It’s important for leaders to be honest in all things. If team members cannot trust their leaders to be honest, they will no longer follow them. Given that a leader must be honest in all things, there are two specific areas that are so important that a leader must be brutally honest with their team members about – their performance and their potential.
Performance. Annual performance reviews were without a doubt one of the least favorite aspects of my job as a leader. Doing a good job on these reviews is hard and takes discernment. The reviews were very important, not only for that particular performance period, but in the career of an individual, especially if they were pursuing a leadership position, for whom excellent reviews were expected. Continue reading →