Lesson 12: Honesty
You always get in trouble when you lie. My grandfather had a desk made of dark wood with golden handles on each of the drawers, and he gave it to my mom before he passed. Years later when I was in elementary school, my mom called me into her room to explain why the letters N-I-G-E-L were written on the surface of her dad’s desk. I shrugged my shoulders, “I don’t know.” She was furious to say the least. Looking back on it, I got in more trouble because I was not honest about what I had done wrong.
Honesty is critical as a leader because it builds trust across an organization. Equally as important, people need to know they can be honest with you. This week, I started reading Buy Then Build by Walker Deibel, who is an expert in Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition. I reflected on the four types of companies he says you can buy: (1) Eternally Profitable, (2) High-Growth, (3) Platform, and (4) Turnaround. Turnaround piqued my interest because Diebel describes them as “having complicated messes to work out.” One of the keys to turn the business around is to be honest about what is working and what is not working.
A turnaround company typically has falling or stagnant revenue and perhaps negative profits. The last thing I should do if I acquired a turnaround company would be to tell the team that everything is fine and refuse to admit that the business is in trouble. It would be dishonest to pretend things are okay, and it would hurt our ability to address the challenges this company is facing. The success of the business depends on open and honest communication across the organization. With honesty, I would invite my team, who knows the business better than I do, to provide honest feedback to help make the right changes.
My mission is to increase representation of Black leaders at the executive, investor, and board level. Leading organizations requires a commitment to honesty, and you have a chance to benefit from the collective wisdom of your team.
Honesty is Lesson 12. Next week, I will share Lesson 13: Discipline.
