ETHICAL INTEGRITY

Ethical Integrity

Ethical Integrity

Introduction

Integrity and its cousin, ethical behavior, are at the core of long-term successful leadership. Personal integrity, particularly of leaders, is the source and foundation of organizational integrity and ethics. This tool takes the cerebral concept of ethics and places it where you can understand and act on it—at gut level. This paper discusses ethical integrity in a concise and comprehensive way.

Ethical Integrity: A Discussion

Think back to a gathering of some type, a meeting or even a dinner with friends, a time when you noticed something in your body telling you, "Something isn't right here!" (De George, 2003). You feel tension rise within you. You lose your sense of ease and ability to act spontaneously. A question of integrity has surfaced. Someone's opinion or behavior is hard for you to accept. Integrity boils down to:

? being authentic with yourself,

? being authentic with others, and

? doing what you say you will do.

Being Authentic With Yourself as a Leader

You will respect yourself more when your feelings and your actions are in alignment or congruent. Biologically, the human brain is set up such that external stimuli come first through the primordial limbic brain (De George, 2003). Put simply, things are felt before they are relayed to the thinking center of the brain and brought into consciousness. To better understand your feelings, tune into your body's signals—dry throat, shoulder tension, or a lump in your stomach—any of which may be trying to tell you that something is out of whack here.

? First, you sense an emotion such as fear, anger, or sadness.

? Second, you need to name the emotion, to acknowledge the emotion to yourself: "I'm angry," "I'm scared," or "I'm sad." This is necessary because, although feelings live in the body, dealing with them requires that you bring them into consciousness.

? Third, to act on your feeling, it's necessary to think about what might have triggered or caused this feeling. For example, "I'm apprehensive right now because I hear us agreeing to an action I believe to be at odds with our policy. This could cause our employees to lose trust in us" (Donaldson and Thomas, 2000).

The right opening to speak up can sometimes pass quickly in organizations, and people often regret their silence and having missed the opportunity to lead. Stay connected to your feelings; acting with integrity creates a powerful model for others to trust their own feelings and speak their own truths.

Being Authentic With Others as a Leader

This means there's congruence between what you say and how you act (the audio matches the video). Are there distortions, untruths, or omissions in your communications with others: Big or little? Active or passive? If yes, first acknowledge this to yourself, then clear up any potential misunderstandings with the appropriate other person(s). For example, "Bernie, even though I assured you that your budget would not be cut, I already knew that corporate was planning a cut, and I knew that it would apply to ...