The Awesome Power of Being Honest

Last week, I got to lead a diverse team to check how well a company is doing at something called 'business excellence'. This company does important stuff for lots of other businesses, and it's known for being super responsible and caring.

I'm always the kind of person who says what's on my mind, whether I'm talking to just one person or a bunch of people. When I talk one-on-one, everyone usually thinks I'm just being real and trying to help them get even better. But in big group meetings, some people can sometimes think I'm not being nice, even when I'm just being honest and direct without being mean.

At the opening meeting, I listened carefully to what the leaders of the company were saying, and then I commented that maybe the organisation was confused because they've been changing their leaders a lot. My comment made some people upset, and one person even looked like they were about to leave. This has happened to me a bunch of times in my long career.

I said, I have understood that my comment had hurt your sentiments, and I am very sorry and apologize for the same. Then, as I saw a spark of acceptance in everyone’s faces, I went on to explain the specific contexts, my observations and outcomes covering what is called as a position document, which comprehensively describes the practices, performance, and outcomes for at least three years of a business and my experience in interacting with their teams so far.

This explanation got them to see my perspective and we concluded by making fun of my confusion statement. The remaining days of the assessment was very professional and progressive with their teams enthusiastically seeking to identify their improvement areas. We ended the weeklong assessment with an extremely positive note as we departed making new friends.

I used to feel bad and worry a lot when people told me to think before I speak. But after doing a lot of reading and thinking, I realized that it's okay to be open and speak up. I learned that being honest is actually really cool because it helps me connect with people in a special way. I made a little video about how our minds work, which you can check out here: [https://youtu.be/KpOS4jFHJmM]. I started to appreciate my own style of speaking up and being honest. I realized it's something awesome about me. Even if some people don't like it, I know it's my superpower.

Sometimes, we hold back our awesome talents because we're afraid of what others might say. We want to fit in, so we hide what makes us unique. But that's like having superpowers and never using them! When we do that, we miss out on doing all the amazing things we're really capable of. So, let us not be shy about being who we are and show our talents. The world needs our awesomeness for consistently performing, sustainable improving and creating value to each or our stakeholders.

I'm sure each one of you have something special about you too. Keep being awesome and believing in yourself!

Happy reading!