I’m a bit of a quote junkie; movies, books, people I admire. I often like to pepper them into conversation to see if anyone picks up on them. The fact that they don’t recognize them as quotes and think me all the more brilliant doesn’t hurt either.
One of my all-time favorite quotes is from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. On the topic of leadership, he said, “A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus”. I love this one and try to include it in our Leadership Series classes, as it speaks directly to what we in HR call ‘managerial courage’. The most beautiful thing about this is that you don’t have to technically have a leadership role to have managerial courage. This is the ability to see something wrong and having the courage to speak up against it. In a business setting there are, of course, some times that are more appropriate than others but, in the end, if you see something, say something.
In HR, we are often charged with being the ‘moral compass’ of the organization. This was never a duty I took lightly in my past HR roles. So, take the time to review your policies, not just for inconsistencies but for disparate impact (where you may be doing harm and not even realize it). Get out there, talk to your employees directly and make sure that you share the same view of the organization. Lastly, if something is wrong, take your lead from Dr. King and take action.
Megan Richardson, SVP, Chief Strategy Officer