Authentic Leadership and Integrity

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This week I started coaching a senior executive who was recently promoted to lead a large office in his firm. He approached me for coaching to help him be accountable for living leadership with greater integrity.

When I asked him what this meant, he said: “Reflecting on the leadership responsibility I now face made me take a careful inventory of my life. I realized that in my efforts to advance in the business, I have been neglecting my health, my spiritual life, and my relationships with my family. Because I lack the discipline to live a life aligned with what matters, I don’t have the integrity, self-respect and credibility to influence people in the way I need to now. I want you to help hold me accountable for living in accord with my values.”

This executive gets it: integrity means being an integrated human being, and from that integration comes self-respect, credibility, and the power of sustained leadership presence. You will never get this kind of power from your position or your title alone.

Mahatma Gandhi said, “A person cannot do right in one department of life while attempting to do wrong in another department. Life is one indivisible whole.” A leader will never be able to have the strength to impact others if their life is fragmented or lacking wholeness. Integrity comes from the word “integer,” which means wholeness, integration, and completeness. Great leadership cannot be reduced to technique; great leadership comes from the identity and integrity of the leader. This is why leadership is about presence, not position.

This executive’s clarity, wisdom, and courage, reminds me of a story of Gandhi, which illustrates the power of integrity in leadership. During the time Gandhi was in office, a troubled mother had a daughter who was addicted to sugar. One day she approached Gandhi, explaining the problem and asking if he would talk to the young girl. Gandhi replied, “Bring your daughter to me in three weeks’ time and I will speak to her.”

After three weeks, the mother brought her daughter to Gandhi. He took the young girl aside and spoke to her about the harmful effects of eating sweets excessively and urged her to abandon her bad habit. The mother thanked Gandhi for this advice and then asked him, “But why didn’t you speak to her three weeks ago?” Gandhi replied, “Because three weeks ago, I was still addicted to sweets.”

What is your experience of the effect of integrity on leadership and its effect on your self-respect, your credibility, and your ability to influence others?

Leadership and Personal Balance

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The great philosopher Yogi Berra said once that “you can learn a lot by observing.” Over the past 25 years working with leaders, I have observed that balanced leaders are better leaders. You don’t respect people that are always hurried, behind schedule, stressed, and harried. It’s not only a sign of strong character to be calm in the midst of pressure. It’s a indication of good leadership. I had a day this week with a great group of municipal government leaders. The topic: Leadership and Personal Balance. The group gave me some good insights into staying balanced in their highly demanding work environment.

Here’s a few things we came up with. Balance is not a destination; it’s a method of travel. You aren’t likely to “reach” balance. Instead, you bring balance with you. You aren’t always going to be balanced on the “outside.” For example, you don’t talk to farmers about balance in the midst of harvest, or to accountants in the middle of tax season. Sometimes you just have to roll up your sleeves and do what it takes to get the job done. As a leader, the skill is to have a process for staying calm on the inside. Being able to maintain perspective, holding on to an internal spiritual foundation during a crisis, and coming back to your authentic self on a daily basis are ways to maintaining this sense of balance, regardless of the demanding world that you live or work in. Living your life in accord with your values also helps you maintain this inner sense of balance.

I’d love to hear from you. What does balance mean to you in the context of leadership? What is your process for staying balanced in the chaotic world you live in?

How Is The Pace Of Your Life Affecting Your Leadership Presence?

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When I am helping leaders strengthen their authentic leadership presence, I find it is important they understand how the pace of our life affects our connection to others. In the words of the philosopher Piero Ferrucci, we are in the midst of a “global cooling.” Human relationships are becoming colder. Interactions with others are becoming more rushed and impersonal. Values such as profits and efficiency are taking on greater importance at the expense of caring and authentic presence.

Think about it. You make a phone call to a person and you get a digital voice recording with a list of options. You park your car and find out the parking attendant has been replaced by mechanism for inserting your credit card and keying in your license plate number. You send an email to a colleague instead of walking down the hall and having a face-to-face conversation. Rather than playing street hockey with a group of friends, kids are now more likely to be alone in their bedrooms in front of a computer screen. Instead of a face-to-face conversation with a bank teller or customer service representative, we now bank and make many transactions on line. Your doctor, pressed for time, now focuses on the test results and data on a computer screen instead of listening to you and looking at you. Rather than a travel agent that we have come to know and trust, we book vacations on line. We check in at the airport and buy our theatre tickets at kiosks rather than from real people at a booth or a counter.

I’m not interested in going back to the “good old days.” There were lots of problems with those “good old days.” What I am interested in is bringing balance to this world. Do we stop and realize the effect of all this automation and hurried pace on our workplaces, our families, and our lives?

One expert on the pace of life, Robert Levine, has been studying time as it is experienced in various cultures. Levine measures three different variables; The time it takes to buy a stamp in a post office, the speed at which pedestrians walk across the street, and the accuracy of clocks in a bank. What he discovered was that there are faster cultures than others, in which punctuality and precision are rewarded, while other cultures are slower and less precise. Western society is the fastest; Brazil, Indonesia, and Mexico are the slowest. Levine doesn’t make a judgment that some cultures are necessarily “better.” There are advantages and disadvantages to both slow and fast cultures. In cultures where the pace is hurried, cardiovascular disease is more widespread.

Is all this technology helping us improve the quality of our connections and the quality of our lives? Is it helping us be more kind and charitable?

Much emerging research is telling us that the more we hurry, the less we are able to connect, and the less we connect, the less we care, and the less we care the less real influence we have.

One of my favorite studies along this line was done with a group of theology students who had to listen to a lecture on charity, and then had to move, one by one, to a nearby building. On the way, they met an accomplice of the experimenters. This person was down on the floor, pretending to have fallen and hurt himself. Most of the students helped him. But when they were pressed for time and had to hurry from one building to the next, the Good Samaritans among them drastically lessened. One of the students, in a hurry, even stepped over the unfortunate crying actor and headed straight for his destination. We are kinder when we have more time. And without kindness, how can we possibly influence others?

How hurried are you in your life? How is the current pace of our world affecting your leadership presence? Have you ever felt “hurried” even when you weren’t in a hurry? How does your sense of continual “hurriedness” affect your kindness, your connections, and your ability to influence others? What are you doing to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n and make a connection?

We Don’t Stay in Organizations; We Stay With Bosses

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There’s a familiar phrase, “We don’t leave organizations; We leave bosses.” I believe that is true, and I also believe the converse is true. Bosses make a difference – in organizations and with people. Never underestimate the impact you have. I recently spoke with a plant manager in a Western Canadian company who told me how years ago he was frustrated with his organization and ready to leave. He called his boss, the Western Canadian manager in Edmonton, with the intention to quit.

His bosses response: “Get on a plane. Let’s sit down and talk.”

They took a day together to examine  his concerns, negotiated to create a different kind of work culture, and openly discussed ways that he could get more support from his boss in terms of increased resources and time.

That was ten years ago. Both individuals still work for the company and this person still reports to the same boss. That was a turning point in his company and in his life.

Being a boss doesn’t make you a leader. But, great bosses are also great leaders. Don’t ever diminish the importance of the responsibility that comes with a title.

What are you doing as a boss to make a difference in the lives of those you serve?

The Invisible Mother – And Invisible Leaders

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This story came to me from my good friend Don Campbell. It speaks to the work of mothers, and may we all celebrate the work of mothers today. Take a few minutes to appreciate you mother. But this story, in a larger way, speaks to the humility and ego-less work of all great leaders at all levels and in all walks of life.

It all began to make sense, the blank stares, the lack of response, the way one of the kids will walk into the room while I’m on the phone and ask to be taken to the store. Inside I’m thinking, ‘Can’t you see I’m on the phone?’

Obviously not; no one can see if I’m on the phone, or cooking, or sweeping the floor, or even standing on my head in the corner, because no one can see me at all. I’m invisible. The invisible Mom. Some days I am only a pair of hands, nothing more! ‘Can you fix this? Can you tie this? Can you open this?’

Some days I’m not a pair of hands; I’m not even a human being. I’m a clock to ask, ‘What time is it?’ I’m a satellite guide to answer, ‘What number is the Disney Channel?’ I’m a car to order, ‘Right around 5:30, please.’

Some days I’m a crystal ball; ‘Where’s my other sock? Where’s my phone? What’s for dinner?’

I was certain that these were the hands that once held books and the eyes that studied history, music and literature –but now, they had disappeared into the peanut butter, never to be seen again. She’s going, she’s going, she’s gone!?

One night, a group of us were having dinner, celebrating the return of a friend from England. She had just gotten back from a fabulous trip, and she was going on and on about the hotel she stayed in. I was sitting there, looking around at the others all put together so well.

It was hard not to compare and feel sorry for myself. I was feeling pretty pathetic, when she turned to me with a beautifully wrapped package, and said, ‘I brought you this.’ It was a book on the great cathedrals of Europe.

I wasn’t exactly sure why she’d given it to me until I read her inscription: With admiration for the greatness of what you are building when no one sees.’

In the days ahead I would read — no, devour the book. And I would discover what would become for me, four life-changing truths, after which I could pattern my work: 1) No one can say who built the great cathedrals – we have no record of their names. 2) These builders gave their whole lives for a work they would never see finished. 3) They made great sacrifices and expected no credit. 4) The passion of their building was fueled by their faith that the eyes of God saw everything.

A story of legend in the book told of a rich man who came to visit the cathedral while it was being built, and he saw a workman carving a tiny bird on the inside of a beam. He was puzzled and asked the man, ‘Why are you spending so much time carving that bird into a beam that will be covered by the roof, No one will ever see it ‘ And the workman replied, ‘Because God sees.’

I closed the book, feeling the missing piece fall into place. It was almost as if I heard God whispering to me, ‘I see you. I see the sacrifices you make every day, even when no one around you does’.

‘No act of kindness you’ve done, no sequin you’ve sewn on, no cupcake you’ve baked, no Cub Scout meeting, no last- minute errand is too small for me to notice and smile over. You are building a great cathedral, but you can’t see right now what it will become.’

I keep the right perspective when I see myself as a great builder. As one of the people who show up at a job that they will never see finished, to work on something that their name will never be on.
The writer of the book went so far as to say that no cathedrals could ever be built in our lifetime because there are so few people willing to sacrifice to that degree.

When I really think about it, I don’t want my son to tell the friend he’s bringing home from college for Thanksgiving, ‘My Mom gets up at 4 in the morning and bakes homemade pies, and then she hand- bastes a turkey for 3 hours and presses all the linens for the table.’ That would mean I’d built a monument to myself. I just want him to want to come home. And then, if there is anything more to say to his friend, he’d say, ‘You’re gonna love it there ….’”

As mothers, we are building great cathedrals. We cannot be seen if we’re doing it right. And one day, it is very possible that the world will marvel, not only at what we have built, but at the beauty that has been added to the world by the sacrifices of invisible mothers.

Being A Force Of Nature: Leadership At Any Level

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George Bernard Shaw, the Irish playwright, philosopher, and a co-founder of the London School of Economics, said that,

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

You don’t need a title to be a “force of nature” in order to embrace leadership. I’ve seen people with no title whatsoever who are changing the world. Here are my seven keys to being a force of nature.

  1. A vision. What is your dream, your highest aspiration? What gets you up early? What inspires you to stay late, to learn the extra skills, to go  the extra mile? This could be a higher purpose, a mental picture of a new reality for yourself and others that you are excited about.  In short, do you possesses a vision for the future?
  2. Passion. “The history of mankind is the story of people selling themselves short,” wrote Abraham Maslow. You are more than you believe and passion is a key that unlocks the door to new possibilities. Influencing others starts on the inside. Passion begets passion.
  3. A decision. A choice to do your part however big or small that may be, to be a part of the solution, instead of a part of the problem. Decisions are what change lives. You can change the course of your very existence with a single decision.
  4. A commitment to serve. To make the world better by your presence. There appears to be two kinds of people in the world: Those who help, and those who hinder; those who give and those who take; those who lift, and those who lean; those who contribute, and those who consume. Which will you be?
  5. Love. Being a force of nature, at least a positive force, means that you are driven by love. If you are uncomfortable with the word “love,” call it caring, because impacting others means caring for people, not manipulating them.
  6. Authenticity. Great leadership – influencing others with love – cannot be reduced to technique; great leadership comes from the identity and integrity of the leader.
  7. Strong Character. There is no real excellence in this world that can be separated from right living. Character is the courage to face the demands of reality. It is integral to being a force of nature.Character means means standing on strong moral ground – uncompromising principles – and then being accountable – being a person who can be counted on.

What are your keys for being a force of nature? How are you a change agent by being a force of nature?