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Leadership: How Important Is 'Integrity'?

In Today's Business World Is Integrity an Afterthought?

I don't know about you, but reading and hearing about leaders who have either lost, or never had integrity, has become all too common these days. It makes us believe that perhaps there are no leaders with integrity.

As someone who tries to view the glass as half-full, I think it is the media who has created this misperception that today's business leaders are void of integrity, morals, and ethics, because every day I work with executives and business owners who have very strong values and integrity. Yet, the stories that our media chooses to disseminate never seem to promote the leaders who live and breathe integrity.

Integrity, as defined in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is a firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values (incorruptibility,) an unimpaired condition (soundness,) and the quality or state of being complete or undivided (completeness). Types of integrity include: integrity of character and professional integrity. Synonyms for integrity are: honesty & unity. Or as Aristotle said: "Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way."

It is the word "constantly" in the Aristotelian quote above and the phrase "an unimpaired condition" from the Merriam-Webster definition that makes the concept of integrity challenging for many people. While we all have values that we believe are important in our life, outside pressures and circumstances may lead us to stray from these values because of our own self-interest. It is so much easier during difficult times to think of a decision in the terms of what's in it for me? versus what's best for the team or the company?

One of the keys to maintaining integrity is the ability to act not in one's own interest but in the interest of others. A great example during these difficult times are the many leaders I work with who have taken significant pay cuts over and above the cuts made to their employees. They continue to follow their values in spite of the negative impact it has on them financially. There are other executives who have deliberately not poached their competitors' star performers, but instead have decided to wait for those performers to reach out to them, if and when the time is right for them.

There are countless examples of leadership integrity that I could share with you and very few instances of leaders who either never had integrity or chose not to

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