daily on what makes you happy, what fulfills you and what excites you.  This is the first secret to dramatically improving your self worth and self value in every area of your life.

For example:

If you want to like yourself as a person, focus on what you like about yourself, not what you don’t like about yourself.  If you want to increase someone else’s sense of self then focus on what you like about them and tell them.  For those that have an inner critic running this unexpected compliment will cause some disruption in their circuitry.  Those with low self esteem will have to counter your compliment, but over time things will shift.

The more you focus on what you want, the more your self worth, happiness, charisma, motivation and passion will increase and these new qualities will assist you in every area of your life..

When it comes to building your self esteem, a great source is the work of Nathaniel Branden, here’s a link to some of his articles.

Getting a job that matters to you

Wow, I’m still on a high after Friday.  The event “Getting a Job with Meaning” was a huge success, with everyone discovering useful insights and feeling more confident than ever about themselves.  Which in the current climate is a great asset.  I got to share my views on job fulfillment and walk my talk, because I was experiencing it as I was teaching it.  Plus filming and recording went really well and the product should be ready to go by mid October.

Thank you to everyone involved, especially the attendees – you were amazing.

Shoes, handbags and gladrags (or ties)…

We were out with friends at the weekend, and having already done a bit of light shoe appreciation, a little later in the night we indulged ourselves discussing our shoes in more detail and swapping favourite shoe shops. 

We all have ways of expressing our self image, be it a tie, socks, jewellery, handbags etc.  There are always little signs detailing an aspect of our personality, or something that just makes us feel fantastic.  For me footwear is more than something that keeps your feet dry.  In fact there have been times when a favourite pair of boots has been glued and better glued, was still letting in water when it rained and my response was to carry a spare pair of dry socks with me – yes my mum rolled her eyes. 

And so last Saturday night we purred about Poste Mistress shoes (especially the winter ranges) and drooled over boots we’d like to own.  [I am hopeful that this winter I'll find a pair of fuchsia pink or lime green boots, preferably mock crock with a great looking heel.]  Then, as conversations do, we bequeathed our shoe collection to each other when we die – it is important that they go to a good home.  Now hopefully this won’t be for a very long time as a) I’m sure we’d like to get some more personal pleasure from our shoes and b) we’d like to see each other live very long and happy lives.   

I can see it now, age 97 (minimum) at the funereal tea party reminding people that we have first pick over the other one’s shoe collection, because this was promised to us nearly 60 years ago.  Let’s hope our excellent taste in footwear remains and neither of us gets bunions.