Dave Snowden has written this strong blog post about coherence, leadership and communications:

Not all great leaders are good communicators, fewer still are, or will ever be gifted story tellers. Ironically some of the worst leaders are only too good at telling stories and excel at communication. What really matters is the degree of coherence and integrity that is evident in the lived life of the leader as perceived by their employees and colleagues.

As a journalist I would sometimes have the argument with colleagues about the line between truth and honesty.

A fact may be strictly true and can be set alongside other strictly true facts, but as we know the whole can be totally dishonest. Naturally enough whenever we fell near that trap the package was all brilliantly communicated, regardless of how much integrity it had. After all that’s what we were trained to do.

The end result though was never satisfying. It lacked integrity and often it was really hard work. Why? Because creating a semblance of coherence from something that is fundamentally flawed is devilishly difficult to do. But doing just that has become a staple technique for half hearted journalism and probably for a similar style of management. Disguising the lie has become a professional skill - acquired over years of experience.

So how do you build in checks and balances to ensure you’re spending time on the stuff that really makes sense? As Dave goes on to argue: “If nothing else leaders generally come as teams, the good ones take people with them over the years who compliment their skills. Training leadership crews rather than leaders may be one way to build more resilience into organisations”.

In my mind one of the core strengths of a great team is to know what is honest and have a reflex action to communicate that. The pleasure of nailing something when you’ve also worked hard to do the right thing is enormous. Of course from time to time managers feel they can’t do that - but the wisest will never buy their own deceit. Make a habit of doing that and you’re most likely to end up being dismissed as, at best, incoherent.

Hat Tip Johnnie Moore. Image thanks to Unhindered by Talent.