Contextual Leadership (3) - integrity, trust and love

December 12, 2011 by Bert Verbeeke

Increased professionalism

As you might know I go through a book called ‘Developing the Leader within You’ from John C. Maxwell with two of my staff here at Global Nomad. It is interesting to see differences between Tibetan, Chinese and Dutch culture. In this series I take you along, sharing some of my experiences with them. Feel free to respond below and leave a comment.

Integrity, trust and love: Self-esteem and image-building are very important in Asian shame-culture-countries as it is in the west. I guess its common for leaders  to drive a certain brand car, wear a certain kind of clothes, have a watch of a good brand and behave in a certain way. Even though image is important for some leaders to become more trust-worthy, there are other aspects that results in deeper respect.

After talking for a little with my Tibetan and Chinese friends, we quickly discovered that we all like integrity above image. Part of being human - I guess - is to be a whole person and we like other people to reflect that. Many people do things because they copy it from others. Initiative comes from authenticity, knowing who you are. I see leaders want to climb the ladder, but don't want to change. That is something that doesn’t go hand in hand.

In his book ‘Developing the leader within you’, John C. Maxwell gives three questions if your performance is building trust or if your goal is your own personal image. The areas covered are: consistency, choices and credits. Do people really see you in different situations, do you make choices on behalf of yourself and to whom do you give credit?

Responsibilities and Rights

Also in this chapter on Integrity, it shares a little about the leaders responsibilities. We discussed about the differences between Asian and Western countries. I gave the following example: “Last week we had visitors coming to Zeku – quite a few of them. We needed some sleeping places and I (the boss, leader) decided that our private guest could sleep on the sleeping-sofa in my (previous) office. As an adapted Asian boss, I didn't ask the person in charge of the office. And the office manager, even though he even might not have noticed, would not care about it. I am the boss, so why would he bother with that decision”. But was it in my right to do so? Was it not the office manager to decide on this as I delegated the responsibility to him?

In a western setting, I think, but please let me know when you disagree; most bosses will ask their office manager if it would be ok to use the office for some private use. They would not automatically see it as a RIGHT they have to use office stuff for private issues.

But it is true, isn't it, that when you climb the ladder of leadership, you have more and more responsibilities (to delegate) and less impact in practical activities in your organization. This while as boss you would like to have all the rights. But true as well is the fact that with handing over rights and responsibilities to key people, a business community really develops.

Trust and Love

“Think about a person you really trust and why that is the case. Think about a person you don't trust and reason why”. This question answered by 3 different cultures share the same theme: Love'. Trust does exist only when there is loving acceptance of the person. If trust you have given to a person is misused, you will not like that person. But if a friend really aims to grow you, encourage you and provide help, trust and deepened relationship is a fact.

Love is understood in many different ways. Also here in China, the word love is misused for the acting of a male and female together. It is also used in a way to just do good to other people so they like you. The deeper meaning and experience of love isn't talked about. But a genuine love for the people you work with in your organization, is needed to build trust!

And isn’t that the center of why its so hard to grow as leader - because of the lack and desire of real love. In his description of different leadership positions, the first and most thing he called to grow from positional leadership to the next level, is love for people.

Other information

This is the third blog post related to contextual leadership. To see all posts relating to contextual leadership, click here.

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