Honesty is one of the most important characteristics I have found in business and life!
It sets the tone for your work culture, builds loyalty and trust from your employees and customers and gives you the fundamental basis for a long-lasting authentic relationship with other human beings.
I have been in different companies and have worked with a lot of different people in my life.
Different people have different work ethics and different values. And that is a good thing, as I believe that diversity is important for growth and innovation.
One thing though, that has always proven to be important in any relation was honesty.
Relations with other human beings are built on trust, be it privately or in business.
Trust can only be achieved when you are authentic and honest. Any dishonesty will immediately turn into the loss of trust, which will be the beginning of the end of this relationship.
How does that impact the business life?
As a service provider for my clients, I have to gain their trust. When negotiating and setting up a collaboration, I could tell them anything I believe they want to hear to please them and gain their trust. And a lot of people actually do that. Closing a deal is so important for us, that we would go into bending the truth of what we can deliver for them to close the deal.
It is hard for us to express that we are not able to deliver something, we believe that our potential client would like to have.
If we close the deal on this basis, we will have to deliver what we can’t and will start working around and come up with solutions, that might not be satisfactory for our client.
We will lose his or her trust and most probably lose the client.
When working with our employees and our partners, the same scheme applies.
Honesty will support the communication and built trust.
Honest communication will lead to a good working culture and integrity in which your employees feel accepted and valued. As a team you will be able to perform a lot better than in an atmosphere of mistrust and dishonesty.
I have seen companies destroy themselves from within, due to culture of dishonesty and selfish behavior that resulted from that.
Honesty of course also includes saying and doing things that are not the most popular ones within teams and companies. If you do that within a culture of trust, even unpopular decisions and actions will be accepted and tolerated by your peers.
Let’s be honest!
Try it! You will see how it works!