Gear Up For Excellence

Integrity

Integrity is a buzz word that you will hear over and over. Leaders strive to be characterized as someone with integrity and their efforts to do so are a critical part of the learning and development process.

The challenge is that there are many definitions of integrity and there is confusion about who has it and who doesn't. So let's simplify the issue and focus on building integrity into our foundation of leadership skills.

We define integrity as the ability to match your values and your behaviors. In other words, "walk your talk". If you say something is important to you, your behaviors should reflect that. The first step to becoming congruent is to define your values - what are they and why are they important to you. Be specific and challenge yourself. Are these your values, or did you just adopt them from your family or friends.

Then you must specifically identify behaviors that are congruent to your values. For example, if you have a stated value that family is important to you, what behaviors could you demonstrate?

Maybe you would demonstrate that value by spending more time with your family, improving your communication with your parents, and organizing more family events. Those would all be behaviors that would put you in integrity with your value.

Integrity is always a challenge. The more clearly that you define your values, the easier it becomes to practice behaviors that are congruent with your beliefs.