Sincerity

Years ago, when I was working in my first real job, as a Director of Community Relations in a hospital, there was a new vice president role created in the organization. I very much wanted to be considered for the position and they were good enough to give me that consideration.

One step in the selection process was an assessment by an industrial psychologist. I remember taking a number of personality tests and having an interview with the psychologist. A week or so later, I had a return appointment and she provided her feedback to me. I vividly recall the conversation as she focused, in part, on my previous work experiences which, at that point, were not many.

When I finished graduate school and we moved to Madison, Wisconsin, I thought for sure I would find a job right away. After all, I had degrees in Communication. Surely someone would hire me. But it turned out that this was a community filled with people with newly minted graduate degrees and it was tough to find a “real” job. I worked in retail and then got a job selling advertising for a weekly publication.

I didn’t love selling, the highs were too high and the lows too low for me but I was pretty successful at it. This sales background was one area that I remember the psychologist honing in on when we met to go over my results.

She told me that I didn’t have the personality traits normally associated with successful sales people. My success in sales, she said, was the result of my sincerity. Maybe I wasn’t a person to whom sales comes naturally but clients knew that I believed what I said and that I would do what I promised.

As I think about it today, I realize that sincerity is a core element of leading with heart. You cannot connect, motivate, inspire confidence and make change effectively if you are not honest, if you are not sincere. You may think that you are “fooling” people but, in reality, you are not. The truth, as I like to say, is always the truth.

Sincerity does not have to be something you are born with or a component of your personality. It requires you to fully believe in what you are doing and saying, in the direction in which you are working to move the organization. Leading with heart is approaching your work, and your team, with honesty and candor, with heart and, yes, with sincerity.