We know integrity and accountability are integral to leadership, yet we often encounter employee grievances and disputes that arose out of various empty promises made by members of the leadership team. Well, empty because they are not enforceable, empty because they were made in a fleeting moment when the executive just wanted to make the employee feel good but had no real intention of follow-through. Usually not recorded and made informally without any witnesses present, these empty promises often revolve around issues of contract renewal, promotion, salary increase, access to certain benefits, or even if it was just an approval, a verbal approval made by the executive that the employee could be absent during a particular period without having a duly approved written leave application, or that the employee could use the company car for personal trips, or any other promise/approval made that should not have been.
There is some risk involved in executives making empty promises to employees. Apart from eroding the credibility of the leadership once they have the reputation of treachery, the practice of making empty promises diminishes employee morale, motivation and trust. Empty promises also result in a negative (toxic actually) organizational culture where staff resort to secretly recording conversations and sending blind copies of emails to colleagues, you know, you start to have team members displaying passive-aggressive behaviours intended to expose and frustrate executives who reneged on promises, and this potentially opens a whole can of worms.
Rather than making empty promises, the leadership ought to set the example of transparency and open engagement. Let’s take the example of employment confirmation. If the new employee on probation is not doing well, but has a good attitude and you would like to retain him, ask HR how to address the issue. They will probably suggest extension of probation with a development plan for the candidate. Then, explain the areas of concern to the employee and if you must make a promise, let it be your availability to guide the candidate through the probation period. If you find yourself tempted to guarantee a promotion and salary increase, when you know there are variables and processes to satisfy before such a promise could be fulfilled, ask yourself who is the real beneficiary of the false/empty promise? Maybe it’s just that as an executive, you enjoy the feeling that comes with rewarding people? So instead of raising expectations, maybe you could meet HR with a proposal for remuneration review for your team? If there is no budget for actual increases, maybe HR already has a plan for non-monetary incentives and rewards that you could bring back to your team?
Your HR team probably have a robust value proposition and you could work with them to facilitate delivery on that, in order to motivate and reward performance, without having to resort to making empty promises.
