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A regular feature of life in the Delta 7 office is the monthly Visual Dialogue where we get together to discuss something that interests us. We do this because it’s fun – but also because it’s an opportunity to experience and practice the process we create for our clients.

Our pictures are tools to engage people in organisations in conversations about difficult issues. These facilitated dialogues enable people to gain powerful insights about the changes and challenges they face – and come up with responsible and creative solutions.

The starting point for our dialogue was familiar to everyone in the team. “How do I look?”

To begin with, the conversation focused on that uncomfortable conundrum: when is ‘honest’ too honest? Is the truth always the right thing in all situations? We all recognised the experience of holding back on what we said based on what we thought another person wanted to hear. We also all agreed that even though it made things easier at the time, it left us feeling uneasy.

In the end, we concluded that what really mattered to us was for there to be alignment between what we think on the inside and what we say (or do) on the outside. It was clear that congruence was more important a quality than protecting our, or someone else’s feelings.

What do you think? Is the honesty important in your organisation?

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After many years working with organisations in change, two things have become clear to me: first, that many leaders see change as something they have to get other people to do and second, that many employees think their leaders don’t ‘walk the talk’ or practice the behavioural changes they preach.

A typical change programme in today’s organisations may come packaged as ‘values-based behaviour change’ – with a call to put the company’s values into action in support of the strategic vision.  ‘We need people to act this and that way for the organisation to be successful’ is the underlying ask from leadership.

The problem isn’t the business case for change since this is usually easy to understand e.g. ‘the environment has just got tougher and we need to do more with less’.  The problem is a preference for avoiding the discomfort of looking at and considering changing our own behaviour.  Unsurprisingly, many leaders prefer to support other people and groups to change rather than work on themselves; those other people, in turn, prefer to help other people change … and so on.

The cost of leaders not embodying the kinds of  changes they ask of others is immense for two very simple and powerful reasons.  The first is that when they avoid exploring the discomfort of change before asking others to, they miss the opportunity to equip themselves with the kind of skills, empathy and understanding that would be invaluable for supporting change in others.  The second is that when they don’t work on their own behaviours, leaders lose the ability to lead by example and are perceived as incongruent.

This incongruence creates a lack of trust, diminishes respect and reduces the capacity to lead.  Internally, it can be even worse: the secret knowledge that he/she cannot walk the talk can leave a leader with feelings of shame that erode their sense of self-worth.

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