I was talking to a client group recently about the importance of being authentic in our leadership. An important component of authenticity is reliability, or in other words, doing what you say you will do, following through and delivering on your promises. It’s important because reliability build trust and trust builds relationships. In my book leading is all about building strong relationships with others.
Think about someone that says they will do something, but doesn’t deliver. Someone that makes a promise or a commitment, only to not keep it and then makes an excuse. If this kind of person is in a position where they are trying to influence others, in other words, lead them, they are going to find it difficult if the people they are trying to lead simply don’t trust them based on their history of excuses instead of results.
One of the clients in the group piped up and said “Our CEO calls that your Say:Do ratio. If you divide the number of times you say you will do something by the number of times you do what you say you were going to do, you have your Say:Do ratio.” Simply, if it’s less than one, then you are letting people down and you are risking being labelled unreliable and possibly untrustworthy. Both are fatal if you are trying to lead others.
Put simply, authentic leaders do what they say they will do. How is your Say:Do ratio?