Leadership is full of the opportunity to do the right thing. Leadership is also full of penalties. The penalty of not having a bad day. The penalty of not getting to utilize excuses. The penalty of not getting to forget about your mission.
No leadership opportunity may be as great or penalty as large when the right thing is involved.
Think about this scenario. Your boss, the company president, tells you to do something about Bob. She clearly has not liked Bob since the day she arrived and it appears that her and Bob have some type of personality conflict. You fully believe that Bob is meeting all required standards and making headway to become an executive. Do you confront Bob? Do you stand up to the president? Do you try to hit a middle ground and negotiate a solution acceptable to the president and protecting Bob on some levels?
Or maybe a little darker scenario. You are aware that a peer is being sexually harassed at work. You have talked with her and suggested that she talk to human resources or the CEO. She refuses and her behavior, job performance and demeanor deteriorate almost daily. The individual harassing her has authority over you and is widely liked and respected in the company. Furthermore, the harasser generates a significant amount of income for the company. Do you ignore the situation? After all, she knows the policy and she is a big person and can report the harassment if it bothers her. Do you report the harassment and risk the loss of your credibility and even your job?
How about something a little more tame and a lot more common? Your boss talks to you about the failing performance of your peer manager. He says that he trusts you and trusts your judgment. Do you pile on and add your comments that throw your peer under the bus? Do you remain silent? Do you protest and indicate that this dialog is not appropriate? Do you bask in the glory of having the boss indicate that he trusts you?
One more. There is animosity between you and a key sales person. The behavior has risen to the level that she tells lies about you and your operational team members. Do you confront her and tell her the behavior is inappropriate and must stop? Do you go tell her boss? Do you retaliate and wage a campaign of lies and exaggerations about her?
Many times, doing the right thing has penalties. In leadership, those penalties are magnified because there are less safety nets for team members in leadership positions. People in leadership positions are more visible so when they face issues of ethical penalty, it is more widely known. Although you can never avoid the penalties for doing the right thing, there are a couple of skills that can be embraced to reduce the impact of them.
The first course of action is to employ a consistent approach with all team members and in all situations. This approach also become proactive because people know that you take the high ground on a consistent basis and not just when it is convenient for you. This requires you not react and demonstrate a great deal of emotional intelligence in all interactions within the organization.
The other skill, and perhaps the hardest, is to remove the “what’s in it for me” thought process. This forces you to not think about how possible consequences might affect you in an adverse manner and focus only on doing the right thing. Some people will label this as courage or as the same thinking that propels policemen towards gunfire. It is the instantaneous processing of risk versus doing the right thing with the right thing always winning.
Finally, a leader must be able to reconcile their action against long term and very personal consequences. Can you sleep with your action or inaction? Does your action or inaction cause you unease and nervousness? Would your mom be proud of what you did or did not do? These little tests can prove a powerful learning ground for doing the right thing.
Almost as a postscript, you will have a lot of jobs in your life. You will go through a great deal of money. You will have a limited ability to do the right thing and far fewer to repair past wrong things.
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