Honesty in Business

Call it being "honest," or simply being "forthright," but honesty plays a big role in business. When people hear the word honesty, they often conjure images of politicians, who make promises they know they can't keep; or, maybe that's what you're thinking. Either way, truthfulness is worth its weight in gold when it comes to business. Let’s take a look at the seven key benefits of honesty in your company and how to implement them today.

1) Building trust for your company: A study conducted by researchers at Ohio State University showed that honesty leads to building trust among coworkers and employers much more often than dishonesty does.

2) Accepting responsibility for your mistakes: People are more likely to trust an honest person than they are a dishonest one, so it only follows that they will be less inclined to believe you when you make excuses for your mistakes.

3) Providing feedback: Since most people are not going to jump in and give you feedback if you are being dishonest about the progress of your project, it is important to be completely honest about each step of the process both with your customers and with your team. This will not only build loyalty and respect among your employees, but it will also help keep everyone on the same page.

4) Reducing workplace tension: Sometimes it is best to cut to the chase, so your employees will appreciate you for being honest in regards to the amount of work that must be done.

5) Raising efficiency: An employer is much more likely to promote someone who has been highly productive than one who has been less productive and has been dishonest about his or her productivity. In addition, failing to come clean about how efficient you really are is likely also going to keep your boss from promoting you.

6) Minimizing lawsuits: Whether in business or personal life, there is no need for employees worrying that their boss might lie about them on a court document. A company is much less likely to be sued if their workers are honest in all situations.

7) Helping people overcome addictions: Studies have shown that many people who are dealing with addiction have lied to others in the process of their addiction. This is probably because they aren’t fully admitting to others what they need, so consequently, they lie about it in order to become more comfortable with the drug or behavior.

There are obviously going to be times when honesty won’t be called for and it will just come off as rude, inappropriate or even dangerous if you start telling everyone everything that’s going on behind closed doors. In those situations, it’s important to always select the right people to tell, so that you aren’t inadvertently telling some person who is going to be happy with your honesty or totally pissed off for not being left in the dark.

In regards to managing people, it’s also important not to forget that it’s easy for a manager to become less and less credible when he or she is constantly lying about what is going on in the company. When this happens, a manager might start making bad decisions with other employees and end up losing them as employees. When you want maintain credibility and trust among your team members, it is best not to make any illogical decisions in front of them.

Additionally, it is important to point out that honesty is not the same thing as empathy. You should always be honest with your employees, but that doesn’t mean you need to tell them everything about the business. Your job is not to get them to like you or even understand you, but it is to speak clearly and briefly about what you want from them. In order for an employee to do his or her best work for an employer, he or she must feel heard and respected. Honesty can help employers get this result.

Wise employers know that honesty in business will go a long way toward building loyalty and productivity among their employees while also avoiding unnecessary work and lawsuits.

About the author: Jason R. Hayward is an international business consultant, blogger, and author. He has written four books on business, including "The Ultimate Guide to Maximizing Your Business Website Profit." He also manages a number of successful businesses and has helped over one hundred businesses on their paths to success. Connect with him on Facebook or Twitter.

Published On: Feb 26, 2014  | By Jason R. Hayward

I have been asked several times by well known authors how they can get their book published. The answer is easy ... it's all about the cover ... 95% of the time. So if you are a serious author looking to get your book published, then here is a simple step by step process to create your book cover.

Since I am assuming many of you that are reading this article aren't professional cover designers or artists, the first thing you will need is a software program to design your cover. There are thousands of programs out there but for this article we will focus on 2 of them... 1. GIMP - Free 2. Photoshop - $700+ (not cheap) * Note: I have used both GIMP and Photoshop for several years for personal and business projects ... they both do the job, but I much prefer GIMP. * Step One - Download GIMP at http://www.gimp.org/ or use the download button from their front page ... it's free! * Step Two - When you open up GIMP for the first time, go to "File" and then click on "New." This will start a new project for you and bring you to this screen ... where you can change your background color to whatever you like. To get started click on the paint bucket tool (the icon on the left).  Choose your color.  Then click and drag your mouse over the area of the canvas you would like to fill with color. * Step Three - To choose a different background, click on "File" and then click on "New." This will start a new project for you and bring you to this screen ... where you can change your background color to whatever you like. ** Note: You can also go to "Image" ---> "Canvas Size" ..... this will allow you to change canvas sizes, which is good for when you need more room or want to put another image behind your cover image.  To quickly scale an image, right-click on the image and then click on "Scale Image. ** Step Four - Once you have selected your background color, click ok and return to this screen.  Now, with your cover image selected, click on "File" and then click on "Save As." Choose the location where you want to save your cover.  For this series of articles we will call this folder "Cover" But ... please do whatever you feel is appropriate. Click on save. * Step Five - Now that you have changed the location where your cover image is going to store it refers, let's get back to the main work area area ... go back to the main program window "Paintbucket Tool". Click on fill tool (the rectangle icon on the left).

Conclusion

If you take the time to read through this article, it should give you enough information to start creating your book's cover. 

Don't forget to also check out my book on Kindle Publishing too ... it is free so you can download it and read it as many times as you like. Click here to see the free product.

Powered By WP-Super-Cache Themes © 2011 Caguas Unified Government (Administrative Unit) All Rights Reserved. Please respect the copyright of this blog and any images, videos, or other material in this blog.