Leadership and Integrity

A necessary ingredient to leadership is integrity. Without integrity your leadership capabilities will be handicapped. In fact you may never regain your leadership if you lose the integrity of your co-workers, employees or customers. Yes all three you need to demonstrate your leadership and integrity.

Let’s take a look at integrity and how it can affect your leadership.

Lack of Integrity

First we will look at the impact of a lack of integrity on your leadership. Just because you become the supervisor or manager does not give you dictator powers. I have worked with someone who was great to work with at first and was a great leader. Then they received a supervisor promotion and he lost his way.

All of sudden he believed what he said everyone should follow regardless of the result. The reason he was promoted was the fact he had the respect of fellow co-workers and had great integrity. After the promotion he started bending rules for himself or other people who were in his inner circle.

Two months later he lost his position due to lack of morale from other co-workers and complaints with his arrogance. Remember, leadership is leading people not pushing people to your way of thinking.

I’m sure some of you out there have experienced a similar work environment at some point in time.

Increasing Integrity with Leadership

The flip of the above example is working for someone who demonstrates integrity in all they do. Leadership and integrity is doing the small things like recognizing an employee who handles a difficult customer with grace. Another is just sending a handwritten to an employee for their effort or commitment to the company.

People like to be recognized for doing a good job even a little pat on the back will work. People will feed off the leadership of a leader who shows he or she cares.

How many times have we seen a struggling sports team struggle to win any games for a couple years? Then all of sudden they hire a new coach with new leadership the team becomes unbeatable. Was it because the players all of a sudden developed new skills? No, it was the leadership and integrity of the new coach.

Leadership is Continuously Earned

Leadership is earned and will be continuously earned over time. You do not become a leader one day and then start doing whatever you want. You will become like the first example and be out of your leadership position before you can say, “what did I do wrong?”

Never believe you have arrived due to a new leadership position. At this time the company expects you to continue to grow and accomplish even more. Make sure you demonstrate your integrity everyday by doing the right thing day in and day out.