Jakarta, 21 March 2024 — How strong is your track record? 

Story

It happened last week. We were discussing the progress of teams in a six-month leadership challenge to design and implement local development projects. The question was how they could secure the sustainability of their projects. What would it take to invite partner organizations to join?

What came up in the discussion was the importance of consistency in how the teams showed up with leadership behaviors, and were able to demonstrate a track record to the interested partners and stakeholders of what they had done. We noted that teams on projects that started in the previous year’s challenge were a step ahead. They now called themselves ‘second generation’ and that spoke to their credibility. 

Last night, I spoke with senior leaders at an Indonesian corporation and they also emphasized the need for consistency. A strong track record helped them to build and maintain trust among their clients and stakeholders. That was essential, they explained, for sustaining high performance in a time of increasing risk and uncertainty due to climate change and financial reforms. So what does it take to build a strong track record that generates trust?

Challenge

In the challenge of building a strong track record, whether as individuals, teams, or organizations, three things are important in my experience. The first are the values that drive us every day. For example, my hosts last night explained that one of their core values is collaboration. “Don’t solve the problem by yourself,” they said, “It’s better to do it in collaboration with others.” As I could observe from their behaviors during our discussions, this was a living value for them. One that they practiced daily.

The second is to keep developing leadership abilities across teams and departments in the organization. My hosts underlined the importance of onboarding new staff as soon as possible with leadership abilities, including effective communication and public speaking. When I asked about Crossgen collaboration, they explained their policy to involve Gen Z recruits right away in meetings with senior staff so that they could learn on the job and contribute ideas. I could see that happening in front of me. 

The third is to turn these values, actions, and behaviors into strong habits. We can build a strong track record by setting high standards and practicing together to live up to them continuously, every day and week. That’s how we will build a culture of collaboration in our teams and organizations. Crossgen collaboration needs to be an integral part of that effort. 

Question

It is often said that your habits create your future. In Grow3Leaders, our international leadership community, we like to get inspired by a quote from F.M. Alexander, who wrote “People don’t decide their future. They decide their habits and their habits decide their future.” This was written long ago and it continues to hold power today. Hence we practice together how to build strong leadership habits, which is our theme in March. Habits help us to build integrity by consistently showing up with effective behaviors.

What leadership habits are you building and how are you going about it? That’s my question for you this week. Let me know your response, I am interested. When you consistently work on a habit it will generate the credibility that you and your team need to secure the effectiveness and sustainability of your projects by attracting partners and stakeholders to join and give support. 

Leaders who lack strong habits are seen as inconsistent. The Inconsistent Leader trap is the first of three leadership traps we explore this month in Grow3Leaders. You will want to avoid this trap, and the same goes for the second and third traps: the Ineffective Leader and the Inconsequential Leader. If you and your team want to become consistent leaders with a strong track record, come join us in our Grow3Leaders community of practice, and bring three colleagues along to form a Collab.