“It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath” said Greek tragedian Aeschylus. We’ve all been there, believed an iffy promise because a friend, boss, client had never let us down. Years ago, you could believe that person; a handshake and a verbal commitment we as good as a signed contract. Today, the business world isn’t as keen on keeping its word. Starting in the 1960’s, businesses realized that ethics were becoming less, well, ethical and many organizations put in place written ethics guidelines. These generally dealt with legal situations; they were designed to keep the Enrons and Toyotas from happening. On a large scale, unethical business practices damage the environment, risk human life, and risk our national security. For these, we have laws in place; the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board are now in place to ensure large corporations are not putting profit above ethics. While all this affects individual workers, what hits home more is when a manager, supervisor or senior leader fails to act ethically with employees. Generally speaking, this boils down to a leader keeping his/her word.
Why should we care if we keep our word with employees? After all, it’s a dog eat dog world out there. Trust someone at your own peril, they say. The effects of workplace dishonesty are intangible and hard to measure, but the negative impacts are very real. Company culture is certainly affected; a supervisor that lies to e
mployees effectively promotes lying in those employees. After all, if the boss does it, why shouldn’t an employee? A little white lie here, covering up a mistake there becomes commonplace and erodes at workplace trust. Company culture, in turn, affects employee productivity, commitment, and retention. An employee that distrusts his manager is unlikely to put in those extra hours at critical times, look for and commit to company improvement, or praise the company in either professional or personal discussions. Trust is a key component to successful teams; high performing ones all have one characteristic in common: trust. And just try to keep top talent in an organization where managers lie to employees; no amount of money keeps them in the end.
While most of the effects of leadership lying are intangible, it can impact the bottom line. A very good friend of mine was terminated from her position one week after being told her job was not in danger during a round of company layoffs. Three months later, she was a director with a large, multinational company in charge of a healthy IT budget. Six months after she was terminated, her new company solicited outside vendors to replace their outdated network and wireless systems. The company had budgeted $5 million to accomplish the upgrade. My friend’s previous company was eager to win the deal and was a top contender with two other companies. As the director in charge of selecting the vendor, my friend refused to award the deal to her previous company. When asked to justify her decision to the board of directors, she explained her personal experience with the vice president’s dishonesty and failure to keep his word. Her decision was upheld and the company lost a $5 million deal because of a lie.
So, how do we as managers and supervisors maintain honesty with our employees? After all, we can’t be open books; there are situations in which the unblanketed truth is not appropriate. As managers, we must maintain personnel privacy, protect the bottom line and stay within legal boundaries. Sometimes, that means not being 100% forthright with our employees. Quite simply, keep your word. Here’s how:
Understand what you’re committing to. Giving your word is a promise; it’s a commitment from you to another person. Understand what you are committing to. What are the costs? What are the consequences? What is the impact to the team, to others? Do you have the authority to make the commitment? In the end, it doesn’t matter if you don’t keep your word because the commitment was too expensive, you didn’t have the authority, or you simply forgot. You broke your word and strained the manger-employee relationship. So, understand what you’re promising.
Inconvenience is not an excuse. Sometimes, a promise is a pain in the ass to keep. You get busy and don’t help your employee learn a new report; the team gets slammed and you don’t give promised time off; a customer emergency comes up. While we can’t always control outside factors that cause us to break our promise, the fact that it’s inconvenient to keep the promise is never an acceptable reason not to.
Simple is best. Grand promises might make you the hero, but small, meaningful promises are the way to win trust and respect. Big promises garner a lot of attention and support. People get behind big promises, people remember big promises. In some aspects, they are easier to keep because of this. However, most daily dealings don’t involve big issues that big promises require. They are simple requests an employee needs to plan work, schedules. Keeping these simple commitments tells an employee that you are there for the daily grind, and not just the occasional big situation.
Fail sincerely. When you can’t keep your word, apologize sincerely, apologize quickly. Don’t let a failed promise fester in the minds of your employees. Quickly and sincerely apologize for not keeping your word without drama or grandiosity.
