Accountability Is Impossible Without the Truth by Sam Silverstein

Photo by KOBU Agency on Unsplash

For a leader, there is no such thing as “kind of” telling the truth. 

If you are a leader, you are either fulfilling your personal commitment to tell someone who is counting on you the truth, or you aren’t fulfilling that commitment. If you aren’t, then accountability within the relationship and the organization you lead is impossible, because you’ve already failed to be accountable to your team coming out of the gate. 

That’s the high standard that leaders of teams and organizations must meet: they’re either telling the truth or they aren’t. It’s kind of like the old joke about having a baby: you’re either pregnant or you’re not. There’s no such thing as being “a little” pregnant. It’s an absolute state. And so is being a leader who expects—and shares—the truth. 

You can depend on a culture where truth is consistently present. You cannot depend on a person who passes along, or accepts, less than the truth. Accountability and lying can never exist in the same space. 

“Accountability and lying can never exist in the same space.” 

People who seek truth want only truth and do not want anything else around them. They don’t want “BS.” They are not afraid of being told the truth. They love the truth, even when it hurts, and they don’t want to associate with anything that is not the truth or with people who accept less than the truth. 

What happens to people who don’t want to hear the truth? What happens when they would rather have their egos stroked than deal with the reality of their situation? What happens to their organization? I’ll tell you. The viewpoint of the entire organization becomes distorted. The viewpoint of the company’s people becomes distorted. The viewpoint of what their people can accomplish becomes distorted. There is a false picture of where they are, both individually and organizationally. This false picture leads to bad decisions, and those bad decisions lead to an ever-growing wave of less-than-favorable outcomes. It’s a downward cycle. 

When people consistently don’t want to hear the truth, they lead themselves and the people around them in the wrong direction. This is the ultimate recipe for failure. 

The truth produces something. It produces a freedom. We have all heard the expression, “The truth will set you free.” This concept originates in the New Testament—it’s in the Gospel of John, chapter 8, verse 32. But what does it mean, this idea that the truth will set you free? 

Free from what? What kind of freedom is it, and what will that freedom allow you to do? What happens if you do not have that freedom? 

“Truth frees you by allowing you to be you.” 

The reality is that truth frees you by allowing you to be you. When the standard by which you live your life is the truth that guides you, when you make your decisions based on this standard, you move closer to the person you are supposed to be. And you become more consistent in both your actions and your results. When you build your life around truth, you are free to move forward because you know how to make decisions, you know what your decisions are based on, and you know that the decisions you make, when they are based on the standard of truth, will always be the best decision you could have made. 

That is true freedom, for leaders and for everyone else. 

For more on this important topic, see Sam Silverstein’s book No Matter What: The 10 Commitments of Accountability. Sam is dedicated to empowering people to live accountable lives, transform the way they do business, and create a more accountable world. He helps companies create an organizational culture that prioritizes and inspires accountability. You can follow Sam on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. This post originally appeared here on The Accountability Blog.

Fact or Fiction by Jim Stovall

To date, I have written over 40 books. Approximately half of them are fiction and half are nonfiction. I’ve heard it said, “All autobiographies are fiction, and all fiction are autobiographies.” As I have continued to examine this thought, I believe it to be correct. 

 When I write novels or movie scripts, they invariably come out of experiences I have had in my own life. While I may change the time, place, or people involved, I draw upon experiences I have had in the past. On the other hand, when I, or any other author, writes nonfiction, our best efforts to deliver facts, statistics, and reality are colored by our own perspective. It is vital for us to remember that whether we’re in an educational setting, reviewing the news of the day, or conversing with a friend, the information we are receiving is filtered through the source. Even indisputable facts can vary as one individual may think a specific detail is critical so they highlight it while another individual overlooks that same fact believing it to be insignificant. 

My late, great friend and colleague Paul Harvey was one of the most trusted voices for news here in America for several decades. His broadcast was called Paul Harvey News and Comment. While he endeavored to always separate the news of the day from his own opinions, he explained to me that simply by determining which stories to include in his newscast or which item he would present as the lead story, he was inevitably imposing his thoughts and opinions on his audience.  

Today there are so many sources from which we can receive information or news, it is vital that we evaluate not only what was said but who said it and why they might hold that perspective. As a blind person myself, I’ve often thought of the old fable of the three blind men touching an elephant. The man who felt the elephant’s leg thought it was a tree, while the man holding the elephant’s trunk thought it was a thick rope, but the blind man feeling the side of the elephant thought it was a wall. All three men were giving their perspective of the same elephant at the same moment, but their individual perspectives totally altered their thoughts and ideas.   

We tend to want to think of facts as true and universal. In reality, they are constantly changing and must be evaluated based on the eye of the beholder.  

As you go through your day today, separate facts from fiction, but always look for the underlying truth. 

Today’s the day!  

Jim Stovall is the president of Narrative Television Network as well as a published author of many books, including the Wisdom for Winners series. His latest book, Will to Win, the third installment in the Homecoming Historical Series, will be released by Sound Wisdom on February 18, 2020. You can preorder this book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, and Porchlight Books. He is also a columnist and motivational speaker. Follow him on Twitter (@stovallauthor) or Facebook (@jimstovallauthor).