Hypocrisy Revisited

The other day I saw a presentation on slide share on leadership. As I flipped through the slides I recognized the person who put the slides together. The topic was the top three qualities of good leadership.  I had met this person three times in the last few years. I was struck that the three qualities this person found essential in leadership were three qualities I did not experience in him when I met him. The three qualities stated were: empathy, honesty and humility. While I agree that these qualities are important in leadership I wondered why this person would specify them, as I would not say this was this person’s brand.

Did he think that he had them or did he aspire to have them?

This got me thinking about hypocrisy. The definition of hypocrisy is: “the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform.” My 17-year-old son told me a story about hypocrisy that was humbling. One of his friends from high school was grounded by her mother for drinking alcohol one weekend. The girl had said that her mother was a big hypocrite because her mother drinks on the weekends and gets drunk which is exactly what she was punishing her daughter for. While it is true that the legal age drinking age is 21, I imagined what this must look like to a teenager.

I feel like a hypocrite quite frequently at home. I have been training listening skills and how to coach employees for over 20 years. Yet when it comes to my son I find myself sorely lacking. My son has even requested that I treat him like one of my coaching clients because he has noticed that I am so calm, patient and reasonable when I speak to them.

I recognize that my clients get my best behavior. I value and like my clients. However I love my son and my husband more than my clients, yet they receive some of my worst behavior because I trust them not to reject me. Luckily I am not alone in this predicament, as it seems to be more common than we all care to admit.

Hypocrisy is the difference between who we want to be and who were really are as demonstrated by our behaviors. Perhaps we are all hypocrites at one time or another? I have met few people who deliberately claim to be one thing only to turn around and behave in the opposite way. Usually it is that they are not conscious about their behavior at all or how it impacts those around them.

For example I know a woman who makes very critical and negative comments about her ex husband and yet told me with great sincerity that she divorced him out of love and still loves him. I have to conclude she does not hear how negatively she speaks of her ex-husband even around her children.

The best remedy for hypocrisy may be to ask for honest feedback from somebody you trust. It is impossible to correct a behavior you cannot see or do not recognize as one of your own. After seeing this slide share I asked for feedback from a good friend who is a VP of HR and got some hard but good feedback of my own. We all relate to our intentions behind our actions first as they are usually positive. It is only when we truly recognize the impact and the cost of our behavior that we are motivated to be coherent in thoughts, feelings and actions. But perhaps to be human is to have the seed of hypocrisy planted in our socialization and our need to belong? Fuel for thought.

How do I forgive myself when I find myself being hypocritical?

The poet Leonard Cohen writes:

 ?Ring the bells that still can ring. ?

Forget your perfect offering.?

There is a crack in everything.?

That's how the light gets in.