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Jessie walked into a full-service printing and copy store to pick up photo printing paper. She stood at the counter waiting while the two employees behind the counter chatted. When they spotted her, one reluctantly came over to see what she wanted. The disgruntled employee didn’t have any answers to Jessie’s questions and didn’t make much of an effort to help her. The store manager was leisurely reading a newspaper. The spirit of the place was heavy, depressed. It wasn’t a good experience for a customer. And it wasn’t much better for the employees.

n Phillip went to an office supplies superstore and was greeted by someone at the door with a hearty hello. Although it was nearly closing time, the manager answered Phillip’s questions and helped him brainstorm about how to lend a professional look to his project. The manager then turned Phillip over to another employee to complete the order. He received the same kind of personal attention and involvement. The spirit of the place was upbeat and cordial.

What made the difference between the two store environments? Was it just different people experiencing different moods or is there something palpable about the energy or spirit of an organization?

Numerous business experts tell us that the spirit of a work environment disseminates from the values and actions of the managers and leaders in the organization.

"When you become a manager, you…actually have the authority to make a huge impact on the way your staff works," says Gerard Blair, author of "Starting to Manage: The Essential Skills." The power to shape the work environment can offer a major steppingstone in your career path.

2002 was the year we woke up and discovered disappointing dysfunction in leadership from major corporations, religious organizations, government entities and other business groups. The Harvard Business Review Bulletin asked Stephen Covey what he thought the biggest shortcoming of American business was. His answer, in a word: Trust.

"Its low-trust culture, characterized by defensive and protective communication, hidden agendas, internal politics and underutilized human talent. When I address audiences, they routinely tell me that 90 percent of the people in their organization have more creative ability, talent, resourcefulness and intelligence than their present jobs require or allow. People also tell me they spend far too much time dealing with defensive communication, personal conflicts and interdepartmental rivalries. That’s the high cost of low trust," he says.

David Maister, author of "Practice What You Preach: What Managers Must Do to Create a High Achievement Culture," notes in a recent interview, "Management starts with what people think the character of the manager is.…If you have a character that people don’t trust, they’re not going to follow you."

He continues, "The most financially successful managers are viewed by their people as men and women of great integrity, people who play fair and are really trying to help their staff win. If you want to get a large number of people to knock themselves out on behalf of the business, nine times out of 10 they’re going to do it for a good manager. The key task of a manager is to make other people successful."

Trust. Integrity. Service.

These are core qualities of leadership that John Renesch, San Francisco-based business futurist, says "originate inside the individual"—what he calls "conscious leadership." He also describes "bogus leadership as coming from outside of oneself—whether the role is one which has been earned, appointed or stolen.…The bogus leader eventually gets to a place where he or she is over their head, no longer able to lean on their image and get away with it."

Renesch, author of "Getting to the Better Future: A Matter of Conscious Choosing," adds that "much of the crisis in leadership we are experiencing in the world today is the result of unconscious behavior—acts and attitudes that have been rooted in familiarity, insecurity, fear, immaturity, mimicry, disappointment, hurt, and many other factors that cause people to create public personas and images."

As managers, we have a responsibility to ourselves and to those we supervise to become conscious of our behavior. Are you utilizing your personal characteristics to achieve your goals? Do you follow your intuition or follow directions? Are you living your work life according to your life values or only according to the Holy Grail of the bottom line? Do you serve those who trust in you to lead them, or do you dominate and lead by force? Are you inner-directed and make an effort to continually grow and learn, or do you think your way is "the right way"? Are you authentic and genuine, or do you work to protect your image? Are you more interested in getting the task done than in the people doing the task?

None of these questions will show up on your performance evaluation. They are the inner questions each of us must face alone in the quiet of our spirit.

Many can identify qualities of the phony leader in their boss. Renesch makes this comment: "Because we do tolerate, condone and even empower bogus leaders, we deserve what we get—mediocre government, degenerating values, unethical and greedy corporate leaders, hypocritical priests, dysfunctional organizations, bureaucratic gridlock and spiritual bankruptcy."

Are you unhappy where you are? It may have more to do with your putting up with bogus leadership in those you report to or disregarding your own unconscious phoniness than any other external reason you’ve been giving yourself.

How can you bring about the change you want in your work environment? You won’t need training to get there. Just the guts and honesty to face yourself and be real with everyone around you. It might not get you a promotion, but it definitely will give you a new work life. And after all, isn’t that what you’ve been looking for?

Connie LaMotta is president of Strategies for Living in Upper Nyack, NY. Victoria James is president of Victoria James Executive Search Inc., Stamford, CT.