Fulfilling Commitments

This is a vital but often overlooked quality of successful leaders.

Consistency and Reliability

Some of the worst leaders achieve their poor reputation not through malice or incompetence but simply through inconsistency. They fufil some commitments and fail to fulfil others, neglecting to give reasons why, often agreeing with the most recent person they have spoken to and trying to please all the people all the time.

Committing, fulfilling, and consistency are the bedrock of a trusted leader. If the person you manage or the people you lead ask you to do something for them and you commit to do it, place a high priority on completing it, even if in itself it appears to have a lesser impact on the organisation’s ‘results’: it is part of the process of establishing your reliability.

• People decide whether they trust you based on a succession of apparently little events and actions – long before a major situation. By then they will already have made up their mind whether you can be trusted when the chips are down.
• If they have little faith in your ability to help, they will cease to tell you about important problems. Without this essential information, your ability to bring about real improvement is seriously weakened.

Managing to fulfil apparently small commitments comes down to the self-discipline and time management of the leader – and to your realisation that motivating others with consistent and reliable support is fundamental to success.

You do not have to slavishly fulfil every single commitment – sometimes circumstances will intervene that change your priorities. Limit these to really important cases and explain to people why you have not been able to fulfil your commitment to them on that occasion.

• So long as you are fundamentally ‘in credit’ with each person, you will continue to gain trust and motivate them to bring important concerns to your attention.

Growing people's abilities

If you delegate authority or a task, have the confidence to let people make the odd mistake. Don't take back the task or authority as soon as you see anything going wrong. Let people feel the burden as well as the joy of responsibility, but make it clear to them that you are available to help or advise, and ask what support you can give them to make their work more achievable.

Trusted leadership entails stretching people beyond what they think they may be capable of - because you have a commitment to grow the people, challenging their expectations of themselves.

The Manager who Serves

Fulfilling your commitments is key not just to personal competence but also key to the service culture of leadership – you are there to facilitate the achievements of the people you lead, removing obstacles for them, increasing their potential, building their belief that you wish to support them. Fulfilling commitments is an act of will that builds trust.

'Man is what he wills himself to be.' - Sartre