As a leader, what steps are you taking to create and maintain credibility and trust in your organization?
The great leaders I work with understand how they are the most important and powerful influence in their organizational culture. You see, they understand and embrace the profound privilege and responsibility to create purpose and meaning that drives employee contributions, including innovation and productivity.
In most organizations, stated goals are consistent with the higher values of the organization: the vision of the leader, the organization’s mission, and value statement. This allows all employees to operate in a coherent and consistent manner to achieve stated goals. When employees have no clear picture of the moral or ethical stance of the organization, they tend to operate at the lowest perceived level.
Perhaps more so than ever before, creating and promoting institutional integrity becomes one of the most important functions of leadership. Moral and ethical stances need to be consistently reiterated and clarified.
Unresolved Matters
Aside from the ongoing unemployment and underemployment in the midst of pandemic, we still have unresolved matters in the American workplace. One of the most pervasive is pay inequity.
Yes, we have made some progress in this regard. However, according to a recent Harvard Business Review article (November 2020), a recent self-reported survey of U.S. companies found that only 22% of the 922 largest public companies performed a pay equity audit (PEA) between 2016 and 2020. Until this issue is addressed and adjustments made, leaders will have an ongoing issue with building trust and credibility in organizational cultures.
An analysis of the relationship between ethical behavior and effective leadership reveals that it is a matter of examining both ends and means. Of course, sustainability is a factor: a business must be profitable in order to survive. Service organizations must satisfy consumers’ expectations. Government must meet the needs of its citizens. The ends are the very reason for existence of the enterprise. At the same time, the means by which they achieve those ends are increasingly important.
What do you think? What steps are you taking to create and maintain credibility and trust in your organization? I’d love to hear from you. I can be reached here, on LinkedIn, or give me a call: 561-582-6060.
