Integrity

Cultivating Leadership Integrity

We know that integrity is vital for effective leadership (see sidebar). There are,
however, two common misconceptions that can deceive leaders into thinking they
don’t really need to pay attention to cultivating their own integrity. The first is that Why it matters?
integrity is just about ethics—it means not cheating, lying, stealing, etc. A second
Many people insist not
misconception, related to the first, is that you’ve either got it or you don’t. You’re
only that integrity is
either a good person or you’re not. When we fully understand integrity, we can see
important for leadership,
that both of these misconceptions are wrong.
but that it is the most
In this job aid we will explore the two common definitions of integrity in the important quality for
leadership literature. First, integrity means congruence. Steven M. R. Covey leadership. Employee
describes this beautifully: “While integrity means honesty, it’s much more. It’s surveys consistently
integratedness. It’s walking your talk. It’s being congruent, inside and out. It’s reinforce this
having the courage to act in accordance with your values and beliefs.” Second, perspective. In a
integrity is also described as wholeness. As author Henry Cloud describes in his FranklinCovey survey of
book titled Integrity, “When we are talking about integrity, we are talking about more than 54,000
being a whole person, an integrated person, with all of our different parts working employees on the
well and delivering the functions that they were designed to deliver.” Cloud essential qualities of a
describes integrity as an integration of the different components of your character. leader, “Integrity was,
by far, the number one
When we start to understand integrity as living in accordance with your values and response.” In fact,
beliefs as well as being a whole person, integrating fundamental character traits, we integrity approximately
can begin to see that real leadership integrity is much more than being ethical. It’s doubled the second most
essential to be ethical. If you lie, cheat, and steal you can’t have integrity. But there common response
are many leaders who consider themselves highly ethical yet consistently fail to (ability to communicate).
demonstrate the congruence and wholeness of true integrity. That is why the second When a leader lacks
misconception is also wrong. The congruence and wholeness of integrity doesn’t integrity, people can’t
happen overnight. Most of us will work throughout our lives to cultivate greater trust her or him. As
levels of congruence and wholeness. Let’s explore both of these definitions of Warren Bennis notes,
integrity in more detail. “Integrity is the basis of
trust…and without it, the
Integrity as Congruence leader can’t function.
How does a leader cultivate her or his integrity? When viewing integrity from the
perspective of congruence, the best place to start is with self-awareness. If, as Covey notes above, integrity means

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 living in accordance with your values and beliefs, it’s important to be clear on what those core values and beliefs are.
While this sounds obvious, it’s a vital first step. Most leaders on this campus are very busy—professionally and
personally! Few have taken time to reflect on the principles or beliefs that matter most to them. These are the types
of things that, if violated, will cause someone to leave a job or a relationship. When a leader clearly understands these
core values or beliefs, they can become guideposts for her behavior. For most leaders, there are certain principles that
are more important to them than achieving success—things like respect, excellence, service to others, innovation, joy,
and so on. These core values differ from leader to leader. For some leaders creativity is a core value. For others,
creativity wouldn’t even occur to them as a core value. For some, an uncompromising commitment to excellence is a
core value. For others, excellence would be hollow if it violated a value of loyalty.

The core values themselves depend on the person, the key for this type of activity is clarifying those values that are
most important to you. To get started, it’s helpful to focus on a few (no more than five) core values—those values
that really define what’s most important to you as a person. The next step is to reflect on what those values look like
in action, especially in terms of your role as a leader. For example, if respect is one of your core values, how will you
demonstrate that value in action on a daily basis to the people with whom you work? Here’s how one leader might
define that value in action:

• How will I demonstrate my core value of respect through my behavior? When I am meeting with my
employees, I will give them my full attention (no email, answering the phone, etc.). I will “seek first to
understand” when considering ideas and perspectives of employees.

If this sounds too straightforward, consider how often leaders violate their own values in small ways: the leader with a
core value of excellence who doesn’t give a direct report feedback because he knows it will be a very uncomfortable
conversation, or the leader with a core value of respect who lets her frustration get the better of her and publicly
berates a team member in a team meeting. These leaders, like most, would be better leaders if they were simply more
consistent about acting in ways that reflect those principles that are already important to them. Clarifying what those
core principles or beliefs are, what they look like in action, and then ruthlessly self-assessing the ways in which the
leader can do better in demonstrating and living a commitment to those values and beliefs can be a powerful driver of
greater integrity. It’s a powerful tool for cultivating increased and more consistent congruence between what a leader
believes and how she or he behaves on a regular basis.

Integrity as Wholeness
Defining integrity in terms of wholeness provides a different, and complementary, perspective on the challenge of
cultivating integrity. As Henry Cloud notes, everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, but our overall
effectiveness as leaders requires a foundation in the integrity of a whole character. He highlights six character traits
that must all be present and, therefore, integrated. They include:

• The ability to connect authentically

The ability to connect authentically—Connecting authentically means being able to empathize with others, to
understand how they perceive a situation. It also means having a genuine interest in the other’s success. Finally, it
means being vulnerable. Leaders who create connection don’t try to hide their imperfection, but face their faults and

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imperfections directly and deal with them, providing a model with which others can identify and by which they can be
inspired.

The ability to be oriented to the truth—Put simply, “reality is always your friend.” Most leaders have experienced
that desire to just look away from some uncomfortable truths—the employee who isn’t performing well, the project
that isn’t going well, or the relationship with another team that is strained. They hope things will just get better on
their own. Unfortunately, things almost never get better on their own. Leaders are never served well by pretending
things are different than they are. Cloud notes that we can only make the reality we live in better “by seeing what is
going on there and dealing with it head-on.” This orientation also includes a genuine desire for feedback.

The ability to work in a way that gets results and finishes well—Key factors in this character dimension include a
willingness to prepare, the ability to focus with purposeful, goal-oriented action, and perseverance. With respect to
perseverance, Cloud notes, “The ability to keep going when we hit an obstacle, to believe that there is a way to get it
done, and to keep going until we find it is one of the most important character abilities that we can ever develop.”

The ability to embrace, engage, and deal with the negative—As noted above, an integrated character is oriented to
truth—even and especially when news may not look good. An integrated character faces negatives directly and seeks
to solve them. More importantly, it does not see facing negatives as something painful, but “as an opportunity to
make things better and get to a good place.” More than facing the negative, leaders with integrity embrace the
negative as an opportunity to make things better.

The ability to be oriented toward growth—Not only does the integrated character face and solve problems, but
beyond that it fosters a drive to grow, to increase skills and capacities. This means investing time and money into
growth and learning. As Cloud notes, “In successful people’s lives, there is no time when they ‘have time’ to do
things that are future-oriented. Therefore, they do not wait until they have time. The make the time, first.”

The ability to be transcendent— People who lack character act as if they are the center of the world—whether it’s
good news or bad news, what matters is how it relates to them. People of strong character understand that there are
causes, values, and missions that are much greater than them. The ability to be transcendent means understanding and
being open to that which is greater than oneself.

Integrity is vital to effective leadership and it isn’t fixed. Cultivate your own integrity as a leader by knowing what’s
most important to you and challenging yourself to lead in a way that reflects that (congruence). But also cultivate
your own integrity as a leader by getting consistently better with the six fundamental character traits of authentically
connecting with others, facing the truth, getting results, embracing the negative as an opportunity, focusing
continually on growing and learning, and, finally, understanding that true greatness comes from serving something
greater than yourself (wholeness).

References
Cloud, Henry. 2006. Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality. New York, NY: Collins.
Covey, Stephen M. R. and Merrill Rebecca R. 2006. The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything.
New York, NY: Free Press.

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