“I value loyalty above everything else—more than brains, more than drive and more than energy” Donald Trump
Loyalty, noun, the state or quality of being loyal; faithfulness to commitments or obligations.
Donald Trump represents a common perspective on loyalty, where the faithfulness is to the person – more than anything else. For those who worked for him he expected allegiance to him – regardless of the actions he might take.
For all that we might like to think we disagree with Trump our actions might not be so different.
Loyalty is most often used to describe someone’s relationship to another person or people: a spouse, a partner, a boss, a team, a nation. If honesty means being true to oneself, loyalty, for some, means being true to others, even it that requires subordinating what you believe is right. For example, if your spouse breaks the law, and the police ask you whether they did or did not do what is alleged. The honest answer is yes. The loyal answer is no. A truth recognised by the fact that spouse cannot be asked to testify against their partner.
From a leadership perspective loyalty relates to a commitment, often unspoken by both parties, which requires some modification of behaviour by the person who is showing loyalty, i.e. loyalty means that I might do something that otherwise I might not.
In some cases, loyalty has led people to do remarkable things, i.e., acts of bravery, self-sacrifice, and commitment to a cause.
However, there are just as many negative examples, where loyalty has led people to sacrifice ethical behaviour to remain loyal to the person or the organisation, even when it runs completely against the person’s values.
Many leaders, use such a concept of loyalty as a means of manipulation, whereby they control others to their own advantage.
Such behaviour need not always be conscious but through repetition and habit it becomes an ingrained element of their leadership behaviour.
Where loyalty to the person, or the organisation, becomes a dominant force, diversity of thought becomes less and less likely with all the dangers that accompany such an environment.
I have witnessed many organisations where such loyalty becomes a toxic feature of the culture, where the transactional nature of loyalty between the leader and their team creates a force-field which bolsters negative behaviour, often designed to sustain the status quo – regardless of the imperative for change.
So, what can a leader do to counter the negative aspects of loyalty?
Firstly, loyalty should be to ethical behaviour more than anything else. Such a statement is confirmed by some of our recent research into the characteristics of the leaders whom we admire most.
We asked 200 people to rate the leader they most admired in their lives against 24 Ceannas Radar leadership characteristics, including such features as Positivity, Resilience, and Inspiration.
The top feature (scoring 9.55 out of 10, where 10 = strongly agree) was Ethical Behaviour, which we defined as “the leader is very good at standing up for ethical beliefs and values and for the dignity and rights of other people.”
It is of significance to this discussion that Courage “the leader is very courageous when it comes to making important decisions” scored (9.45 out of 10).
Our interpretation of these results is that the wise leader is primarily concerned with ethical behaviour and has the courage to stand up for them, and the confidence to ask others to have ‘loyalty’ to these principles – rather than to any person or the organisation.
The second thing the leader must do is to create the conditions for trust, i.e., am I prepared to place my vulnerability in this leader’s hands?
Now trust has two key components, competence, and warmth.
Trust in someone’s competence takes a long-time to build and a long-time to break, i.e. once I trust someone’s competence, I might be disappointed if they get something wrong, but I will not give up on them immediately.
Warmth, relates to the extent to which a leader demonstrates positive intentions, kindness, and inclusivity towards others. Unlike a temporary breakdown in competence, we feel betrayed if a leader shows their intentions towards us were false. In such circumstances the loss of trust is instantaneous.
Finally, in conditions of low personal risk it is relatively easy to show loyalty to a set of principles. It is only as personal risk increases, e.g., health, wealth, security that loyalty to principles begins to be tested.
For example, when the risk relates to my continued employment, and my capacity to pay my mortgage, family holidays, health care costs, then my willingness to have loyalty to a set of ethical principles becomes much more difficult. The unprincipled leader knows this and manipulates the situation to their own benefit and shifts the loyalty to themselves, rather than the principle – removing the need for the individual to make the courageous and ethical choice.
And so, coincidentally, to conclude with Donald Trump and his infamous conversation over dinner with James Comey, Director of the FBI, 27th January 2017:
“I need loyalty. I expect loyalty,” Trump
Near the dinner’s end, Trump returns to the subject: “I need loyalty.”
Comey says once again: “You will always get honesty from me.”
Trump says, “That’s what I want, honest loyalty.”
James Comey was dismissed on the 9th May 2017.