How Essential is a Leader’s Integrity?
We can likely agree that integrity is an essential leadership attribute. How essential? Let’s consider what happens when it’s absent.
What do you call a leader with no integrity?
How about a
“fraud”? Or
hypocrite?
Situational Integrity
We judge our leaders by their actions. We’ve all seen people in leadership positions act as though integrity can and should be turned on and off like a light switch. They can be open and candid when it suits their purposes. Then, manipulative and deceptive on other occasions. Do they believe that others won’t notice? What’s the reality? We all come equipped with built-in lie detectors. Our sensors can be turned on and off and up and down. Those sensors get turned up when we witness
situational integrity.
The belief that your integrity can be turned on or off is akin to believing you can be a little bit pregnant.
Organizational Integrity
Those who are familiar with ISO certification (i.e. ISO 9001) know that the International Standards Organization (ISO) has developed standards and practices to enable establishing
trust between organizations who begin business transactions as international strangers. Product and service organizations gain ISO certification (i.e. ISO 9001) by documenting their business processes and then install systems to assure consistent processes.
As organizations evaluate prospective international vendors, most are more inclined to
trust those who are (ISO) certified in carefully and consistently following their established practices than those who lack that certification.
It is a formal, elaborate system to verify that, as an organization, you…
“Say what you do. And, do what you say.”
When other organizations have reason to believe this is true, trust is a natural outcome. Certification is an organizational solution. What about…
Establishing Personal Integrity
While there are few formal certifications for personal integrity (like sworn oaths or security clearances), informal systems are omnipresent. Every personal interaction or transaction involves an informal assessment of trust.
We all have our small trusted circle. People who we know will keep their promises as they’ve always adhered to high ethical standards.
Conversely, we’ve all heard the saying…
“I Wouldn’t Trust Him any Farther than I Could Throw Him”
Raising The Bar
Consider This Definition for Personal Integrity…
Doing what you say even when no one else is looking.
How many of your family, friends, acquaintances, or colleagues would place you in their inner circle of trust?
How many could call on you for help in a crisis?
As with all the components of excellence:
Integrity is not a tactic. It is a habit. *
Related Articles
* Paraphrasing Aristotle’s quote:
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.”
We can likely agree that integrity is an essential leadership attribute. How essential? Let’s consider what happens when it’s absent.
What do you call a leader with no integrity?
How about a “fraud”? Or hypocrite?
As organizations evaluate prospective international vendors, most are more inclined to trust those who are (ISO) certified in carefully and consistently following their established practices than those who lack that certification.
It is a formal, elaborate system to verify that, as an organization, you…
One Response
Tom, thank you for this! Many years ago when ISO 9001 came to light people were calling it a Quality standard. I looked at it and determined it is a consistency standard. E.g., if a firm is making crappy widgets but they make them the same way every time then they can be ISO 9001 certified.
The trick is to inject the consistency into the “soft” yet highly important areas of our businesses, like leadership (light-house xs. weather vane), sales, and recognition.