It’s a maxim you’ve likely heard repeated enough through the years that it became a mantra if you followed it – or a cliché if you failed to heed the wisdom of its simplicity: Walk your talk and the rest will follow.

Right now, business leaders are struggling to maintain grounding in an era of unprecedented upheaval of status quo assumptions and a dismantling of the historic "establishment" prerogatives.

If you look more closely at any number of marquee businesses that broke new ground and disrupted their universe, or innovators who pioneered a new game or at least altered its rules, a common theme emerges: The organization and its leaders, for the most part, modeled and fashioned the change their inventiveness inspired.

Now no one individual or business entity is perfect. However, in the new environment of hyper scrutiny, increasing regulation, vigilante-styled consumer retribution, “occupy” public protests, and overnight reversals in public trust and confidence – do you think you can improve your competitive position without consistently modeling what you stand for? Whether it is in your personal leadership behavior, your organization’s culture or your brand’s engagement with all stakeholders, closing the walk-talk gap should be a top priority.

You can read the rest of the article here: Business Ethics magazine