PODCAST EP.40: The Courage to Stay Real: A Leaders Challenge

Episode Summary: In this episode, Tim Sweet explores the challenge of authenticity in leadership. He discusses the importance of truth and integrity, even when feeling overwhelming pressure to compromise. Tim elaborates on how most fears stem from ignorance or fallacy and explains that facing fear, embracing discomfort, and staying aligned with reality are essential to building trust with others and oneself.

Episode Notes
In this episode, Tim Sweet delves into one of the most crucial issues in leadership: having the courage to remain authentic. He explores why the truth can be uncomfortable and how, in our society, we are incentivized to avoid disturbing the peace, even if it means advocating for what is right. This causes a tendency to sugarcoat or omit details. Doing so may seem easier in the short term but can lead to long-term problems.
Tim introduces the concept of the "fear barrier" and explains how fear influences our decision-making, potentially causing us to compromise our values. He shares personal stories and insights into why embracing truth and building trust is crucial. Tim also provides actionable strategies for embracing uncomfortable realities, staying authentic, and leading with integrity.

Resources discussed in this episode:

• Dune - Paul Atreidis Quote
• Game of Thrones - Jon Snow Quote

Contact Tim Sweet | Team Work Excellence: 

• Website
• LinkedIn: Tim Sweet
• Instagram
• Linkedin: Team Work Excellence

Transcript
Tim 00:01
Many people would rather stay in the bubble where that narrative can be controlled, where they can keep telling themselves that story of absolutely everything is fine, and remember, we're not talking about things being wildly out of whack here. Often we're talking about just a few percentage points of your life. But those few percentage points matter, and they're held in balance of everything else good that we're doing. 

Tim 00:24
I'd like to ask you some questions. Do you consider yourself the kind of person that gets things done? Are you able to take a vision and transform that into action? Are you able to align others towards that vision and get them moving to create something truly remarkable? If any of these describe you, then you, my friend, are a leader, and this show is all about and all for you. I'm Tim Sweet, and I'd like to welcome you to Episode 40 of the Sweet on Leadership podcast. 

Tim 00:56
Well, hi, everybody. Today, we're going to tackle something crucial yet often sidestepped in leadership circles. The challenge of staying real, of staying authentic, of having the courage to embrace the truth and integrity, even when the pressure to compromise or to capitulate feels overwhelming. Think about the last time you faced a difficult decision. It wasn't just uncomfortable. It was unsettling. Maybe it was one of these moments where you felt compelled to ignore certain facts, to be part of the team, to accept a vision, to toe the company line. You might have justified a strategy or even the very purpose of a business, all while something deep inside you, the ground that you were standing on felt not as solid as you would like. It's in these moments when our options often feel limited, we want to be inspiring to create a sense of right, that we're here for a good purpose. We want to avoid giving power to focus that oppose our company's interests, but in doing so, sometimes we end up compromising a part of ourselves. Maybe you tackle the situation head-on, or maybe you sidestepped it, omitting a key detail here or there, spinning the situation a little just to make it a little more palatable. Well, it's in these moments, small or large, that we can start to feel like we're selling out. We're jumping on a bandwagon. We're playing a popularity game, and let's be honest, that can feel cheap and sleazy, and conflicted, and downright tiresome. In fact, it's exhausting. But what if there was a different way, a way that doesn't involve you compromising who you are or what you stand for, and this is where we're going to talk about what it looks like to really walk a path of truth and integrity, and courage. And I know all of you listening are good people, and you're all trying to do the right thing, and you are all brave people, but it's even in these little moments where we have to compromise that we can find a great deal of exhaustion. I have to tell you that this path of truth and integrity, and courage was one that I had to make a decision around several years ago when I decided to get out of regular management roles. Part of that was because I wanted to be beyond having to forward any particular campaign. So, I made a conscious decision that I wouldn't compromise just so I would have to be involved in that political space. It wasn't that I wasn't good at it. It's just that I found it exhausting. I also recognized that the people in businesses that I held to the highest esteem often were those that were able to be Maverick. They were able to say no, they were able to defy convention. And in those moments where they were living in that extreme truth, that risky truth, that's where they really shone as leaders, and that's who I decided to emulate as much of my daily life around from a professional perspective as I could. Now, look as a consultant and a coach, it's a bit easier because I'm paid to stand outside of a machine. In fact, there's many times when I'm brought into organizations or coaching relationships, precisely because they need a dose of reality. I'm often called a new set of eyes or an unbiased perspective. But in truth, it's simply a reset. It's a return to facts. It's establishing a through line, and those through lines have to be supported by data and analysis and reality if they're really going to stand up. One of these times when this clarity often hits home for people is right now, we've just come off of summer vacation here in North America, and during vacation, when we're away from the office, free from a Daily Grind and disconnected from usual dogma or pressures or community, you know, triggers and reinforcements, we start to sense our own truth more clearly. It's in these quiet moments when you might be driving home from the lake, or you might be mowing the lawn, or you might be just sitting around and enjoying a drink at the end of the day. When you're not surrounded by that constant hum of work, and you're able to disconnect just long enough to look at your life from an outside perspective that you can see things for what they really are. And it's here that people find themselves questioning, have I always lived true to who I am? Some people avoid vacations, even, because that step outside of reality is too uncomfortable. That step outside of the rat race, where they realize just how messed up their situation is, really makes them feel helpless. Many people would rather stay in the bubble, where that narrative can be controlled, where they can keep telling themselves that story of absolutely everything is fine. And remember, we're not talking about things being wildly out of whack here. Often we're talking about just a few percentage points of your life, but those few percentage points matter, and they are held in balance of everything else good that we're doing. So, they'd rather stay in the bubble. And let's face it, some organizations even prefer to keep people in the office. In fact, this is one of the reasons we're seeing why people are pressured to be back in the office. Why? Because they're in that bubble. They're where we can control the narrative. They're where we can have a singular reality that is focused around and justified by where we are in the world. So, as people that are out there wanting to do well, wanting to inject the universe with good stuff. Why do we find ourselves in positions that compromise our values? Why do we work contrary to those facts, even in small ways? Well, that's what we're going to dive in today. 

Tim 07:12
I'd like to introduce you to a concept called the fear barrier. 

[Start of Clip from Dune 07:16]
Paul Atreides: Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me. Where the fear is gone, there will be nothing; only I will remain.
[End of Clip from Dune 07:37]

Tim 07:38
Let's talk a little bit about fear because it's at the heart of why we make compromises. It's at the heart of why change is difficult. It's at the heart of why offices will polarize, why some people will excel, and other people are held down. And it may not be your fear, it may be the fear of others, but fear is at the heart of it because so many things come from lack of knowledge, lack of perspective, and fear. And fear takes many forms. It can take the form of avoidance. It can take the form of anger. It can take the form of our struggles. It is a force. It's what keeps us internally from speaking up, from challenging a status quo, from standing firm for our beliefs. It's what has us a fear of losing our place in an organization or losing our advantage in life. It has us thinking we might be seen as difficult. We might be seen as that squeaky wheel. We might have a fear of rocking the boat, but this fear doesn't just keep us silent, it also builds walls. And we build these barriers up to protect ourselves from the discomfort of facing the truth itself, from a risk of being that one who speaks up when everybody else says the right thing, or at the very least, is quiet. It's easier to go along, to nod in agreement, to sidestep the odd difficult conversation, just to get things done. But here's the thing, these barriers don't just keep the truth out, they keep us trapped. They're at the heart of why we have problems with equality in the workplace and inclusion in the workplace, that's all based in fear. We become trapped, as a company and even as a society, in a cycle of avoidance where pressure builds and builds until something breaks. It's that breaking point that often comes at the worst possible time when the stakes are highest. It's at that point where the costs are greatest and little decisions come back to haunt us. This is what the fear barrier is. It's that wall we use to shield ourselves from uncomfortable truths we don't want to face. And behind that fear is an imbalance. It's a conflict between personal courage, we sometimes call it vital courage and moral courage. Personal or vital courage, is the push for ourselves to succeed, to look after ourselves, to really fulfill the life that's important to us as individuals, to lead, to achieve our goals, to be who we want to be. And moral courage, likewise, is also noble. It's what pushes us to do right in groups, on behalf of society, on behalf of the organizations we choose to align ourselves. We have several of them. They can be our job. They can be clubs or sporting teams, or churches that we're involved in outside of work, and therefore we have to stand up on both sides of these things, demonstrating courage on both sides. And when we discount one, immediately, we're thrown into imbalance. When these two forms of courage are out of balance, we find ourselves making decisions that might feel safe in the short term, but long term, they have consequences. We get ourselves into situations that we can't easily undo, it's where the challenge lies, and it's where we need to be most vigilant. I remember that quote in Game of Thrones, where at the end of season seven, Jon Snow has to make this impassioned speech: When enough people make false promises, words stop meaning anything, then there are no more answers, only better and better lies, and the lies won't help us in this fight.

[Start of Clip from Game of Thrones 11:09]
Tyrion Lannister: But have you ever considered learning how to lie every now and then? Just a bit?
Jon Snow: I’m not going to swear an oath I can't uphold. Talk about my father, if you want, tell me that's the attitude that got him killed. But when enough people make false promises, words stop meaning anything; then there are no more answers, only better and better lies, and lies won't help us in this fight.
Tyrion Lannister: That is indeed a problem. The more immediate problem is that we're fucked.
[End of Clip from Game of Thrones 12:00]

Tim 12:01
This little quote, albeit fictional, helps us get to the very heart of what we're discussing here, the danger of letting untruths become part of our leadership and our cultures and our lives. There's a danger to omitting the truth. Let's get into this idea about omission, not outright lying, but the things we choose not to say. Omitting a truth, downplaying a fact, can sometimes feel like a safer option. We're not technically lying, right? We're just not telling the whole story. We're not kicking the hornet's nest. We're not poking the bear. But this, too, is a form of self-deception, and when we realize that we are in that place, we know we're compromising something. When we emit key facts, we're not just keeping things smooth; we're creating a version of reality that is there to suit our needs and to maintain a balance and prevent a tension or a conflict. It's what protects us, it's what keeps everybody comfortable, it's what makes us nice to work with. But comfort is not the same as safety. In fact, often, short-term comfort sacrifices long-term safety. What happens when these omitted truths finally come to light? What happens when that house of cards that we've now built comes crashing down because we chose an easy path rather than the right one? The truth we've worked so hard to build over all of our careers, what we've built ourselves up as, can sometimes vanish in an instant, leaving us and our teams to scramble and pick up the pieces. There's that famous saying that it takes 20 years to build a reputation and only five minutes to dash it, and it's really clear in our current media environment how quickly this can happen when uncomfortable truths come to light. As leaders, our credibility is absolutely everything, and people look at us to be honest, and forthright and stable, to be the ones who are going to speak truth, even when it's hard. When we sidestep, when we choose spin, we erode that credibility bit by bit, and once it's gone, it is incredibly hard to rebuild. One little secret here is most people enter a relationship waiting to be disappointed. They don't talk about it very often because it doesn't seem very amiable. They will think this very, very briefly, and then they'll move past it. But there's a small part of them for the rest of your relationship that might be looking for indications that you are that thing that they feared at one point. We're not talking about personal family relationships here. We're talking about our dynamics, where you are the person that they need to report to, and oh, boy, would they be worried about taking a job where somebody might be tyrannical. This is where reality comes in. This is where reality is your single greatest ally, but it can also be a very, very rule-keeper. If you're aligned with reality, it'll support you; it'll guide you, it'll help you build something strong and fact-based and enduring. But if you're not, it's only a matter of time before the universe gives you a slap that you will not forget. 

Tim 15:27
So, if this is true, why do people sugarcoat things? Well, simple answer is, sugarcoating feels good, especially in the moment. It's easier to soften the edges, to make the tough stuff a little more palatable, and often we're rewarded for it. We tell ourselves we're doing things to keep the peace and to protect others, and to maintain morale, and indeed, we're often rewarded for that. In fact, there can even be performance reviews at the end of the year where somebody says, you know, you are so good at keeping it level, at maintaining morale, at making sure everybody's included. But deep down, we might know that that is about protecting ourselves, our reputation, and protecting others in the absence of that thing that needed to be challenged. Being fluent when we're doing this, and especially having a practice where you're able to see where you are being positively reinforced for maintaining a short-term piece, short-term gratification, versus long-term gratification, where you are buying into a pitch that things need to just slow down, where we need to not share so much, where we need to keep someone on the outside. All of these things can ring a bell in us, a little bell that, if we listen to, we realize that you know what, this is the easy road. It's not the right road, but that temporary relief that comes from sugarcoating things, spinning things, just that, it's temporary. It feels super good in the moment, and it's trained to be there. Whole cultures have built mechanisms within them to make sure that people toe the line. But eventually, that truth catches up, and when it does, the fallout is often worse. Maybe it just takes someone we care about out. Maybe it takes us out. Maybe it takes an entire department or entire company, or sometimes an entire industry, through the mud. We know this. We've seen it happen before, and little spins do not make an untenuous situation. We shouldn't be overdramatic where we say that any form of truth carries the same weight. So, why do we do it? Because we're trying to deal with short-term discomfort, we might get ourselves into a long-term problem. Now, it's not always as dramatic as losing a job or losing a company, but what I want you to think about is even the small stuff takes energy. It takes energy, and it sucks it out of you, right? You have to maintain that thing. You have to shore it up because reality isn't shoring it up for you. You have to be the one. And it's like having to put a band-aid and duct tape on a wound that really needs time to heal, or it needs to be, you know, set properly, but instead, we just keep managing it, and it might cover it up for a while, but it's not healing anything. So, what happens when reality finally catches up with us? It's not pretty, and it's in those moments that we've been dodging when things can feel like they all come crashing down if you think about when a team is in crisis, if you think about when there's an emergency, you can usually step back through things using a five wise methodology, a root cause analysis, something where we get back to a decision point, when a decision was poorly made, and nine times out of 10, you're going to find that that decision was bereft of facts and it might have been self-serving in some way.

Tim 19:11
That harsh drop when everything resets and all of the mistakes become laid bare, is fertile ground for broken relationships, failed careers, losses of trust. We see entire project teams who have dedicated years of their lives to making something come over the line, lose all respect and credibility in the 11th hour. We see long-standing institutions lose credibility when they're not able to uphold fundamental truths, usually because we were avoiding something uncomfortable. Whatever form it takes, these resets are a wake-up call, and like the big reset, that can be very, very disturbing, to say the least, we can look out for small resets, small little indicators that, wait a minute, we might be canoeing up a stream. We might be fighting a current here, and that current might be the truth. It's in these times that we need to take a moment, breathe and assemble our team and our peers and say, are we on the right path here, folks? But the longer we paddle against a current, the longer we're expending energy, and when reality finally catches up, we may not have the energy to maneuver properly and to write our course. Those moments where we have to take a breath and reset and ask ourselves why we're here and where is this all headed, can actually be the start of something better. Remember, the absence of fact does not necessarily mean ignorance. It just means that something is off, so it might be having to go out and make sure that we're properly assessing the situation and that we're engaging in a discernment conversation, that we've asked the right questions, that we've got everybody around the table, and that moment, that little scare, can be the catalyst that pushes us to embrace the truth. So, it's not about always being on and being omniscient and knowing everything. It's not about being infallible. It's about learning and really getting keyed to say, are we paying attention to the feedback we're getting from the decisions that we're making? This has never been more important than it is in your own individual career. Remember that balance between personal and moral courage. Well, in the personal courage realm, we have to have the ability to, when we're feeling like something is off, stop and say, how did I get here? Why am I here? What am I actually feeling and what am I going to do with that? Then we can discern where are we going to go from here. When we start to embrace this power of fact and reality and any kind of time we feel that we're slightly off some truth, it's a chance for us to lead our careers. It's a chance for us to lead our teams better. 

Tim 22:16
It starts with this commitment, a commitment to say, I'm going to face the truth head-on whenever I see it, no matter how uncomfortable. And in this case, when a team supports this, when you have a culture of leading through fact and truth, it becomes very easy to shift people. It's actually harder to shift individuals in their career, because they tend to have much more complex, unspoken reliances and pressures on them. If you are a parent in a family and you are a breadwinner and you have commitments, well, you might shelve a truth about how you're feeling about your career, how you're feeling about how you spend your days, in order to just be a good mom or be a good dad, to just make your commitment to other things that are extraneous, that really can cloud things, and that's when it's most important to say there's got to be a way that we can balance all of these things together so that we can get what we want and be who we want at the same time. It's not about being perfect. In fact, if anything, it's about embracing our imperfections. We have to become fluent and sensitive again when we're tempted to omit and sugarcoat things, when we're tempted to avoid a hoarder path, when we do this, when we become fluent in that, something amazing happens, we start to build trust, not just with others, but with ourselves. When people compromise, when they force themselves into a situation, you have to remember that one of the relationships you're violating is with yourself, and if you constantly disappoint yourself, why would you love that person? If you're the hardest person on you that there is, if you're the one that gets you into deeper trouble than anyone else, if you're the one that promises things and pulls them back, why would you want to trust that person? It can create a real resentment for the decisions that you feel you have to make, and resenting yourself is a crippling vaquitas type of circle that can just bring you down into some of the most terrible lows that you're going to feel. The antidote has to be truth. The antidote has to be fact. 

Tim 24:44
So, there's a challenge before you, a challenge to stay real, both for yourself and for the people you serve. There's a challenge to embrace this truth and this integrity, and it's not easy, and it requires courage, and it requires self-reflection, and it requires you taking a moment to listen to podcasts like this, or other podcasts that allow you to pull yourself out of your day-to-day grind, of your family relationships, of the mind F's that you're giving yourself, and just look at your life objectively and look at your roles objectively. It requires that willingness to do that pull yourself out, stop doing the work, and start looking at the work, seeing the work, working on the work. It requires that willingness to face uncomfortable realities that you might have a person on your team you do not trust, you will not promote, you will never give them something to make them successful, but you're avoiding a tough conversation or even a dismissal because that would make you a bad person. It might cause you to face a harsh reality about a spouse, or a child, or a parent, or a sibling. It might cause you to really question what you're doing in this world and how do you get right with that? What I can tell you from personal experience is that the reward is worth it because when you're in this position where you don't have to second guess what you're doing, you're free to set all your sales forward, to cut loose the anchors that aren't helping you and to move. You can lead your own life with a newfound strength. You can form teams that build you up, and that you really deserve to have around you when you're striving to accomplish what you're going for, it allows you to align with organizations or to create your own that are going to be where you want to be in the course of a day. It doesn't mean the work is going to be easy. It doesn't mean it's not going to be challenging or risk-free. It means you feel like you have arrived and you are where you need to be in this universe. You only have 80 to 100 years on this planet if you're lucky. Why would you want to spend any of them really feeling like you don't belong? You can be afraid. Fear is good, but let's think our relationship with fear is really what's important. When we create this culture of honesty and the teams we work for and this instinct for truth and data that's around ourselves all the time. It helps us avoid the wrong types of fear. Look, fear is good. There's always a place for it. We should spend a certain amount of time an excited state, in an anxiety-rich state. That is what really precedes a lot of the best things in the world, a lot of amazing accomplishments. But it's that right type of fear, that fear of mitigating what's out there that we can't yet control, versus fear that we give into and problems that we create for ourselves. 

Tim 28:00
So, if you're finding yourself now at the end of, as this is recorded, the end of summer, we're right at the beginning of September here, or you're listening to this later through the year, and you find yourself resisting this a little bit, this notion that you might have fear in your life, I would use it as a challenge to sort of double down and say, Where are there areas that you have made uncomfortable, or, I would say, sub-optimal decisions that you knew were not the best decision at the time. Where did you sell out a little bit? Where did you avoid things a little bit? Do that, take that moment to step back and really say, you know what, I am fallible. It's a chance for you to challenge yourself, step outside your comfort zone. It's also a sign that you're on the right path. You're on a path of truth and fact and courage. So, take that step. Commit today to living without spin, or at least to recognize it, to face your fears, to challenge those uncomfortable moments. So, thanks for taking this time with me today. If you've lasted here to the end, I think you've probably had to swallow at least some uncomfortable concepts. I want you to take a step back now and reflect. I encourage you to journey with me. I'm on this road too. Follow me on LinkedIn. Please subscribe to the podcast, and let's keep this conversation going. Don't just make truth and authenticity a buzzword. Really live it and develop a practice when you can understand where you might be contrary to it.

Tim 29:48
Thank you so much for listening to Sweet on Leadership. If you found today's podcast valuable, consider visiting our website and signing up for the companion newsletter. You can find the link in the show notes. If, like us, you think it's important to bring new ideas and skills into the practice of leadership, please give us a positive rating and review on Apple Podcasts. This helps us spread the word to other committed leaders, and you can spread the word too by sharing this with your friends, teams and colleagues. Thanks again for listening, and be sure to tune in in two weeks' time for another episode of Sweet on Leadership. In the meantime, I'm your host, Tim Sweet, encouraging you to keep on leading.