Hundreds of thousands of leadership articles have been written, focused on leading through integrity and character, walking the talk, consistency, courage, communication, inner strength and perseverance.  All of these, in my opinion, have one essential trait in common that should never be overlooked or omitted -- honesty. If every action or communication you participate in comes back to the criteria of honesty, you'll be leaps and bounds ahead in the leadership race. 

Take, for example, a CEO who makes promises and doesn't follow through, or who speaks about integrity but then makes business decisions based on self-serving factors. Speaking one thing and acting otherwise is a contradiction; in other words, a dishonesty.  If someone portrays themselves in a certain light, and promotes themselves as being a certain type of person or leader, but then their actions do not back that up, they are essentially lying with their words. Actions do speak louder than words, and actions are our most honest form of communication.   

If you say you love someone, but then verbally or physically hurt them your words of love mean far less. You lose credibility with each contradiction. As a leader - whether it be a business leader, a community leader, a family leader or a leader by example in every day life, you must have credibility and you must have the trust of others. Those who do not trust you will not follow you for very long. With each contradiction, each time you fall short of the completely honest truth, you poke a hole in others' ability to follow you without hesitation.  

Be careful, then, what you promise. Be cautious and diligent about what you say about yourself to others. An awareness of how you're promoting yourself will show you what others are expecting from you. Are they getting from you, in actions, what you're leading them to believe they can expect, or are you letting others down, little by little?  Unfortunately, trust, and a loss of it, are aggregate, and not separate and individual incidents. If you lose a bit of someone's trust, the next time you do it they're added together, built upon one another, as an always-growing hesitation to trust in you.  Trust can be regained, but it's so much harder than keeping it in the first place. 

As an employee, are you honest? I'm not asking if you avoid doing things that others know about that may be questionable.  That old saying, "integrity is doing the right thing even when nobody is looking," is powerful. If nobody is ever going to check your phone, or your email, or your desk drawers or your car or your house, are you still just as likely to make the 'right' choices and do the 'right' thing?  As a co-worker, a supervisor, a peer or mentor, are you honest at all times? Do you take credit where it belongs to someone else, or deny blame when you should admit to it?  Self-assess; how honest are you?  If everything you did was transparent, for all to see, would you still have the same friends, relationships, employer, or would any of those very valuable relationships have some loss of trust in you, some doubt in your integrity? 

Pride in yourself can come from knowing you're honest; so why are we sometimes afraid of honesty? Because we're afraid others will see us in less than a perfect light. We want others to think highly of us, see us a certain way, and even to trust us.  And so we may deny wrongdoing, or claim something positive that someone else did, or exaggerate our skills or accomplishments. But when it comes down to it... wouldn't you rather those who matter to you actually accept you just like you are, imperfections and flaws and scars and all? Being honest, even when a mistake or a bad decision is made, can go so much further at maintaining credibility and integrity than dishonesty.  

Next time you're in a situation where you have a choice to be honest, or anything less than honest, try putting all your strength into taking the fully honest approach. Build trust. Earn it. And let your honesty lead you to being a better person who others want to follow without hesitation.