Leading with candor: The risk and reward
What you need to know:
- Janani Luwum (pictured) was no ordinary man. He was the Archbishop of the Church of Uganda between 1974 and 1977 and Wikipedia describes him as “…one of the most influential leaders of the modern church in Africa”.
On February 16 every year, Uganda observes a national holiday, Janani Luwum day, a day dedicated in remembrance of the late Archbishop Janani Luwum. Janani Luwum (pictured) was no ordinary man. He was the Archbishop of the Church of Uganda between 1974 and 1977 and Wikipedia describes him as “…one of the most influential leaders of the modern church in Africa”. He is recognised as a martyr by the Anglican Communion and his statue is among the Twentieth Century Martyrs on the front of Westminster Abbey in London. He is honoured on the Church calendars of the Anglican Church of Australia, Anglican Church of Canada, Scottish Episcopal Church, Episcopal Church USA, and the Church in Wales on June 3 and of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia and Episcopal Anglican Church of Brazil as well as the Church of England on February 17.
But why, a newcomer to the world of this Man of God may ask, is such honor bestowed upon an ordinary man who was the head of his church for such a short period of time? The answer to that question lies in the simplicity of his actions. He chose to live his life and practice his leadership with candor! Janani Luwum chose to speak truth to matter at every turn, even at the risk of his own life. And this is exactly the fate that befell him when, standing up to be counted when it mattered most, he made a formal complaint to the then President of his country Uganda, The late Dictator Idi Amin, about the outlandishness of his leadership style. This simple act of bravery in the face of evil, when he could have chosen to remain silent, cost him his life.
Candor, described as the quality of being open and honest, is probably the most important leadership trait that any leader must possess and more often than not distinguishes ordinary leaders from great leaders. In any survey where employees are asked what they value most in a leader, TRUSTWORTHINESS always comes up on top of the list, and TRUSTWORTHINESS is all about candor. Easy though as it sounds, candor is one of the hardest leadership traits to build and keep and this is because it inherently derives directly from one’s value system. To act in such a way as to elicit trust from your followers at all times is not easy. It requires a high level of leadership integrity which is unfortunately in short supply among many of today’s leaders.
To start with, one must be very clear about his or her leadership purpose. Your leadership purpose defines who you are and towards what goal your leadership is directed. It is what gets you out of bed every morning and what keeps you going each day as you go about practicing your leadership. It should be clear to all around your leadership circle what you stand for to a point that any deviant actions are bound to raise eyebrows. People are drawn towards predictability, and purpose led leaders are predictable.
Next you must develop a knack of facing reality and delivering both good and bad news with the exact same urgency and style. Strive to always tell the truth and tell it fast. This is not easy to do all the time but once you realise that paying lip service to serious issues only aggravates problems, and that little non truths that you may sometimes sprinkle around come back to bite you and bring down the dial on your ‘trustometer’, it becomes a necessity.
Talking of your ‘trustometer’ (if there exists such a tool to measure level of trust), you need to get your team to trust you as you show them trust as well. Trust is a two-way street. One needs to show trust in order to gain trust. People trust leaders who trust them. Without trust, any messages that you give or receive will be treated with suspicion, so without trust you cannot have candor. Trust is about consistency and fairness, it ropes in all the elements of integrity, predictability and reality. It is therefore the most important trait required to build the condor muscle. It takes time and effort to build but can be destroyed overnight once consistency is lost.
The rewards of leading with candor cannot be downplayed by the risks. Organisations that insist on candor as one of their key leadership standards have been found to have higher engagement scores than those that don’t. Higher engagement leads to better performance over time which in turn leads to higher shareholder return. On the other hand, an organisation whose employees don’t engage each other candidly is very slow to turn the wheels. Nobody trusts anybody so nobody is being told the truth. Because nobody is being told the truth nobody is working on what really matters. Poor, slow execution then becomes the norm.
So, next time you worry about always speaking truth to matter in the form of offering candid feedback, think about the positive outcomes you could achieve from doing so. Had the late Archbishop Janani Luwum chosen to remain silent and not offer his feedback, who knows, maybe the world would not be a better place today. May his light continue to shine.
