Developing Good Leadership Fundamentals

by Jackie Damrau, Contributing Editor

(Reprinted with permission from Douglas Dow of the Dallas Fort Worth Technically Write newsletter. This article appeared in their October 2004 edition.)

Good leadership is equal to your credibility as an individual. Do you operate within the parameters or guidelines of your company? Do you willingly bend certain rules, but not others? Do you ask those you manage to do things that you know are unethical?

5 Leadership Fundamentals

In the May/June 2004 Human Capital magazine article, "Leadership Development = Character Development", written by Jim Kouzes, he discusses five leadership fundamentals that he finds important (p. 30). These five leadership fundamentals are:

1. Character Counts
2. Individuals Act, Organizations Create Culture
3. Our System is Based on Trust
4. The Legacy You Leave is the Life You Lead
5. You Can Make a Difference

Credibility and trustworthiness are the key fundamentals that all good leaders need to have and to stand behind. We have all heard and read about leaders from local, national, and international companies who have operated in less than credible ways and of the damages that have ensued from their ill-advised actions.

As working professionals, we have certain boundaries that we must refuse to cross. Doctors and lawyers have Codes of Ethics, as do many professional organizations, such as STC and ASTD. We also have our own individual ethos, a product of our upbringing. Mistakes are made everyday, but if we take responsibility for what we know to be right, we can at least know that we have not compromised our beliefs, our credibility, or our trustworthiness.

Building Credibility and Trustworthiness

Kouzes says, "Leadership is personal. It is important to make this distinction, because ultimately every one of us must take personal responsibility for what we do.…The behavior that is modeled becomes the behavior that is followed." This is too true. Some of us have worked for leaders that we have deemed to be the role models we will follow when we are in a leadership position. Then, some of us have worked for leaders that were not so stellar, had poor leadership style, and set the bar too low. Kouzes is correct in his view that "leadership is personal." Each individual will lead based on his/her own abilities. Yet, I encourage anyone in a leadership position to never compromise yourself for the better good of any company. If you do, ask yourself: Will this company stand behind me when the chips fall? Will I be made into the ultimate scapegoat for any result that can be tied to my actions? If I compromise my integrity, will I be able to regain my credibility and trustworthiness with my next employer (if there is a next employer)?

Leading has its own travails. It is never easy. Certain days may seem more difficult than others, and your decisions may fluctuate depending on each business situation that you encounter. Think about the example you set for those you manage. Are you available when they need you? Do you come in at 9AM and leave at 3PM everyday? Do you leave for the day and not tell anyone that you are leaving? When your staff has to work late, are you there supporting their efforts, or do you leave at 5PM knowing that if they have problems they'll call you? Looking at these questions, do you feel these are good leadership habits. Of course, they are not!

Your staff wants to know that you are there with them. They will understand certainly if you have prior commitments that keep you from staying late. However, they expect you to check in (maybe provide pizza) if they have to work beyond a certain time period. Kouzes relates in Fundamental #4 that, "Leaders are judged by how they spend their time, how they react to critical incidents, the stories they tell, the questions they ask, the language and symbols they choose[,] and the measures they use."
To me, credibility and trustworthiness certainly fit here. Leaders build their credibility when they stay behind, roll-up their sleeves, and help out doing the copying or helping to put together binders or materials for the intended deliverable. You also increase your trustworthiness among your staff because your staff know that they can count on your support and that you value them as individuals.

In his June 2004 Training magazine article, "The Confidence Crisis," Ron Zemke finds three items about trust that emerge from a recent review of 25 individual studies and literature reviews. He found (p. 24) that "Trust is critically important to both the workplace and the marketplace; trust is as much a perceptual as it is a performance issue,…and lest we forget, trust in an individual…is different from trust in the organization as a whole."

Trustworthiness for leaders requires that, according to Zemke (p. 26), they display "five common themes: competence, consistency, communication, comfort, and proximity." It is interesting that the third theme in his article is communication. Later in that same paragraph, he says that we trust those "who are good communicators". Leadership does require good communication skills. Good leaders must know how to build staff morale, how to counsel when needed (both positive and negative), and how to win trust among those they manage as well as those that are looking upon them as their role model.

Conclusion

Good leadership fundamentals are critical in today's business world. Looking at the demise of what once were solid corporations and at the continuing saga of good/bad politics, we need to find good leadership role models that earn our admiration, and adopt their leadership fundamentals as part of our own ethos.

Remember: credibility and trustworthiness go hand-in-hand with building and maintaining your personal integrity. Once damaged, it is difficult to regain these leadership fundamentals.