Why would it be that, although lots of management books stress the importance of "walk the talk" as a good management practice, still lots of leaders fail to put this into practice?
"Do what you say" requires that one takes care of what he says (of the "talk") but also executes what has been said/claimt or proposed. Reliability in behaviour and consistency between words and actions is what caracterizes solid leadership.
But too often in corporate live as well as in politics, leaders seem to forget this and think that "nice" words are most valuable, more than the actual execution. There is nothing wrong with creating expectation. There is only something wrong when one can not put these into practice. Employees leave companies because they do not trust there leaders any more (number one reasons why people look for another job has to do with the believe/trust in the manager) and similarly, people do not vote for politicians or parties anymore because they do not "walk the talk".
Think about the whole public debate on the age of retirement. Most people agree that "working longer" becomes a necessity for sustaining our existing social model and survival of the pension system. Most parties and individual politicians talk about the necessity to stop early retirement plans. And what happens when Opel, Godiva (and soon Carrefour?) propose a restructuring plan? What do policitians do? Where is the consistency and reliability? Who "walks the talk" here?
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