Tips for Aspiring Leaders (#1 Keeping Your Word)

Effective leaders have the ability to carve out space in the world for their ideas and commitments, which are often closely related to, or representative of the ideas and commitments of their followers or constituents. What has people follow a leader is the leader’s ability to influence the shape and appearance of the world around them to be consistent with his/her ideas and commitments as a leader.

Specifically, the world begins to shift and reshape itself around the leader’s ideas and commitments as a function of the leader’s word.

If I’m in a leadership role, I’m going to give my word to fulfilling specific outcomes that can be observed in reality. The outcomes I give my word to will be determined by my ideas and commitments, and the ideas and commitments of the people I represent. My ability to keep my word will determine whether people continue to listen to me.

If I say that hundred dollar bills will rain from the sky today at 3p and that doesn’t happen, a certain percentage of my followers or constituents will start to doubt or question my leadership. The converse is also true. If hundred dollar bills do start to rain from the sky at 3p today, the fulfillment of that outcome will solidify the confidence of my followers and contribute to the strength and power of my leadership.

My example may be completely inane, but the concept is extremely valuable. In a position of leadership, your legacy is determined largely by whether you keep your word or not. People will measure you against your word. They’ll watch carefully for evidence of whether the world is shifting and changing to align itself with your word or not. Keeping your word builds people’s confidence in your leadership, which extends and expands your reach and influence as a leader.

What do I mean by “keeping your word”? Keeping your word is different than simply fulfilling a promise, although promises are often part of giving and keeping your word. Your word is part of a bigger picture that includes the promises you make. Your word as a leader is literally who you say you are, and what you can be counted on for.

If I’m in a position of leadership, maybe a manager in a medium-sized company, and I say that I’m committed to increasing productivity by improving communication within my department, that commitment is my word. If you worked in my department, you might start to wonder how I’m going to work on improving communication, and exactly how that will translate in terms of productivity.

You might start to formulate some of your own opinions about these objectives, which you will compare to what I say and do. You might expect to start hearing about new resources, maybe trainings or activities that line up with increasing productivity and improving communication. You might expect to start participating in new conversations or working with new resources that are consistent with our department’s new objectives.

As a result, you might expect to see communication improving in our department, and productivity going up as a result. In short, you might expect to see the world, at least the immediately observable world, begin to shift and change around us to reflect my word as a leader. Keeping my word in this case would mean fulfilling your expectations for my leadership.

If most of these things begin to happen, and continue to happen consistently over a period of time, I’ll have kept my word. As a result, you’ll most-likely gain a new level of confidence in my leadership, and you’ll be more likely to trust my leadership in the future.

If on the other hand, I fail to take actions and produce results that are consistent with my word, and as a result, the world does not make room for my ideas and commitments to improve communication and increase productivity, then I have failed to keep my word.

If you’re waiting for this conversation to get practical, you’ve waited long enough. If you’re in a position of leadership, or you aspire to be, and you wish to be successful as a leader, you must keep your word. Here are some pointers that may help:

1) The little things matter. All the little things you say you’ll do influence how you’re perceived as a leader. From showing up on time to returning calls and emails, to resolving minor problems you said you’d resolve. All those little things are opportunities to keep your word.

2) A strong leader looks for opportunities to provide certainty. Providing certainty makes it easier for the people who follow you to trust your leadership. It gives them a sense of security that makes it easier to believe in you.

3) Be mindful of people’s expectations. Ask yourself what expectations the people you lead may have of your leadership, and whether or not those expectations are getting fulfilled. Monitoring people’s expectations will give you a good indication of whether you’re keeping your word or not.

4) Quantify. Find ways to measure whether you’re keeping your word or not so you always have a reliable external indicator.

5) Emphasize your victories. Every time the world shifts or changes a little bit to make room for your ideas and commitments, your word has scored a victory. Celebrate these victories.

Go to Tip #2

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