Page 194 - Fearless Leadership

Honoring and Fulfilling Commitments 181

commitments are kept or responsibly revoked, they are the linchpins for
producing business results and the keys to greatness.
A person who keeps his or her agreements, commitments, and prom-
ises without excuses is living 100% accountability. Yet how many times
have you been late to a meeting and dismissed it due to traffic or forget-
fulness or blamed it on another meeting that went longer than expected?
How much integrity do you have in keeping your word to yourself and oth-
ers? As a leader, you are always sending a message to others. When you
habitually break your commitments, you are saying “You are not impor-
tant. Circumstances dictate my behavior.” There are legitimate urgent cir-
cumstances that justify breaking or altering a commitment. However,
when circumstances determine your behavior daily, others will not trust
your leadership.

A CEO Demands That People Live by Their Commitments
A technology company faced a worldwide meltdown in how its client
service teams supported the customers. Cross-functional teams did
not trust each other to keep their commitments on consistently bring-
ing high-quality new products to market on time. Leaders in all parts
of the world were resigned that nothing would change. It was com-
monplace for people not to keep their commitments.

What Happened. The CEO intervened and took a bold stand
about how he expected leaders to behave and relate to customer com-
mitments. “We—and I am including myself—have done a lousy job
of keeping our commitments. We spend more time arguing about who
is accountable for what than delivering what our customers want. This
behavior needs to end. Your word matters. My word matters. All we
have is our word. Beginning now, I expect each of us to honor and keep
our commitments. You must make a choice: Care for your commitments
to our customers and one another or find a company that doesn’t care.
Because in this company, we care about commitments and what we
say is what we do.”

The Result. This CEO is a fearless and inspirational leader. His
message galvanized people to alter how they interacted with the cus-