It is a sad statement of our times, but I truly believe that the level of integrity of our leaders is depleting at a record rate. Some (not all) politicians, national or provincial/state reek with integrity flaws But, it seems that the crisis has crept into many areas of leadership that had one time, had been impervious to such behaviour.
Merriam-Webster defines integrity as: (1) Firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values: INCORRUPTIBILITY (2) An unimpaired condition: SOUNDNESS (3) The quality of state of being complete or undivided: COMPLETENESS.
Does that definition resonate with the leader you are most familiar with or maybe just as important is that the type of person you are or wish to become? While integrity should be easily evident in our leaders and at its highest levels, it should be a “must” for ALL people.
Let’s focus on the importance of integrity at the leadership level. Integrity builds trust. People or employees should know what the likely actions of any leader will be and most importantly know that the actions are always based on sound, consistent principles and simply are the right thing to do! For me, the last part of the above statement, doing the right thing, is essential in demonstrating the highest level of integrity. Doing the right thing has never been an easy task but people will (should) always follow someone who does the right thing. An issue here however, is that some leaders are so daft in their own impressions of themselves that they always believe they are doing the right thing. HINT- Integrity and Ego rarely mix!!!
In my many years as a leader, I’ve always believed that you never expect more from any of your employees than you expect from yourself and this includes integrity! Every enhanced management position typically yields added rights and therefore requires increased responsibility. In other words the integrity quotient raises as you move up the food chain! This doesn’t mean that leaders become or are expected to be infallible but errors because of a lack of integrity should be minimal at best. This is what we should expect of any of our leaders and especially those who are considered at the top!
What is possibly even more disheartening however, is that the general public seems to have little interest in holding leaders to any significant level of integrity. I don’t believe it is because we don’t really care but rather we feel unable to “fight the system” of corruption, dishonesty, and harassment which exists. Yet, if we as a general public don’t start taking a stand against a lack of integrity both within our own lives and the lives of our leaders, our faith in leadership will continue to dwindle.
Most positive changes in our world started with one person walking with integrity and challenging a flawed idea or decision. That one person needs to be everyone of us and it would be most helpful if our role models and key supports to walk with integrity were our leaders.
4 Comments
Skip to comment form
Sadly; I’m not all that convinced that integrity is viewed as an important aspect of leadership generally speaking these days 🙁
Author
I agree Del and that is exactly why it is important for leaders to demonstrate integrity and just as important for the general public to demand it. Integrity should be a given when it comes to leaders!
Thanks again for reading and sending your comment.
Good post, Chris.
Thanks for defining Integrity as a Leadership Characteristic. I agree, and also see Integrity as the bedrock upon which Trust is built. One of the lead qualities of Trust for Leadership is that it forms the basis for predictability; people Trust Leadership when they have a good sense of how Leaders will react, and that sense is built by understanding a Leader’s Values and believing the leader will act accordingly to those.
Unfortunately, because Espoused Values (what we say) are often very different than Lived Values (what we do), I think Integrity has become one of the ‘throwaway’ characteristics in ‘Leadership’ these days… we pay lots of lip service to it, because it can be so easily redefined at the user level. For instance:
Minister of Health Tyler Shandro thought he was showing integrity when pressured about cutting the Physician’s contract; he patiently explained that with Bill 22, the government had given themselves the right to do so, and so he was therefore acting appropriately. In other words, he showed that “Doing things Right” was in accordance with his values, and that showed his Integrity.
Using ‘Integrity’ to justify one’s actions is one side of the coin … on the other, Integrity can also be used to display one’s values. For instance:
Premier Doug Ford was recently asked if he was going to be laying off all Provincial Education workers, and he refused, saying that they had families to feed, mortgages to pay, and that he couldn’t do that. In other words, he believed that “Doing the Right Thing” in accordance with his values, was showing his Integrity.
Only one of these is really showing what we would define as Leadership … the other is Management, at best. When everything is going well, it can be easy to think that those terms are synonymous… Stressful times tend to draw sharp lines between them.
Author
Always great insights Gerry- much appreciated!