Close your eyes and think of all the great leaders you admire. You will realise that all great leaders have a unique characteristic and that is they always "Walk the Talk".
I came across a leader who joined the organisation and would always be saying things which were impressive and ideal. The discussions with the leader were very interesting ones when they started as everyone liked the ideal things that were discussed. However, with passage of time as the reality started to unfold, the acceptance of the leader took a big hit. Employees starting discounting a lot of things that were discussed in meetings as nothing had moved to become a reality. The goal posts would often change, the discussions first started moving from being free flowing to defensive, where justifications were given for things that were discussed earlier but not acted on. Things became worst as the discussions became aggressive with blame being passed on back to other leaders. Slowly the leader had lost all the credibility with all the other senior members in the organisation.
The choice that the leader had made of projecting himself as a thoughtful, idealistic person had backfired as only projection with no credible action on the ground had resulted in a complete “Credibility Loss”. The connect with individuals became zero as individuals were weary of the blame being put on them and hence the approach of discussions was more of avoidance.
As they say one lie leads to another and this false projection was doing the same. Lack of consistency between thought (Talk) and execution (Walk) had put the organisation on a downhill track.
As leaders there is a thin line that separates them from the organisation and loss of trust in a leader may lead to loss of trust in the organisation. It’s important that as a part of culture building, people leaders take up “Walk the talk” as an important deliverable for them.
