Member-only story
It is 6pm on a Friday evening and most have left the office for the day. You decide you need to discuss something with a staff and the staff is not at his desk. Do you SMS message A or B?
Which of the following message you send, tells me what type of boss you are ….
Message A: Have you left the office?
Message B: Are you still in the office?
I am a strong believer that when it comes to leadership, there is always something deeper. This something deeper is your underlying attitude towards your staff and this translates into how you treat and communicate with them.
While subtle, there are presumptions in both messages. In Message A, your underlying thinking is that they should be in the office; while in Message B, your underlying thinking is that they are where they need to be.
Your employees will subconsciously pick up on these “leaks” and if they are incongruent with what you say, they will sense that you do not walk your talk and will not trust you.
As they say, you can lie to some of the people all of the time, and you can lie to all of the people some of the time. But you cannot lie to all of the people all of the time.
In leadership, authenticity matters!
