Leading with Integrity
Of all the essential leadership qualities we could identify, integrity may be the most important. In a poll conducted by the Gallup organization, people were asked to list the qualities or skills they look for in someone they consider a leader. Four major themes emerged from this study, but the number one quality the people polled identified was trustworthiness.
Being able to trust our leaders is something that is important to us, but how do we judge something as elusive as trustworthiness? We may never have an opportunity to get to know or even meet some people who are in leadership positions that affect our daily lives. What clues or criteria can we use in these cases to decide who is trustworthy and who is not?
Last week, I had the opportunity to discuss this and other leadership topics with a group of leaders in my local community. Every month from now until May, I will have the opportunity to meet with this group to talk about leadership and learn how to become more engaged leaders in our local community. The people in our group represent a wide variety of professions, but we all share the desire to become better leaders and share our leadership skills to better our community.
Our group facilitator last week asked us to reflect on what having integrity meant to us. My discussion partner Casey and I decided leading with integrity meant living your values through your actions. To put it another way, leaders with integrity must “walk the talk” by making sure their actions and decisions are consistent with an expressed set of values or a clear philosophy.
The familiar adages “talk is cheap” and “actions speak louder than words” demonstrate the importance of leadership actions in congruence with leadership words. Developing a leadership philosophy and being able to articulate those values is critical, but that is only half the battle. Making your actions fit your values, especially when it might be difficult is a true mark of a leader.
As leaders, we are often put into situations where we need to make decisions about what is right, what is wrong, and how to move forward in a way that is best for the organizations and communities we represent. I believe these situations are often far too complicated to have an absolute right and an absolute wrong. If part of leading with integrity is matching actions with words, the only thing we can expect of leaders is to strive for congruence between a set of leadership values and the actions of a leader.
We do not need to look far for examples of when leaders fall short of this goal. The various reasons for that might be a topic for another day, but in the mean time, all we can do is examine our own leadership values and strive every day to make sure our actions speak those values for us!
Being able to trust our leaders is something that is important to us, but how do we judge something as elusive as trustworthiness? We may never have an opportunity to get to know or even meet some people who are in leadership positions that affect our daily lives. What clues or criteria can we use in these cases to decide who is trustworthy and who is not?
Last week, I had the opportunity to discuss this and other leadership topics with a group of leaders in my local community. Every month from now until May, I will have the opportunity to meet with this group to talk about leadership and learn how to become more engaged leaders in our local community. The people in our group represent a wide variety of professions, but we all share the desire to become better leaders and share our leadership skills to better our community.
Our group facilitator last week asked us to reflect on what having integrity meant to us. My discussion partner Casey and I decided leading with integrity meant living your values through your actions. To put it another way, leaders with integrity must “walk the talk” by making sure their actions and decisions are consistent with an expressed set of values or a clear philosophy.
The familiar adages “talk is cheap” and “actions speak louder than words” demonstrate the importance of leadership actions in congruence with leadership words. Developing a leadership philosophy and being able to articulate those values is critical, but that is only half the battle. Making your actions fit your values, especially when it might be difficult is a true mark of a leader.
As leaders, we are often put into situations where we need to make decisions about what is right, what is wrong, and how to move forward in a way that is best for the organizations and communities we represent. I believe these situations are often far too complicated to have an absolute right and an absolute wrong. If part of leading with integrity is matching actions with words, the only thing we can expect of leaders is to strive for congruence between a set of leadership values and the actions of a leader.
We do not need to look far for examples of when leaders fall short of this goal. The various reasons for that might be a topic for another day, but in the mean time, all we can do is examine our own leadership values and strive every day to make sure our actions speak those values for us!
Sometimes it is not just what the leaders decide, being right or wrong and all in between, but how the leader(s) decide and how the leader(s) act that is more influential than what particular action is taken. This is most important when leaders need to make decisions and take action that is different from what the group would. Nelson Mandela exemplified this when he scheduled a meeting, from prison, with the president of South Africa on behalf of the African National Congress knowing that the organization would not have consented. This meeting between Nelson Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk initiated the crucial steps that resulted in resolution. Mandela reflects in his autobiography and it was how he acted, based on his values, that allowed him to act against the groups wishes and help them succeed. Mandela was trusted because of his integrity.
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