Published March 31, 2016 on Inc. Magazine
Loyalty is a critically important ingredient in both our business and our personal lives. Are you doing enough to create more loyalty in your work and life?
Loyalty is an important component of any business. Not only do you need loyal employees who care about your business, but you also need loyal customers to keep your business thriving into the future. On a more personal level, loyalty stands for commitment and dedication to another allowing respect and trust to flourish. Loyalty is important in both business and our personal lives.
Ines Temple, president of LHH-DBM Peru and LHH Chile, understands the importance of loyalty and shares 15 things about loyalty she has learned during her long and successful career.
1. Loyalty is not something people talk about much and, lately, it even seems unpopular in certain environments, but it is a vital quality to possess and, especially, to expect in the business world and even more so in our personal lives.
2. It is hard to define loyalty, but very easy to recognize it. Loyalty is valuable because it allows us to take the risk of predicting the actions and behavior of people we trust.
3. One may not always correctly decide who to be loyal to, and some people may even disappoint us or deceive us when we are loyal to them. Despite all this, loyalty always allows us to be true to ourselves and to our values.
4. It may be hard to be loyal sometimes, and often costly, but loyalty defines who we are and how well we sleep at night. It guarantees a clean conscience and a positive and transparent life.
5. Loyalty must never be blind or submissive. Such loyalty is unsound and may even cause career suicide. Being loyal is being devoted and vulnerable, but never naive.
6. It is important to be loyal to the past. There is no use in denying or hiding from it and, contrary to popular belief, attempting to do so usually only makes our efforts to hide from it that much more evident. Bad-mouthing former bosses, former companies or collaborators only shows a latent disloyalty and alerts others to certain future betrayal. Watch out when hiring!
7. Loyalty demands integrity and consistency. You can’t be loyal, for instance, in business, to your partners, your boss or your company and not be loyal to your romantic partner, your family or your friends, and vice versa.
8. Who should you never trust? Those who betray guiltlessly, out of habit or because of petty reasons. To cover their betrayals, these people fall into a web of lies and slander that they cannot get out of and that shows who they really are.
9. The most painful of disloyalties? Not being loyal to yourself or giving up your dreams and principles, even if this sounds trite or clich.
10. The hardest thing? To forgive someone’s disloyalty when we expected much more from them. Should we forgive them? Perhaps. I leave that decision up to you. But better not to place our trust in them ever again.
11. If someone betrays one of his friends or a member of his team, he will certainly betray all others in due time. And watch out, you might be next!
12. Can someone who isn’t loyal still deserve our respect? No. Being loyal requires character and integrity, two impossible virtues for those who are weak or lacking of a moral compass.
13. Sometimes, one must be loyal even to those who don’t deserve it or appreciate it. As we have already said, loyalty is an act of integrity and personal values. Many times, loyalty has to do more with oneself than with the subject of our loyalty.
14. Gratitude compels us to be loyal and vice versa. The ungrateful tend to be disloyal and the disloyal to be ungrateful. Better to stay away from both, to identify them early on and not give them second chances. By contrast, nothing should be more treasured than loyal friends and collaborators!
15. Being loyal pays off with a legion of people who are loyal, who have our backs and protect us from the disloyal. People who are loyal deserve my entire admiration and respect. Just as they are loyal, they are reliable and morally sound. Hooray for loyal collaborators, friends and families! Nothing compares to them.
