Keeping Secrets and Being Loyal
Part Seven of “The Intangibles: They Make You or They Break You”
By David Drury
“So why do you think you and
“Well, after thinking it through I believe I can trace a lot
of my problems with him back to one thing he did two years ago,” my friend
Pastor Bill said.
“What did he do?”
“I had begun to share with him more of my own feelings about
our ministry and some of the struggles and direction of things. I had stressed with him that one of the
things I told him was a significant secret—but a few weeks later I found out
that he told that very thing to several people and broke confidence. I think that broken trust and loyalty is what
began to erode stuff between us.”
Nothing cuts quite as deep as a betrayal—as secret let
out. All leaders have different values
in their work—nuances that give texture to their leadership. But I’ve found that leaders at the highest
level often value loyalty over almost anything else, and they just don’t
tolerate someone in their inner circle that can’t keep secrets. In the ministry I’ve found that Senior Pastors
in particular are looking for loyal staff people most of all—leaders that will
follow and not get out of alignment, and people that will know the inner
workings of the team and not betray secrets.
When you are loyal and keep secrets:
If you’re a person that is loyal and can keep secrets then
you’ll find that you’re “in” on more decision making. If you’ve been trusted in the past and found
to be trustworthy, you’re trusted with much more the next time. And if your superiors find out that someone
tried to get something from you and you didn’t crack (like a prisoner of war
under interrogation) then their estimation of you climbs to a very high
level. Your loyalty enables you to be
entrusted with information, decision-making authority, and influence in your
organization that just couldn’t be entrusted to someone who might be
self-serving. And when you can keep the
most sensitive of secrets within your organization you are often the first one others go to in making such decisions in the
future. Loyal people who can keep
secrets become a hub within an organization—like a safe that is locked up in
the middle of a vault… others bank on you—depend on you at every turn.
When you aren’t loyal and don’t keep secrets:
Perhaps more than any other intangible, the difference between
doing it and not doing is most extreme for this one. Whereas those that are loyal secret-keepers
become a hub in an organization, those that aren’t loyal and don’t keep secrets
are shunned and avoided—and eventually pushed out or fired outright. A lack of loyalty shows up in making
self-serving moves that don’t help the organization or those who lead it. It also shows up in how you interact with
those outside of an organization—if you’re constantly trying to advance your
own career over the ministry or business of your organization, then your
loyalty is shown to be to yourself alone: the organization is just a platform
to serve your own ambition, instead of the other way around. Even more striking is someone that can’t keep
secrets. This shows up when people “have
information” that shouldn’t have it yet.
With secrets, it’s almost always about timing. When someone knows something is as
important as what they know. When a
leader tracks back to the source of information and finds it to be someone they
personally shared the information with then the trust is eroded and that person
is not told secrets in the future.
How to become loyal
and keep secrets:
Here are a few practices I’m working on in becoming more
loyal and a better secret keeper…
- I’ve
stopped asking others to keep secrets I should keep in the first
place. If I have to tell someone, “You
can’t tell anyone about this” then it’s a pretty good sign that I shouldn’t
tell them that information in the first place. I always wonder if the person I’m
telling key info to will go back and tell the same person who told it to
me. If they can do that and the
original secret-teller won’t be offended—then I feel like I can share
it. If they would be offended, then
I don’t share that with them.
- I’ve
started to tell people “I trust your judgment with who should know this.” Instead of swearing others to secrecy—I instead
impress on them that the secret I’m telling them about myself is surely
sensitive information—but that I wouldn’t tell them unless I trusted their
judgment with it. Then I’m not
really telling them a secret as much as I’m testing their wisdom on
sharing information. Over time I
know who I can trust and who I can’t, and like many people the list of who
I can trust isn’t really a huge circle.
- I’ve
begun asking people to stop sharing secrets with me. Often times
people come and start a conversation by saying, “Now, I have something to
tell you, but you can’t tell anyone.”
I’ve begun to simply say, “You know, do I really need to know this
info? Could we get by without using
names or by talking in generalities?”
I’ve wondered if the sheer amount of meaningless secrets one has to
keep increases the likelihood that one will leak out. So I’m trying to limit the amount of
secrets I have to keep that aren’t truly important.
- Defending
a leader in an organization is a great way for me to build loyalty. The person I’m defending may discover I
defended them—and certainly the one that I had to defend against knows
that I’m being loyal. The top
leader in an organization, they say, is usually the one with the arrows in
their back. A loyal person is one
that is pulling the arrows out or deflecting them with a shield.
- I
think a key loyalty factor in ministry is not looking for another ministry
job without talking to the senior pastor and having their blessing
first. In my most recent ministry
job hunt I went so far as to resign from my role before finding a new one—just
to ensure I don’t erode my sense of trust and loyalty with the top
leader. I have trouble imagining
myself looking for another church to lead for a year all while drawing a
paycheck at a church I fully intend to leave. I think that kind of move doesn’t
inspire trust in an organization.
How to spot &
reward someone who is loyal and keep secrets:
Loyal secret-keepers are fairly easy to spot, and those that
aren’t are fairly easy to foil. Often
times a senior leader will have an instinct about who is most loyal—and if you
look into it they will be proven right. And when you think about who you truly trust in an organization
that is often a true feeling as well.
But there are more concrete ways to discover this: ask people who they
think is most in alignment—most loyal to the mission of your organization. They’ll often pick someone that is loyal to
the leadership and is selfless about their work. And if you ask who is the best at keeping
secrets there will likely be unanimity—everyone knows who can be the “vault”
with information. They likewise know who
will spill the beans at the first opportunity.
Rewarding those who are loyal secret-keepers is also easy: just get them
more and more in the loop on sensitive information. They’ll be invaluable sounding boards for
decision making processes that involve highly sensitive information. They’ll be the ones that help communicate the
rationale behind decisions once they are made.
They’re the best people to be in the know first. And sometimes when you tell them something
very important you won’t be the first one who told them. Of course you won’t know this because they’ll
never tell you..
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_________
This is part seven of The Intangibles. Come back for more on each intangible. Click here
for the introduction to this series.
© 2007 by David Drury
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