The Value of Gentility in Leadership

The value of gentility means elegance by virtue of fineness of manner and expression; civilized.

Leadership Questions:

• Most people expect a sense of propriety and refinement from royalty. Why?
• When dealing with serious issues, how would others describe your behavior, mannerisms, and choice of words?
• Do you find yourself at times cussing and swearing to make a point? Is that who you want to be?
• Who do you respect and admire for always maintaining self-control and being civilized? How do they do it?
• When others are showing signs of hostility towards you, are you able to exhibit respect by remaining polite and well mannered? If not, why?
• What small, subtle changes in behavior could you make that might have a huge impact on how others perceive you?

The Gift of Gentility

There is an expectation for royalty to be civilized. We expect them to exemplify good manners, remain even-tempered, and display a sense of fineness that the rest of us do not have to live up to.

But are children in a royal family born that way? Of course not. Babies in all families, rich and poor, can scream a bloody streak when they’re not happy.

Self-control is a learned trait.

Unfortunately, many of us choose to stop improving on the skill of self-control once we pass the basic test: behaving at home. If you are blessed with strict teachers, then you might have acquired an advanced state of self-control: behaving at school. Some even manage to preserve this skill when they become an adult and transfer it to their work environment.

But children in a royal family learn the highest form of self-control: behaving in society. This teaching is a rare gift, and it’s (ideally) modeled by other members of the royal family.

Yet, we also see leaders with no connection to a royal family modelling gentility. They’re actually easy to identify. Unlike their swearing, yelling, demanding counterparts, genteel leaders possess fineness. They’re always polite, well mannered, and respectful of everyone they meet. They possess a combination of humility and confidence that actually attracts others to them.

So, how did these leaders acquire this gift? Three things came together:

• They were teachable.
• They observed other gentile leaders and witnessed the positive effects.
• They made a conscious choice not to be like uncivilized leaders.

The most important gift is the last one. Amazing things can happen when we recognize that our behavior and expressions are a choice.

As a leader, if you want to maximize your influence with others then make the choice to practice the value of gentility.

How can the value of gentility help improve your leadership effectiveness?

 

Today’s value was selected from the “Beauty-Style” category, based on the e-book Developing Your Differentiating Values.