Walking the Talk Key to Being Credibile

As a Second Lieutenant in the Army in the mid 70’s I was privileged to know First Sergeant (1SG) Willie Crowe.  He had a small stature and spoke very softly with an accent that reflected his rural Florida roots. He spoke in a quiet and concise manner but when he spoke everyone listened.  His troops respected him, even the soldiers who screwed up.

Upon my arrival to the unit, 1SG Crowe took it upon himself to train me.  He showed me how to inspect equipment, the barracks and the mess hall and how to evaluate training. At the end of my training 1SG Crowe told me that I needed to figure what was important to me and how I would demonstrate that to the soldiers. He said soldiers would observe me and draw their own conclusions about what was important and if they could trust me enough to follow me. 

1SG Crowe’s message struck a chord with me.  Talking about what is important is not enough.  You have to ‘walk the talk’.  Mark Twain said it well, “Actions speak louder than words, just not as often.” I took that advice to heart and tried to figure out if my priorities were consistent with my actions.  I asked others for their input.  It was tough to hear when I was told my actions didn’t match up with my statements.

Understanding what is important to a leader along with demonstrating that consistently over time and across situations is fundamental to gaining followers.  The leader in choosing to say something is important must set out to demonstrate that it is actually important.  Here are a couple of examples. 

Providing great customer service requires the owner to be personally involved with this process.  The staff needs to see the leader modeling how to interact with customers, to receive coaching on better ways to service customers and to be recognized for providing customer service well. Saying customer service is important and then disappearing into the office with little customer interaction tells employees that customer service is really not important.

Wanting feedback as the boss is much easier said than done.  Challenges exist to getting this accomplished – fear of telling the boss bad news and the requirement to follow through. If the leader truly wants feedback there are steps that have to be taken – build effective relationships with employees, control your reaction to negative information and follow up in a timely manner to resolve problems identified as a result of the feedback.  This may include a need for the leader to change a behavior.  This is a lot of work but not completing these steps will tell employees that the leader is not serious about receiving feedback.

Before deciding what is important, leaders need to ask themselves how they are going to demonstrate that importance.  As a result of doing this a leader may be confronted by the reality of not being able ‘to walk the talk’ because of too many competing demands.  If that happens, the leader should ask if it is truly important.  Trying to cut corners by not demonstrating the importance will undermine the leader’s credibility and the trust the leader needs from their followers.  What is important should be captured in a short and simple list and be communicated and demonstrated consistently.  Otherwise, it is difficult for others to follow.

I ran into 1SG Crown many years later.  He had been promoted to Division Command Sergeant Major, a very senior position.  He hadn’t changed a bit.  He had a junior officer in tow and he was instructing her about the role of officers.