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This is a fundamental truth. If you keep on doing the right thing, slowly and gradually people will start accepting it and will start respecting you for the same. One area, where it applies well is straight and blunt talk in terms of sharing feedback and opinions. This does not mean that you have to be rude or disrespectful or you do not have to try to engage people on your point of view. Though different cultures have different view-points on this, most of the successful organizations expect this from their leaders and try to promote an equivalent culture. The paradox is that still there are minor %age of leaders who are able to pursue this path. The reasons are that being straight-talking and blunt starts with the leader becoming unpopular in the beginning and it sends a cultural shock within the team.
The tip here is to stick on with your approach. Stay as 'matter of fact' and give the good news and bad news with the same dispassionate persona. As long as you are giving feedback on a person's action and not on the person himself, people start respecting your approach. It also gives the most important leadership asset - TRUST. Slowly and gradually you build a reputation on you mean what you say. Leaders, who put sweeteners around their messages, end-up making people trying to read between the lines and therefore loosing their credibility.
Apart from feedback, the same principle applies on sharing your views on the performance of the function and the company. A CEO gains better trust and credibility, if he says 'here is where we are not doing well, and this is the plan to fix this issue and we are confident to achieve success' instead of covering up the bad news in the maze of verbosity and statistical window-dressing.
This however does not mean that being straight and blunt is synonymous with bad news carrier. One needs to stay factual, maintain optimism and project a positive mind-set till it does not dilute the message.
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