Moshe’s Blog

6 Powerful Steps to Improve by Being A Truth-Centered Organization

Truth, Discernment and Leadership

When I was a kid, I liked the game show To Tell the Truth. Four celebrity panelists would ask probing questions of three contestants to determine who really was the interesting person the show’s host had described.

Beyond telling the truth yourself, one of the most important jobs of a great leader is discerning the truth, separating facts from assumptions and interpretations, and saying what is so.

Discerning truth is often hard for leaders to do. Pre-existing beliefs, conflict avoidance, and lack of know-how get in the way. On top of all that, now we have seemingly human AI apps, native advertising, and deepfakes that make it even more challenging to know what is true and authentic and what is not.

The best thing you can do as a leader is commit to a practice of telling the truth and discerning the truth – whatever it takes. Both are skills that can be learned and trained so that they become a way of being for you and your organization. Start with these questions and how-to tips that are part of the Amare Way, the path of love-powered leaders and businesses.

What’s your practice of truth-telling as a leader?

How do you discern truth in complex situations?

Are you willing to make honesty a core value?

6 Amare Steps Toward More Truth-Telling in Your Organization

1. Pay close attention to the qualities of truth. Pay close attention to what the identification of truth “feels” like to you. For me, it’s instant, simple, calm, and clear – and whether I like it or not does not matter. This kind of self-awareness is super useful when the truth cannot be fully discerned with logic and facts.

2. Play “Two Truths & A Lie” with your team. Lighten things up with your leadership team while building skills. Go around the table inviting each person to share two truths and one lie about themselves. Then have everyone guess the truths. Invite people to notice exactly how they discern the truths.

3. Be a truth-telling leader. Lean into always telling the truth so your people can count on it. This includes telling yourself the truth about you. Truth-telling is a lifetime practice and perhaps the single most important quality of highly successful love-powered leaders. Do it with compassion.

4. Don’t forget kindness. Avoid meanness by recognizing that it can be difficult both to speak the truth and to hear it from others. In hard conversations, first acknowledge to others that it might be painful and you’re sorry if it is (if that’s true!).

5. Provide skill-building. Offer resources for your people and organization in the form of trainings in love-powered leadership, courageous conversations, dealing with conflict, etc. Do not simply pronounce that you’re now a truth-telling organization without providing the necessary upskilling.

6. Make honesty a non-negotiable in your organizational culture. Set the expectation that truth-telling is part of your organizational DNA. And show it with your actions: The way you lead, how financials are reported, your sales messages, etc. Enable and reward others for doing the same, especially when it’s hard.

Making truth central to your leadership style and part of your organizational DNA sets a powerful tone and marks you as a leader that is self-aware and worth trusting.

Inspire and Influence Your Teams to Put the Power of Love to Work

I do powerful keynotes and workshops centered on creating love-powered organizations, and helping teams take that first step together. For more info, contact me here.