Patience is a Vice and Virtue in Business

iStock_000017171991XSmallPatience is virtuous when it empowers you to use good judgement. Patience is a vice when it is used as an excuse or method of procrastination.

Patience has a role in every aspect of business. Patience can be a virtue when leaders need time to evaluate and research the benefits and risks associated with critical business decisions. Patience can also be a vice when it hinders progress or is used by leaders to stall or delay difficult decisions.

In business, leaders gain respect when patience is used as a sensible guide. It can help define practical goals and set realistic expectations on performance. Patience is valuable in strategic planning, negotiations and critical thinking exercises that have significant impact on the future of a business. Patience also defines a business reality and sets a tone of perseverance.

Leaders can immediately lose respect if they show little or no patience. Rushing to judgement can sabotage activities or blur facts. Charging forward on key decisions regardless of the cost or potential dangers, can result in missed opportunities and less-than desirable outcomes.  Leaders that employ too much patience may be deemed as lacking confidence in their own decisions or lacking confidence in others.  It can spark insecurities and even instability in the business. No patience creates a perception of erratic and unstable leadership.

Patience needs balance. When patience is part of the decision-making process, be certain that there is substantiated purpose. For example, use patience in planning when you need to acquire experience, research facts, test an outcome or survey others for input. Patience used to delay a decision because of a lack of experience or knowledge can create a false roadblock. Set a timeline. Using patience to gather feedback is a good use of the virtue.  Patience becomes a vice when it drives you to continually seek consensus on all decisions.

Patience as a virtue gives you capacity to endure waiting. Patience as a vice is not setting a deadline, allowing difficult decisions or unexpected outcomes to linger and potentially harm the business. Patience, used correctly, is part of your business ethics. It helps in governance.

Patience gives you the fortitude to make decisions. The right amount of patience enables leaders to use levelheadedness and detach from emotions in the decision and use logic and facts. Patience is a vice when it is used so frequently that it creates an emotional detachment to any decisions or prevents you from personally engaging or taking responsibility for your decisions and commitments.

Patience in business needs to be modulated. It is a guide, a compass. It is never absolute. There are times you have to make immediate decisions. There are many times you need to trust your gut, your instincts, you inner voice and just go. True leaders have the courage to accept associated risk with making a immediate decisions, as well as knowing when it is important to deploy patience at the right time to get the best results.

“Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.” ― Aristotle

Jamie Glass, President and CMO at Artful Thinkers @jglass8

Virtues of a Trusted Advisor

The role of a trusted advisor is honorable.  A business leader believes you can help them achieve their goals, overcome their challenges and drive new opportunities.  Your advice is so valuable to the business, they choose to invest valuable resources, including time and money, for your guidance, products and services. They trust you can make a difference.

In the position of power, an advisor must demonstrate characteristics of greatness.  An advisor must garner the trust needed to challenge, collaborate and guide leaders in personal and professional ways.  The considerable distinction of being a trusted advisor must be representative of virtues that such power bestows.

Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founders of the United States, listed his 13 virtues in a notebook. He referenced the virtues to measure how he lived each day. The virtues included temperance, silence, order, justice and humility.  He developed the list of virtues when he was 20 years old and used it in some form, according to his autobiography, for the rest of his long life.

Though there are hundreds of virtuous characteristics, there are a few common virtues practiced by many high quality trusted advisors.  What would you include on your list of virtues to guide you in the expected role of a trusted advisor?  Here are ten virtues that top my list:

Ten Trusted Advisor Virtues

  1. Diligent – Be a good steward. Spend other’s resources with care and great due diligence to maximize a positive impact. Value other’s money as if it is your own.
  2. Integrity – Be honest and ethical in your role as a confidant.
  3. Silence – Listen to learn.  Advising others requires you to listen and learn before you conclude and guide.
  4. Courage – Challenge ideas, policies, programs and standards with candor, evidence and experience.  You need not be right, you need to state your beliefs with conviction.  It is your role.
  5. Credible – Prove you are worthy of trust.  Believe in your ideas and recommendations. Convey your belief with proof.
  6. Share – Take part in the business.  Be a partner. Contribute by sharing ideas and making valuable connections.
  7. Reliable – Be present in real time.  Demonstrate your loyalty by being available to help when help is needed.  Be on time. Deliver on time.
  8. Logical – Solve problems with logic.  Business decisions can be emotional.  Provide the logical pros and cons to help others make sound decisions.
  9. Wisdom – Use your knowledge and judgement to be resourceful.  Experience has value.  Speak and advise on what you know and when you don’t know, find other resources that do know.
  10. Respect – Respect those you advise and respect your position of power.  The quality of your work will be demonstrated by your ability to deliver, real and actionable advice. Earn respect by doing.

Virtues are often referred to as ethics.  Virtues are your moral compass, how you conduct yourself. As a trusted advisor, you have the responsibility to demonstrate the value of your advice. Trust is earned. It is not to be taken for granted. Your word, your actions, your work, your products, your services, all must represent the values you profess.

If you are so bold to declare your personal and professional virtues, take the time to measure the impact of your chosen words.  Do your virtues help you to better help those paying for your guidance?  Deliver what you say you will deliver. Be virtuous and then you will be trusted. A Trusted Advisor.

So our virtues lie in the interpretation of the time.” – Shakespeare

By Jamie Glass, CMO & President of Artful Thinkers and Managing Director of Sales & Marketing Practice at CKS Advisors.

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