What was your worst moment over Christmas? Mine was to have to be Father Christmas for a load of refugee children from Eastern Europe. I have to have been the worst Santa they had ever seen and heard - he doesn't normally have an English Cockney accent for a start!! Beneath the fluffy white mask, hidden from all, a rare event occurred - I was embarrassed and went very red.

On reflection it was my discomfort in being someone other than myself that caused me such angst. However, I do realise that for many of us, trying to be someone that we are not is a daily occurrence. Many of us find ourselves working in corporate environments that not only refuse to give us permission to be ourselves but often violate the fundamentals of who we are. Each morning, before we leave for the office and walk out the door we check not only our clothes but also that our mask is firmly in place. The mask of cultural and social expectations, the mask of our own fears and insecurities, the mask determined by corporate acceptability within our own working context. The great tragedy of this is two-fold:

Firstly, it doesn't enable us to give the best of who we are to those that we lead and serve. The Gallup organisation, through it's extensive research, has shown us that we get the best out of people not by trying to put in what God has left out, but rather you get the best when you seek to draw out what has already been put in. The mountain of psychometric and personality tests concur with this assertion. 'Know Thyself and Be Thyself' has very much become a mantra of the day that enables us to become the best that only we can be.

Secondly, when we lead from behind the mask our leadership is so often perceived as inauthentic and duplicitous. For those who think this a soft and fluffy issue, think again. The primary factor in customer loyalty is employee commitment; the primary glue in employee commitment is their trust in leadership. If people trust you, they will follow.

The corporate world has been corrupted more times than we care to remember, by leaders who have violated trust. This has created a culture of cynicism of pandemic proportions in so much of corporate culture today that by definition, leaders are rarely trusted. For all of our sakes, this must change. Messer's Jones and Goffee in their award winning article 'Why Should People Follow You?' encourage a response to this issue of to "be yourselves - but with more skill".

For some, it is an issue of morality, for others it is purely the discomfort of the mask that creates the lack of trust.

From Signify, we wish you all the best in life and business this year and encourage you to make a significant New Years resolution. We want to encourage you to be yourselves, not just with more skill, but with more passion and zeal.

Ho, ho, ho!!

Phil Wall
CEO