Whenever you speak as a leader, you reveal a lot about yourself.

As you may have often heard me say, words matter to leaders.

Why?

Because they speak volumes about you.

They reveal your leadership capability (so much so that it can even be measured); your cognitive capability (enough to identify the stratum you’re operating at); and they reveal what Martin Luther King called “the content of your character”.

Character, or the lack thereof, was acutely evident in some of Canada’s political leaders this week.

We’re accustomed now, sadly, to expecting our political leaders to be lacking when it comes to certain virtues like honesty. A barrage of lies or mistruths seems far more common these days.

But what I heard this week was something else.

It was the complete lack of grace.

The occasion was the resignation of Justin Trudeau as Prime Minster of Canada. Both his own statements and those of other party leaders had no trace of grace.

What do I mean by grace?

Well, there are many levels of grace. But at its root, it’s defined as “a disposition to kindness and compassion”.

Why does that matter to leaders? Or to your own leadership? 

I’ll say up front that I’m no fan of Justin Trudeau’s. I had the privilege of working with his father Pierre Trudeau. When he died, I took my young son to the funeral so that he could see the impact of a great man. I wish I could say that about his son.

But regardless, here was someone resigning after serving his country for the past 10 years. Surely that merited some form of acknowledgement or at least a flash of kindness and compassion.

Trudeau’s own remarks lacked grace. He alluded several times to being forced to resign because of his fractured caucus. When you’re giving up power, and not by choice, it’s easy to assign blame. But grace would have surfaced had he acknowledged his own failings. Or at least recognized the contributions of those with whom he served.

He had another opportunity to do so when a reporter asked about his former Deputy Prime Minister and he failed to acknowledge any responsibility for her resignation or to spend a few seconds of praise. It could even be argued, as one commentator said, that what he did say about her actually “kneecapped” her by conveying that she was his closest partner throughout his government.

Given the emotional turmoil of defeat, one could argue we should be gracious enough to cut him a bit of slack. But it’s the tough times that can reveal a leader’s true character.

As for the other party leaders, well, there was no sign of grace in their words either.

The leader of the Opposition did a pre-recorded video, complete with music, that was full of the usual rancor and denunciation. However well-deserved one may think it was, there’s a time to put your sword down, even just for a moment. That he failed to do so paints him as little more than an attack dog. There’s no grace, honour, or admirable character in that. And I certainly didn’t hear leadership.

But the most disheartening for me came from the very leader whose support (or complicity, depending on your point of view) kept Trudeau’s minority government alive these past three years. The pact between them broke just a few months ago. Yet the only words he spewed were those of recrimination. There was not a single word that wasn’t laced with condemnation.

If that’s how it is now with our political leaders here and elsewhere, well, that may lend credence to the belief that we get the leaders we deserve.

But I hope it serves to inform and elevate your own leadership. 

Because grace matters.

Not because you should be out there as the moral authority virtue-signalling.

Because you’re a leader.

Leaders challenge what is now to create what could be instead. You speak to what would be better than what is. You can’t do it by yourself so you need to engage and align a collective of others. And move them from what they know – the now – to what they don’t — the unknown of what could be.

Whether you have positional authority over them or not, that takes trust. It’s not just given, however; you have to earn it — especially when the going gets tough. If you seem less than what they want or need you to be, trust will weaken and even erode.

And it’s even more than that.

In your leadership role, you model for them what a leader is. 

And given that leadership emerges through your words, their conception of leadership comes largely from their understanding and interpretation of those words.

So when your words don’t recognize or appreciate but instead demean and belittle, you lower the bar on leadership – both yours and theirs as the leaders they can aspire to be.

HERE’S MY COUNSEL:

Great leaders don’t put people down. They lift us up with their ideas and initiatives. They evoke potential and promise by expressing what could be. And they recognize those who are willing and able to help realize it. 

There’s a lot of grace in that.