Fascinating. Amazing. Satisfying. Puzzling. Reassuring. Exasperating. Delighting. Annoying. These are some of the experiences that signify the customer experience journey with brands. The customer experience is formed on all touch points of their interaction with the brand.
The customer sees the Ad on the Instagram, books the order. Booking is easy- it is a satisfying moment of truth. Receives an email saying the order will be delivered in 3-5 days. It is not delivered- an annoying moment of truth. Complains on the WhatsApp number.
Immediate response- Reassuring moment of truth. Lodges his complaint only to receive a repeat of the previous message. Exasperating moment of truth. This journey with many touch points will decide the fate of customer loyalty. The positive moments of truth, if in most touch-points of the customer experience journey, will create repeat buyers and bring new buyers via word of mouth.
This is also the truth of leadership brands. The moments of truth are all the touch-points that employees and stakeholders have in interactions with the leader. These touch points can happen in direct meetings or indirect observations or stories that keep circulating through others who have experienced their journeys with these leaders. This may be through some big mismanagement of a project or a small missed handshake with a lower-level employee. Each will be a moment of revelation.
Each will be a contributor to add or subtract followers. Each will be a truth that words or statements may not reveal. It is the collective experience of people who follow, work, interact with leaders that creates the image, brand and legacy of leaders. As brands are always under trial, so are leaders. Brands that overpromise and under-deliver fail. Similarly, leaders who paint heaven and deliver dust are done and dusted. In good times it is easy to create hopes and get into the minds and hearts of people.
Choices may be relatively easy to make. It is in tough moments of choice that leadership has to face the moment of truth of making the tough choice or capitulating to the easy but wrong choice. Some of these choices that become leadership moments of truth are:
Moments of Choice # 1 — A high performing but egoistic employee- This is one of the most common but trickiest one. You have an employee who is a brilliant performer. He may be in sales or in other departments. In sales, every time he exceeds his sales targets. The company results really depend on his performance.
All good so far, except that he is overaware of his brilliance. He does not like sharing success and has an ego that needs to be boosted many times. His ideas and hard work are exemplary but his interpersonal with the team and many other departments are creating conflicts. He has been given a feedback and counselling but has not shown any improvement.
He keeps on improving his performance knowing that as long as he gets his numbers his behaviour will be overlooked. As a leader such moments of choice are hard. You know that he is going to contribute to the bottom line but you also know that the team will not develop and very soon other talent will leave.
The choice to keep a toxic top performer or let him go and suffer some numbers dip will decide the true mettle of the leader. Practically I have seen very few take this call, but the few who have are the ones who in the long run are held in high reverence and regard.
Moments of choice # 2 — When the company makes money but the employees don’t- The norm is that as soon as the conditions become tough companies go on strict diets. They cut down their expenses, suspend increments, trainings, promotions, etc.
On the contrary, the same companies when are going through a high performing period rarely reward their employees proportionately. Leaders are mostly answerable to the board. The board is looking at the bottom line and stock values. The fatter the net profits etc the more happy the board is with these leaders. That is why the focus on people above them rather than below them. That is also a moment of choice for leaders.
Post-COVID many companies recovered and did well. Most just posted their high returns. One particular company chose to reward the lowest levels the most. To date I hear about the stories whenever I go there about how they feel they are in it together both in the thick and thin of things. A moment of truth that showed the true mettle of leaders in that company.
Moments of choice # 3 — Your big boss asks you to do something that is against rules-Imagine you are the head of a department. Your boss calls you and tells you to do something because he received a call from some powerful person to accommodate somebody who is not fulfilling the criteria laid down by your organization. What will you do? A very hard choice.
Mostly answered with “as you say Sir” response. That would save you from the Boss’s bad books but will send a message in the culture that “rules are made to be broken”. Do people take the other stand? Yes, they do. In a recent interview, the head of a Pakistani bank talked about how on the request of his Chairman he asked his operations head to accommodate the account holder. The operations head refused citing all sorts of right things.
Despite the Chairman giving personal guarantees, he refused. In the end he survived and people were in awe of his courageous stand against two bosses.
Moments of choice # 4 — When an employee goofs-up- A project of great importance. You task it to your best employee. The whole company is waiting for it. The board is wanting regular updates. It starts with a bang. Gets into the works. The employee makes a simple blunder and it turns into an embarrassment. That is the moment of choice.
Either you take the blame on yourself or lay it on him. Taking the blame would make you look smaller in front of the top brass. Throwing the blame on your star player will cut off your connect with the team. I remember a coachee was telling me about his best leadership experience. When given a tough but exciting project, the boss said if it works, it’s yours and if it doesn’t its mine. That one sentence changed the whole mood and performance.
Moments of choice reveal true values. Moments of choice reveal character. Moments of choice make and break leadership.
They are not necessarily the big projects and assignments but the call to your employee when he looks unusually quiet in a meeting, the message on the WhatsApp enquiring about her mother’s health, the nod and smile in a presentation that assures you somebody cares. These are choices leaders have to make in their journey. As Stephen Covey says, “Leadership is a choice, not a position.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
The writer is a columnist, consultant, coach, and an analyst and can be reached at [email protected]
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