Honesty always works

I had a manager, who, I guessed liked me.

He knew that I was trustworthy, sincere, and I put my best into my work.

However, he kept on giving me feedback in a subtle way that I was too honest to lead a complex business function or a big team or a large customer engagement that involved diplomacy.

His strong belief systems made him think that to be effective you need to be shrewd, politically savvy, and even manipulative.

Honesty in the corporate world is almost like a vice rather than a virtue.

It’s a nativity.

Yes, we all live in an incredibly complex and maybe even in a cruel world.

So, conventional wisdom will suggest that to survive in such a ruthless world you need to be one.

This is such lazy thinking.

Remember that story of Mowgli; Mowgli did not survive because of his diplomacy and shrewd nature.

He survived because he was authentic, honest, and fearless even in a dangerous animal world.

You may say that's a story with good fictional value, but the real world is different.

Now, given a choice in your own life, who would you like to deal with ? a cryptic, complex, manipulative person or someone who is authentic, honest, and always speaks his mind.

I am sure you would like to choose the second type.

Then why you think your team member, colleagues and customers would like the first type?

Most of the time people hide their true self because they are not sure whether that will be valued by others.

So, people will show up as someone who will conform to the stereotype of societies rather than their authentic selves.

Many people with their lazy thinking take that as a smart survival strategy.

In the process, they live a life of duality and every time they need to reconcile two different selves of theirs and that makes life almost like a hell.

While my manager must have thought that I am an out and out honest person, I know I am not a pious soul who has descended from a high moral place.

I have my own challenges and I also have many facades that may work behind the veil of my perceived personalities.

I am in a constant tussle to shed off all my facades and live a life that is authentic so that I can liberate myself from living a rehearsed life.

Let me admit that Honesty never goes out of fashion.

Today, it has become a greater novelty.

I can cite two examples that taught me the lesson very hard way.

Way back in 1998, I was responsible for the receivable collection of my business apart from the sales functions in my company.

I was expecting a payment and I was very sure of collecting it, so I said to my manager in my review that the money has been collected.

That was the last day of the month and the quarter and we had to close the books.

Unfortunately, the customer who was supposed to pay by the end of the day did not pay.

So, I was in a fix.

I could not go back to my manager and say that I lied and payment was not collected.

First I lied, secondly I had to cover up the lie as I did not have the guts, to tell the truth.

So, I borrowed money in cash from one of my colleagues and also put my own money to clear off the payment.

Thankfully, the amount was manageable and we could recover the payment from the customer and back then we transacted mostly in cash.

So, the lesson learnt.

If I was bold and honest and said to my manager in the first place itself that I have not been able to collect the payment, then I wouldn't have created such a mess.

I had a sleepless night until I closed the entire transaction.

Second incent was even graver .

A couple of years back I was handling a Sales Leadership role and we got an order from a customer for INR One Million for some supplies.

Looking at the credit history of the customer, We did not want to execute the order without the full advance payment.

Much later, we came to know that the order was forged by the salesperson of a company with whom we had a partnership.

The incident was getting murkier and the person who forged the order silently made a Bank Draft of INR One Million and paid or else he would have faced a corporate inquiry and lost his job.

Big lesson again, had that guy not forged the document, he wouldn't have gone through such an ordeal and lose so much of his hard-earned money and jeopardize his job.

However uncomfortable the truth may be, facing with courage and honesty pays in the long run.

Problem is that many people mistake honesty for a lack of diplomacy.

Diplomacy is not about faking things.

Diplomacy is the art of telling the truth objectively without hurting the ego of the person.

So honesty and diplomacy can go even hand in hand and honesty need not be a handicap in a complex, cruel world.

It can be a prized virtue because honesty always wins at the end.