 In last month’s article, we addressed how great leaders invest in trust. An important part of leading people is earning their trust. Without their trust, it’s highly unlikely that we are positioned to positively influence the lives of people around us in any meaningful way.
There are plenty of leadership qualities that employees say cause them to trust their supervisor or other leaders. We gain that trust through consistent behavior that is seen as trustworthy. Today I want to focus in on one trustworthy behavior that seems particularly pertinent in this season: Respect. It’s commonly understood that lasting respect must be earned. We earn the respect of those we lead the same ways we earn their trust. But what I want to address is the necessity for leaders to GIVE respect to those around them. Let me ask you a question. How likely is it for you to trust someone who you don’t believe respects you? I think the answer is obvious. If treating others with respect is key to earning their trust, then the opposite is also true of treating others with disrespect. Synonyms for disrespect are CONTEMPT or DISDAIN. The Oxford dictionary defines contempt as “the feeling that a person or thing is beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving scorn.” The definition of disdain is almost identical. How do you know whether someone respects you or not? You know by the way they treat you. What are the ways we can treat others with contempt or disdain? Here are a few. Some are blatant, some are more subtle.
The intent here is to discredit someone, their opinions, or their work. We sometimes do this when we feel threatened by someone, or by what they bring into the open. We fear that the exposure will damage our own dignity, reputation, or self-worth. We want to discredit the person representing that threat. Some disrespectful behaviors are more subtle.
Is it too obvious to say that when we engage in disrespectful behavior toward others, we make it impossible for them to trust us? I wish it was. But repeatedly we see leaders who seem to think publicly disrespecting others is appropriate, somehow thinking they are being influential. Do they honestly think people will trust their leadership when it is sabotaged by blatant contempt for others? I can’t say this strongly enough: When we choose to treat someone with disrespect, we break not only their trust, but the trust of those who witness it, and ultimately, we forfeit our ability to lead them. Is this to say that we must agree with everything others say and believe to earn their trust? What if we honestly have a hard time respecting the behaviors or ideas expressed by someone? Are we supposed to pretend to respect those behaviors or values when we don’t? Let me try to answer that question with another question. Is it possible for a parent to love a child deeply even when they fundamentally disagree with the child’s behavior or beliefs? Yes, of course it is. It may feel heart breaking sometimes, and it may require a great deal of intentionality to treat the child with love, but we do it. The relationship is important to us, and so we develop the maturity to practice loving unconditionally. Similarly, if we have any hope for being a positive influence in the life of a person who we disagree with, we must choose to treat the person with dignity and respect, even when we strongly disagree with them, or even feel threatened by their influence. To do this we must separate the human dignity of the person from our perceptions of their belief or behavior. Only then can we address their threatening words or behavior while preserving the relationship built on trust. Here are some ideas that can help us to treat others with dignity and respect, even when they act in ways that cause us to feel disrespectful. 1. In the end it’s better to win people than arguments. I want people to remember me as good more than I want them to remember that I was right. I can’t always know that I’m right. I’ve discovered that I was wrong many times. But I can control how I treat others. 2. When I see a person’s bad behavior or hear their disagreeable idea, I’m only seeing a snapshot in time of this person’s life, not the full narrative. I have not walked in this person’s shoes, so I certainly don’t have the full context to judge this person. 3. This person with whom I disagree is a work in progress, just like I am. They make mistakes and live with regrets, just like I do. We are probably more alike than I’m comfortable admitting. Thankfully, I have people in my life who choose to love me despite those mistakes, and those are the real influencers in my life. When I was a young Air Force officer, I heard a story that affected me deeply. I don’t even know if it’s a true story, but it’s been helpful for me, so I’d like to share it. As the story goes, a small auction house was auctioning antiques. The next item in line surprised the new apprentice auctioneer, who had stepped in for his supervisor. It was a broken violin. The finish was badly damaged, the arm had broken off and was only attached by the two remaining strings. The young apprentice shook his head, as he couldn’t imagine why the auction house would waste time on this item. The audience could hear the disdain in the auctioneer’s voice and could read it in his body language as he begrudgingly went through the motions of soliciting a bidder. There was not bidder, so he set the item aside. During the next intermission, a client was looking over the broken violin and made a shocking discovery. Hidden down inside the body of the violin was a label that read “Antonius Stradiuarius.” The Italian Stradivari family made some of the most valuable violins in the world. Many of them are valued in the tens of millions of dollars today. The client showed this to the head auctioneer, who immediately brought the auction back to order. By the end of the night, the broken violin was sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, despite its poor condition. Why had this violin been treated with such disdain before the intermission and with such reverence afterward? It was the recognition of the item’s maker that gave it such value. In my small office where I worked when I heard this story were two chairs facing across from my desk and pushed against the wall next to my office door. On a blank piece of paper, I printed the word “Stradivarius,” and taped it to the wall so that it would be right above the person’s head when they sat down to talk with me. I let this be a reminder to me that, despite their present condition, the person sitting in that chair had tremendous value because to the Creator who masterfully made them. They were worthy of my highest regard. It also led to a lot of great conversations about how all of us in the squadron should treat each other, when people would ask me what the paper sign was for. I wish I could say I have mastered the temptation to let contempt replace respect when my expectations of others feel violated, but I’d be lying. It’s a journey for all of us, I’d wager. How about you?
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 In last month’s article, we addressed how great leaders ignite hope in their people. The most important gift a leader can give to their people is hope- for a better future, for individual or team success, hope for overcoming obstacles, hope that they can accomplish their goals and dreams.
But not every leader ignites hope in those they lead. In fact, many don’t. Many employees see their employers as a source of discouragement. Here are some ways discouraged employees describe their leaders.
Here’s the bottom line: Employees will not be inspired to hope by a supervisor they don’t trust. Can you imagine yourself feeling encouraged to succeed by someone you don’t trust? Of course not. This makes earning the trust of those we lead essential to offering them hope. These days, it’s as hard as it has ever been to gain peoples’ trust. Here are some principles we must understand if we’re to gain the trust of our teams. 1. Trust cannot be assumed. It must be earned and actively cultivated. We’d like trust in our leadership to be the default setting for our employees. But it’s just not. Everyone has a story of being burned by someone, and this gives us all a skeptical side, even if we’re not often conscious of it. And we naturally have certain needs and expectations that, when they are violated, cause us to lose trust. 2. Trust isn’t earned once and forgotten. It must be maintained. Author Patrick Lencioni asks us to imagine that every member of our team has a “trust jar” on their desk. Throughout the day and week, we are making deposits and withdrawals from their trust jars. We do this through our words and actions, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. The key to maintaining trust is to keep a positive trust balance in the jars. Since we never know when a necessary word or action may be perceived as a withdrawal, great leaders actively make deposits on a regular basis. This requires investments of time, emotional energy, and vulnerability. 3. Employees don’t trust companies, organizations, or brands. They don’t trust ideas, slogans, or philosophies. PEOPLE TRUST OTHER PEOPLE. They judge groups, brands, ideas, and philosophies by the people they know who represent those. We can’t rely on our companies for trust building. 4. Employees don’t simply trust what we say. They trust what they SEE. For better or worse, we have a history with them- a history of trustworthy behaviors or untrustworthy behaviors. 5. A lifetime of trustworthy behavior done in private is honorable, but it doesn’t help build trust as much. It’s the observable behaviors that impact trust the most. Here is a list of leadership behaviors, or observable characteristics, that employees consistently say they trust.
6. Trustworthy behavior is often contagious. When your trustworthy behaviors begin to result in deposits accumulating in their trust jars, team members will begin to feel safe to make trust deposits with each other. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. Leaders can destroy an entire corporate culture with their untrustworthy personal behavior. What trustworthy leadership characteristics are top of your personal list? What do you do to actively model those characteristics for your team?  In our western culture, sometimes we can confuse celebrity with leadership. It’s not hard to do. After all, celebrities and leaders are similar in some respects.
Leaders and celebrities are both often people we admire in some way, for some reason. Often it is because of their extraordinary talent. We may be in awe of the things they do, perhaps better than anyone else we’ve ever seen. Their abilities may even inspire us to improve our own skills. But, for the most part, we don’t see celebrities as everyday people like us. They’re exceptional, meaning it’s rare to find someone who can do what they do. Often, they’ve earned that celebrity status through dedication to their craft and plenty of hard work, or maybe extensive training. Sometimes, they are rare people because their abilities come more naturally to them than to most people. Sometimes they are more educated, more qualified, or have more credentials than most people. Sometimes, but not always, that kind of celebrity also happens to be a great role model. Beyond just their talents, their life has qualities worth imitating. They use their talents to benefit others, not just themselves. This is where the path of leaders diverges from the path of pure celebrities. While the focus of celebrity is on self, the focus of leaders is on others. While celebrity culture says, “Look at me,” leadership culture says, “Look at YOU.” While celebrities gain more followers, leaders are busy making more leaders. While celebrities make what they do look hard, leaders try their best to make what they do look easy, so that others can learn to do it too. While celebrities focus on being the best, accomplishing what no one else could, leaders focus on bringing out the best in others. The most important gift a leader can give to those they lead is hope- hope for a better future, hope for better successes, hope that they can accomplish what they put their mind to. If we are true role models, people must believe it’s possible for them to someday fill our role. There comes a time in our leadership journey when we see the opportunity to be more than the hero of our own story, but to make more heroes. We transition from focusing on our own successes to focusing on the success of others. We care less about their hope in us and more about their hope in themselves. In our next newsletter, we’ll look at the pre-requisite for instilling hope in those we lead. Food for thought: How have role models in your life ignited hope in your life? Have you told them how they have influenced you to grow or move forward with hope?  The last couple of years have brought old, ignored business problems into vivid display. We’re seeing more clearly than ever that the demand for effective business leaders is greatly exceeding the supply.
The competition for employees is fierce, and none more so than the competition for effective leaders. Internal leader development programs, where they exist at all, have been inadequate, making it necessary for organizations to look outside for leaders. While hiring leaders from outside is sometimes helpful, it is a poor strategy. It’s difficult to hire skilled leaders who have the organization’s “DNA” and have bought into the organizations purpose and values. So senior leader turnover is high, further impeding the effectiveness of organizational goals. Many leaders today were never trained in the skills and values necessary for their management role. So, frustration and distrust run high, and productivity runs low. Organizations that are beating these odds are the ones who have an internal leadership pipeline, which is a thorough program for training their employees in the skills needed at each level of leadership in the company. Many senior business leaders have discovered that training their leaders, setting them up for success, makes good business sense. While ROI on “soft” leadership skills is harder to measure, analysts in this area tell us that the return on the investment averages about five dollars for every dollar spent. While budgeting for staff leadership development opportunities is a good start (at least better than nothing), there’s a qualitative difference between letting supervisors pick a conference or course to attend and installing an integrated leadership pipeline in the organization. Imagine that you’ve decided it’s time for a new family car. You would spend some time thinking about the purpose of having one and the goals the new car would help your family meet, primarily getting the whole family safely and comfortably from point A to point B. As a family, you might discuss the features that are necessary for your new vehicle. Should you go with the mini van? The SUV? How about a bus or camper? It’s hard finding the vehicle that everyone in the family can agree on. So, here’s an idea. Let’s just give everyone in the family a gift card to the local auto parts store and let them pick out what they want. That should make everyone happy. They’ve gone to the store and have come home with what each thought was the essentials for their family car. You have in your driveway a set of tires, a five-gallon gas can, a box of spark plugs, a case of oil, a couple of Mickey Mouse air fresheners, and a Millennium Falcon window shade. Now you see the problem. While everyone seems to be happy with their purchases, you’re no closer to having a family car than before your shopping spree. Similarly, while ala carte leadership training, letting individuals decide what training they want might get strong buy-in and result in less argument, you still don’t have a strategy or structure for building leaders at all levels of the organization who are ready to take on the next level of leadership responsibility. In contrast, a leadership pipeline that’s integrated top to bottom is like a car that carries the family along in the intended direction. It provides architecture for setting performance standards for each management level. It identifies the job skills and results leaders should be trained and held accountable for. It provides structure for building the leadership bench strength you need, and it serves as a tool for succession planning at every level. Acquiring the right leadership pipeline for an organization is like finding the right family car. It will require commitment, and probably some help from an expert. If you’re ready to reap the benefits of a consistent, integrated program that will provide you with qualified leaders year after year, Academy Leadership and Catapult Leadership Solutions are ready to help you build your dream team.  In the current work environment, where so many leaders and employees are working from home, it’s more important than ever for leaders to lead with confidence, and instill confidence in their teams. These are confusing times, for both leaders and those they lead. The situation seems to evolve daily. And opportunities for confusion and frustration occur constantly.
We want our teams to have as much CONFIDENCE as possible, in order to be as productive as possible. Confidence in what?
If our team members can have confidence in their work, they can do their work with courage (rather than fear), creativity and a high level of commitment. But confusion leads to disengagement quickly. I don’t believe we can expect courage, creativity and commitment from our teams if they don’t have confidence. And we can’t expect our team members to have confidence if they don’t have clarity. That’s why one of the most important things we can give to our employees any time, but especially now, is clarity. Clarity about what?
And here’s a good rule of thumb: A confident “I don’t know, but I’ll find out,” is better than bluffing. Bad information and bluffing erode confidence and trust, so be honest when you don’t know an answer. When it comes to our expectations of the team, it’s important that we’re abundantly clear as to where they have autonomy to make decisions and get things done, and where they don’t. The clearer we are about what’s non-negotiable, the more confidence we can have in giving them autonomy for the rest. In times that are stressful for our teams, it’s important to remember that autonomy in doing their work is one of the most motivating things we can give them, especially if they are working remotely. Knowing that they are trusted to manage their time and work load will cause them to trust their leadership more in return. I know of an organization that is using Skype to monitor employees staying glued to their work computers at home. Leadership is notified if there’s been no key stroke on the employee’s computer after five minutes, and employees are then questioned about what they’re doing with their time. This is deteriorating trust rapidly, at a time when the leaders should be trying to build confidence in their teams more than ever. The best way I know for being abundantly clear with our teams is through the process of developing a personal leadership philosophy. This is a tool for instilling confidence, for ourselves and for those we lead. This is where we nail down our values, operating principles, team priorities, clear expectations, non-negotiables, and even our pet peeves and personal idiosyncrasies. Most leaders have never done this. But I’ve coached hundreds of leaders through this process in the last five years through the Leader’s Compass Workshop from Academy Leadership, and the testimonials and stories from these leaders are extraordinary! Here are some examples. “Writing my personal leadership philosophy is a wonderful way to define and share my style and I don’t know why I didn’t do this earlier.” -Tim, Senior Business Data Analyst, UC San Diego “It is a very comprehensive leadership philosophy training that will help you learn about yourself and how you can use that knowledge to work with others to make more effective leaders.” -Duyen, Assistant Director, UC San Diego “The creation of my Personal Leadership Philosophy was a great exercise in clarity and communication with my team.” -Steven, Associate Vice Chancellor, UC San Diego If you would like to schedule a virtual, live Leader’s Compass Workshop for your team, just message me and we’ll get you and your team on your way to greater clarity, confidence and productivity. Stay safe. Jay  I received an email last week from a leader that I’ve been coaching for the last couple of years. She has a contract employee whom she must decide whether to hire into a career position. She described the employee as competent, but consistently disrespectful, condescending, insulting and rude to her. The supervisor acknowledged that there are two sides to every story, and there are some questions of personal perception that are worth exploring. But I shared with her these rules of thumb related to recruiting and retaining the right employees and re-assigning the wrong ones. There are five characteristics (The Five C’s) to look for in choosing and assessing members of your team. The first and most important is good Character. Do they speak honestly, act with integrity, and treat others with dignity and respect? Second is Competency. Do they have the skills and qualifications to do the job? Third is Capacity. Do they have the mental and physical strength to sustain good quality work? Can they learn new things and be developed to grow? Fourth is Chemistry. Do they work well with you and with their team members? Fifth is Calling. Do they want to be here and be a contributor to this team, or do they just want a paycheck? Most great leaders would agree that character is the most important attribute on this list. Competency can be learned, and capacity can be developed in people with some effort from the leader, if the employee has a teachable attitude. But bad character is flat out dangerous! In fact, the most dangerous people on the team are the ones with high competency and bad character, because they have the most potential for doing harm to the team and the mission. In my opinion, the second most dangerous person on a team is the one who is highly competent but has bad chemistry with the leader or with their teammates. That bad chemistry can do damage to the leaders capacity to lead and to the capacity of the team members to work effectively together. We don’t always have convenient opportunities to subtract problem employees from our teams, so career transitions are critical opportunities to be intentional about shaping the quality of our teams. Next time you have the opportunity to add or subtract from your team, the Five C’s can be a helpful decision making tool. For Discussion: 1. How have you seen bad character or bad chemistry erode the effectiveness of good teams? 2. What other qualities do you look for in your teammates?  A young man called me recently in a bit of a panic. His company had just announced that they were “right-sizing,” an un-clever way of saying they were laying people off. They were also instituting a hiring freeze. He was also told his supervisor’s supervisor was laid off, effective immediately.
His supervisor was very negative about the situation, predicting that he was next to go, the workload was going to double with his boss gone, this was just the first round of cuts, all of the usual gloom and doom. The young man on the phone was wondering what he should do. Should he start looking for another job? Should he complain to someone about the impending workload increase? Here’s what I told him. First of all, distance yourself from the negativity. Do what you can to NOT be seen as part of the group with the negative attitude (unless you want to be tagged for the next round of layoffs). Second, be on the lookout for opportunities. When there are layoffs, hiring freezes, etc., the senior leaders may be scrambling to figure out how they’re going to do more with less. This may require combining roles and creating new, creative positions in the organization. They also have to figure out who’s going to fill them. And you can be sure they’re looking around at those they kept on the team. Do you think they’re going to be interested in the folks walking around with negative attitudes? In rough times, senior leaders are looking across their organizations for the people with the most leadership potential to help them lead the organization through the difficulties. This is the time to demonstrate a constructive attitude by asking, “How can I help,” everywhere you go, with everyone you meet. This is NOT the time to participate in urinating contests over petty issues with people in other departments. There may be opportunities their bosses are looking for leaders to fill in their departments too. And they’re looking for team players. Even when we’re the one being laid off, people are watching to see whether we handle the situation with dignity and respect, or whether adversity will show something else about our character. And your supervisors will often have an influence on your future job opportunities. I wrestled with this one myself a few years ago when I was laid off from a job that I loved. Months later, a board member told me, “In my thirty five-year career, I’ve never seen someone handle being let go with as much dignity as you have.” He’s still a friend and advocate for me to this day. After my phone conversation with the young man, I had another thought. Isn’t positivity the attitude that great leaders carry with them every day? Why would we wait for difficulties before we start having a “How can I help” attitude? I’m not saying we should be phony about scary work situations. Layoffs are a scary deal, and it’s hard to watch good people lose their jobs. But if we’re consistently having trouble keeping a positive attitude, even in the scary times, we should do some soul searching about why that is. Leaders who sustain greatness, as well as success, over the long haul give much more than they take. They look around for opportunities to use their talents and energy to move the organization forward, during the good times and the bad, no matter where they are on the org chart. For discussion: 1. What kind of attitude are you modeling in your work place? Are you looking for opportunities to help your leaders and co-workers, or are you doing the minimum to get by? 2. During the hard times, are you one to roll up your sleeves and offer help in solving problems, or do you highlight yourself as part of the problem by complaining?  When I was a young Air Force cadet, I had a mentor who would say, “When people see me, I want them to see a turtle on a fence post.” It seemed like an odd thing to say, but he would continue by asking, “If you ever see a turtle on a fence post, what do you know?” The answer was, “It didn’t get there by itself.”
As I’ve matured as a leader over the last thirty years, I’ve come to realize that my mentor was right. I have yet to meet a truly great leader or mentor who became great without the help of a coach in their life. Have you ever noticed that even the best athletes in the world have coaches? What do you imagine Michael Phelps might learn day after day from a swimming coach? Near the end of his career, tennis legend Andre Agassi was interviewed about the role that his coach played in his life. He confided that, the older he got, the more important his coach had become. His coach provided accountability, helping him from slipping into bad habits, challenged him to avoid resting on past successes, and pushed him to keep giving his personal best. If we’re honest we know that, left to our own devices, we do those exact things that Andre Agassi’s coach was helping him avoid. We slip into bad habits, we rest on past successes, and we can even become apathetic. I’ve had leadership mentors or coaches in my life almost constantly for the last thirty years, for two main reasons. First, I want to continue to grow as a leader even as I train others. Second, I want to model the value of being coached to others. I currently have a coach and two mentors whom I meet with on a regular basis. I meet with one of them weekly, one bi-weekly, and one monthly. They keep my focused on my highest priorities and improving in areas that I still need to refine as a leader. I wouldn’t want to make the kinds of investments in others that I do without their investments in me. Great leaders know themselves well enough to know, and have the humility to admit, that they don’t have all of the skills they need to be at their best for those they lead, and they care enough to make the effort to improve. If you want to be a great leader over the long haul, seek out a coach who you respect and ask them to invest in you as a leader. They’ll help you last over the long haul and help you take your skills to the next level.  In my years in the military I’ve had friends who were members of elite fighting forces, like Navy Seals and Para-Rescue Jumpers. They were members of small elite groups that very few people could qualify to be a part of. They had specialized skills and an incredible level of commitment to their specialties. Very few of us could keep up with them if we had to. The demands of their job required that only the most capable could be part of their group. I’ve known really great people who tried to join them but just did not make the cut.
I’ve also known commanders of very large Air Force and Army units. Their organizations were made up of people at various levels of proficiency. They commanded organizations that were designed for almost everyone, not just for the elite. So their leadership style had to be quite different. They had to figure out the proper pace to move the organization so that everyone could keep up. The motto was often, “No man (or woman) left behind.” In my opinion, this is the greater of the two leadership challenges, and requires a more people-savvy leader. While some organizations require leadership of extremely talented specialists, most of our organizations require us to lead a variety of everyday people and grow their skills on the job. And most leaders must learn to bring everyone along with them (with the exception of an occasional person who just needs to be let go). They learn the art of moving at a pace where teams can stay together and everyone can keep up. Here are some advantages of an inclusive style of leadership. First, great leaders consider how they can leverage their leadership to develop more leaders. Inclusive leaders help others reach their full potential and maximize their contribution to the organization. Besides just being a good way to treat people, it has very practical benefits. Inclusive leadership builds engagement and loyalty to the leader and to the organization. And employee engagement and loyalty are proven to result in increased productivity and profitability. Our people want to be developed and grow in their capacity. That won’t happen if they’re left behind in our dust. Inclusive leadership helps retain our best employees and grow our organizations’ leadership bench, giving us more options for promotions and succession planning. It also reduces the high cost of unnecessary employee turnover. Inclusive leaders also make a greater contribution to society by producing more leaders and a more capable workforce. A stronger workforce is great for our economy, and producing better leaders is good for marriages, families, communities and our country. Let’s improve our own capacities as leaders to set a challenging but reasonable pace for our organizations, learn to train and coach our people and increase their capacity, motivate people to excel at what they bring to the table, and celebrate and reward accomplishment of clear, reasonable goals. For discussion:
 It’s been fascinating, particularly lately, watching how Americans react to legislation and policies enacted on behalf of groups who want to protect their right to not be bothered, insulted, ridiculed or otherwise treated poorly.
We want the right to deny service to someone if we don’t agree with their life choices. We want the right to demand services from people even if it makes them uncomfortable. We want the right to keep someone out of a public restroom if we don’t trust them. We demand the right to share public restrooms with people even if it makes them uncomfortable. We want to deny people the right to say or write bad things about us. And we want the right to say or write anything we want about those we don’t like. It seems to me, at the end of the day, we’re fighting for the right to be treated with kindness, dignity and respect, but only if it’s not mandated that we must do the same for others. Just today I read an article that was going viral on social media. A gentleman was making a case that certain legislation was necessary because he and people like himself were being ridiculed for their life choices. He was absolutely right that the way he and others had been treated was horrible. What he was really wanting was kindness, and he deserves it, as we all do. The problem is no government or business can mandate kindness, short of rescinding most of our human rights. To make the idea of a kindness mandate more absurd, many people are responding to one group or another’s unkind words and actions with hate mail and death threats. Just read the comments section at the end of most online news articles today. And even more absurd still, who are we demanding mandates for kind behavior from? Politicians! Not exactly known as beacons of dignity and respect (though I know many who are). Friends, character cannot be mandated, but it can be taught. But it is taught by modeling it for others. In fact, the only way cultures of dignity, kindness and respect are going to be cultivated around us is if leaders model it for others. If we expect to be treated with dignity, kindness and respect in our culture, here are some things we must NOT do: We must not refuse to serve people just because we disagree with them. Why? Because that’s unkind. We must not demand that people serve us if it makes them uncomfortable. Why? Because that’s unkind too. We must not write slanderous or condescending things about people on the Internet. Why? Because that’s unkind. We must not demand that people give in to our every whim for convenience, in the name of defending our rights. Why? Because that would be unkind. We must not boycott or picket places that don’t share our values. Why? Because it’s unkind. We must not respond to cruelty with cruelty, insult with insult. Guess why. If you’re doing those things, thankfully you still have every right to. But the truth is, you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, regardless of your religion, race, or orientation. I’m not saying we should not stand up for our rights. I am saying we don’t need to hurt others or sacrifice character to do it. Remember, leaders create culture. So if we want to create a culture of dignity, kindness and respect, we’re first going to have to learn to turn the other cheek, repaying rudeness with kindness. There are always going to be cruel people on the Internet, in public restrooms, and in picket lines. Just don’t be one of them. Let’s be leaders who are kinder than that. Let’s stop demanding character from people who don’t have it to give. Just demonstrate character every day, and eventually we’ll find it drawn to us. |
AuthorJay Pullins has been leading and developing leaders in a variety of settings for over 30 years. He has a diverse background as a leadership coach, military officer, an appointed state official, and executive leader of Alaska's largest church. Jay has trained over 1,400 leaders in the last five years, from Alaska to Southern California, in various fields from universities to military, construction, product distribution, manufacturing, telecommunications, churches, banks, casinos, and a railroad. Archives
November 2022
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