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David Von Drehle of Time magazine recently penned a great article on the bravery of a rookie politician to stand up and tell the truth regardless of the consequences of her political career. Gina Raimondo is Rhode Island’s general treasurer and she inherited a public-pension mess that could have sent the state into financial ruin. She assessed the situation and took a stand, ‘It would be much easier for me just to tell you there is no problem…but this is about math and not politics.’ Instead of worrying about being the bearer of bad news, Raimondo provided refreshing responsibility in her leadership and her efforts brought back Rhode Island from the brink of disaster.
I find Roaimondo’s leadership refreshing and desperately needed. We need more truthtellers in our government and our organizations. In Jim Collin’s classic book Good to Great, he devotes a chapter to the topic of confronting the brutal facts. The companies Collins and his team studied did not back down from difficult conversations and challenging situations. They did not cross their fingers and hope for the best. They tackled the problems head on with brutal honesty.
Rereading the chapter, I came across a couple of great quotes. Ponder this one for a few minutes, ‘The moment a leader allows himself (or herself) to become the primary reality people worry about, rather than reality being the primary reality, you have a recipe for mediocrity, or worse.’ Wow! In other words, if you have a poor leader who won’t address the brutal facts, you now have two things to worry about. And in this day and age, the problems are daunting enough without having to battle inept leadership to get to the point of addressing the problem.
Collins offers four practices to encourage truthtelling in organizations.
- Lead with questions, not answers – Do you have a culture that allows leadership to answer, ‘I don’t know, but we’re going to ask questions and get the answers.’
- Engage in dialogue and debate, not coercion – Disagreements, arguments, loud discussion should take place. There should be some passionate meetings because the future of the organization is at stake.
- Conduct autopsies, without blame – The health of your organization’s culture can be determined by the length of memory it has for mistakes. Dysfunctional cultures never forget a misstep and do not allow an individual or team to disassociate themselves from that mistake. It is vital to learn from an organization’s mistakes.
- Build ‘red flag’ mechanisms – Does your organization have channels for employees to voice concerns without fear of reprisal?
Tags: authenticity, Communication, culture, dysfunctional, Leadership, teams, truth