A Leader With Integrity

One of the qualities of an effective leader is Integrity.  Integrity is not just the words you use but the actions and behaviors you exhibit.  In fact, the actions you take are the most important measurement of integrity. Ask any parent, kids ---- especially parents of small children ---- often try to imitate the actions of a parent.  Have you ever tried to coach a teenager to do something that you actually were not doing yourself?  Your advice falls on deaf ears.  That is a truth outside the family situations too.  I was an elder of a church in NJ for a number of years.  As a leadership team, we often discussed the importance of modelling the behaviors that we were asking people to incorporate in their lives.  Were we living out the Christ-like qualities that we were asking our parishioners to incorporate in their everyday lives?  I may share some of my religious beliefs in my stories sometimes ------ it is who I am and part of my “bringing myself to work” qualities that are integral to my leadership style.

Integrity is probably the MOST important character quality that a leader needs to possess. Without integrity, nothing else will work for you.  Integrity is not just the measurement of your outward behaviors.  I am not sure who wrote it, but I once heard that “character is who you are in the private moments of your life”.  I whole-heartedly agree with that statement.  I use it as a cardinal rule in my life.  I need to be able to look in the mirror every morning and have respect for the person I see in the mirror.  Without integrity, I cannot do that.

 As I have indicated previously, I was a leader in or around IT organizations for most of my career.  I remember witnessing a scenario play out involving one of my peers who demonstrated integrity at a great cost. 

We were all working for a Senior VP in an organization.  We were asked to put together plans to reduce our capital spending by 50% for the year while still maintaining all of the commitments that we had made to the business.  We were given a couple of days to put the plans together.  One Friday afternoon, our boss pulled us together and asked us to review a high-level plan with him and the rest of the direct report team.  He was rolling up a commitment from us to the capital planners for our company.  When we all had presented our plans, he asked us the question, “Are you willing to make a personal commitment to me that you will meet your plan?  I’m going to hold you personally accountable for meeting the plan you just presented.” Our jobs were at stake if we did not fully commit to our plan.

He went around the table looking each of us in the eye and asking us if we would make that personal commitment.  I felt pretty good with my plan; I had spent a fair amount of time in developing it and found some creative ways to be 90-95% confident that my plan was achievable.  You could tell by their body language that not all my peers had done the same due diligence.  One of my peers had made some high leverage stretch commitments to the business in terms of his commitments to transformational software for the remainder of the year.  Let’s call him Bill.  Bill was a man of integrity.  Everyone knew that.  His feedback was that he had really worked on his plan and it was well recognized that his delivery plan to the business involved some major transformations.  He was not 100% sure that he could make the absolute commitment. “I’m committed to trying, but it requires a lot of things ---- IT, hardware, software, vendors, business requirements, etc ---- to fall in place for me to cut my capital spend in half”.  I will try, but I’m really not 100% confident. 

Wrong answer for our boss.  They bantered for a while, but Bill never capitulated.  No one else made a “squeak” that they were less than 100% confident in their plans.  Standing on your integrity sometimes has unanticipated consequences.

On Monday, Bill was placed on a temporary assignment – his entire organization moved to another peer.  Six months later, he was placed on a force management plan and removed from the payroll.  The good news is that Bill was subsequently hired by a large consulting / IT firm and went on to be a Senior Leader travelling the world benefiting other organizations. 

The visual lesson for those of us who remained was that Bill was a man of integrity.  He lived out his integrity even when it cost him ---- unjustly --- his leadership position.  It didn’t stop him from remaining a leader, just a leader elsewhere.  He had a much greater impact elsewhere and a much longer impact than our boss’s career.

Sometimes integrity does come at a cost.  It doesn’t always work out for our personal betterment --- though usually it does.  It always allows you to look at that reflection in the mirror each morning and see someone you respect.

Actions do speak louder than words.  People are always watching.  How we respond to a situation reflects our character --- including our integrity.  How we treat other people or how we are willing to do the right thing or speak up when needed reflects our integrity too. 

How was your reflection in the mirror this morning?