Nobody likes a hypocrite.
Those who say one thing yet do the opposite of that are not well tolerated in society. There are countless examples of this. A parent who tells their child not to swear in public, yet curses like a sailor at home. A spouse who tells their significant other they need to stop spending money on frivolous things, yet always comes home with bags of stuff and a Starbucks coffee cup. "Do as I say, not as I do" no longer works; people want honesty and integrity from others in their lives.
The same concept in our personal lives applies at work. A boss who says they value everyone's input regardless of their position or authority, yet they always dismiss those ideas and side with the same few voices when making decisions. Workplace hypocrisy damages the culture of the organization. This is especially true if the boss is in a high authority position, or the hypocrisy spreads to others in management and leadership positions. A culture of hypocrisy is not a culture your organization wants a reputation of.
How do you fight organizational hypocrisy? It starts with you.
Understanding your own conflicts in loyalties and values is the key to fighting a reputation of hypocrisy. Most of us don't want to be hypocrites on purpose, but we find ourselves in that situation when a conflict arises between two competing values and/or loyalties. This happens sub-consciously most of the time, and we are barely (if at all) conscious of this happening. If we are aware of this conflict, it tends to show up as guilt or shame. This is not a good feeling, but it typically is not enough to take action on to change.
Let's explore a new example of this:
You work for a company that claims to value transparency; a value you also share and strive to have within your department. However when it comes to delivering constructive feedback to one of your direct report managers, you find it difficult to accomplish. This is due, in part, to the direct report having a history of not receiving constructive feedback very well from other managers before you. You know the value of transparency is important, but you feel uneasy and hesitant to deliver anything that might be seen as criticism to them.
Exploring what you say you value versus what you implicitly value is how you begin to expose self-hypocrisy. You may not realize it now, but your values that you do not name out loud may be just as important (if not more) than the values you claim to espouse to others.
A step-by-step approach to making progress on self-hypocrisy would be as follows:
(1) Name the value or loyalty that you have trouble honoring at work
(2) Using that value or loyalty, ask yourself "What am i doing (or not doing) that is keeping me from fully honoring this value or commitment?"
(3) Using the answer to #2, explore what value might be underlying the behavior that's impeding you from honoring answer #1. You might do this by answering a question such as "what else may I also be loyal to?"
(4) Name the negative outcomes you are protecting yourself from if you actually did the opposite of what you identified in #2.
How does this look in practice? Let's see how that looks in the previous example:
You begin to work on self awareness going through the 4 step process provided by your executive coach. You name the fact that you are having trouble honoring the value of transparency, followed by answering the next step with "I am not providing feedback to my employees in a timely manner." Step 3 you think on for a moment, and ultimately come to the conclusion that you also value the loyalty of having a good relationship with your direct report manager, and not have people be angry with you for delivering what may be seen as criticism. Step 4 you name the fact that delivering constructive feedback may lead to your direct report to be upset with you, leading to mistrust and damaging the working relationship with yet another direct report. You do not want to see this happen for both the sake of the direct relationship, and the possibility of this negativity spreading to their team as well.
Working through the 4 steps, you realize that the past experiences with delivering constructive feedback to other employees has shaped how you value working relationships with your direct reports. You realize that the answer to Step 4 is an assumption, and not necessarily a fact. Your loyalty to maintaining a positive relationship is currently trumping the value of transparency.
Knowing the organization could improve its performance by being more open with each other at work, the value of transparency becomes more prevalent to you than maintaining the status quo of the competing implicit value. You therefore decide to start giving constructive feedback in small doses to this direct report, by always starting and ending with positive attributes or actions the direct report has done in any given situation. This experiment is something you will report back to your coach on in the following weeks to come.
The example above shows what happens when you work through the 4 steps to expose self-hypocrisy. This will guide you towards a potential next steps, which will help make progress not only on self-hypocrisy, but on the lingering challenges of your organization's hypocrisies as well.
Solving self-hypocrisy benefits your organization two ways. First, it solves your contribution to the organization's hypocrisy - which is relatively under your control.
Second, how you make progress on that conflict is an example others can follow, as well as a guideline to help others in the organization address their own hypocrisies. Taking accountability for your part of the mess is a great way to model the behavior to others.
Unveiling workplace hypocrisy starts with you, but it ends with inspiring and motivating others to do the same. That is the essence of leadership on tough challenges, and it does not require you to be the CEO to begin to take action.
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