For the past four years I have been researching the key qualities needed in a leader.
Fed-up with the constant talk of “authenticity” and “bringing our whole selves to work” which emerged during the pandemic, I set out to discover what people really wanted from their leaders.
The result was my latest book Nobody Believes You: Become a Leader People Will Follow, in which I came to the conclusion that the key attribute of the most successful leaders is credibility.
Credibility itself is, I believe, made up of eight key practices – each of which I will outline in a separate blog post over the coming weeks.
In this blog I want to explore the issue of integrity, which was probably the most referenced of all eight traits when I was carrying out my research. We’ll look at what it is, what happens when you don’t have it, and how to get better at cultivating it.
What is integrity?
When we talk about integrity we’re talking about someone’s ability to keep their word. And, put simply, if people don’t stick to their word, they can very soon lose the trust of those around them.
I define leaders with integrity as those who know how to do what they say they will do. They consistently follow through with actions aligned to their words. They are genuine, accountable, and behave ethically in the workplace as well as in the world outside the office doors.
Crucially, they own up to their mistakes when things go wrong instead of making excuses or blaming others.
The challenge of integrity
The biggest challenge with integrity is that we all think we have it, when this isn’t necessarily the reality.
We all want to believe we possess it and none of us ever really explore whether, actually, we might not.
It’s one of those behaviours that people hold themselves to with pride, but a lot of leaders I work with aren’t demonstrating it with their team.
The importance of accountability in integrity
To have integrity is to be comfortable with accountability, but this in itself can be a hard concept to get to grips with, and we need to understand why.
Accountability requires getting comfortable with owning our decisions and our mistakes, which doesn’t come naturally. As human beings, our brains are wired to do whatever that can to justify actions, so that we feel better about our decisions. We aren’t good at admitting mistakes.
When we’ve done something which we need to be accountable for, and that something has been damaging, it takes a huge amount of vulnerability and courage to step forward and own it.
Accountability is hard because:
- We don’t like holding people to account because it’s uncomfortable
- We are scared our decision or opinion will offend someone, and have a natural need to be liked and a natural inability to assess risk properly
- We have put things in place to distance ourselves from decisions, creating brands or team decisions that remove our need to be accountable as an individual
What happens if you don’t have integrity?
Without integrity there is no trust. We see this time and time again, and it’s because people don’t believe you’ll do what you say you will.
Let’s look at an example from my consultancy work…
Craig* thought he had integrity. When I told him he didn’t he was genuinely hurt. No one likes to be told they aren’t good at something. Craig was passionate about integrity, and had no idea that his staff felt it was something he lacked.
When he founded his business he did it with a real sense of purpose. He was an expert in his field and knew he could build a community that would support one another with their goals. As the business grew, so did the team. Unfortunately, Craig’s expertise had taught him everything about his profession, but hadn’t given him the skills to lead that team.
When one of the team quit abruptly it was a surprise to Craig, who had no idea there was anything wrong, but after several team meetings where things had been promised and not delivered, they’d felt enough was enough. They’d seen too many times that Craig didn’t follow through on what he said he would do.
Craig was unable to keep his word, he didn’t feel genuine to the team and he wasn’t being accountable for the things he had said in the past. The result? A team that didn’t follow him.
When it comes to the workplace, a lack of accountability leads to all sorts of issues, including:
– Micromanaging leadership
– Broken promises from those in charge
– Apathy from the team and employees
– Disengaged, frustrated, resentful teams and individuals
How to cultivate integrity – and get good at keeping your word
While we’d all like to keep to our word all the time, it’s inevitable that life/circumstances sometimes get in the way.
There are a number of things you can do, however, to give you a fighting chance:
- Know yourself well enough to know what you can and can’t do
- Accept the reality you’re in without trying to wish for more time
- Accept that if you’re leading a team, making time for them is part of your day, week, month and year
- Be aware of the power dynamic in the workplace and the impact your decisions and actions have on others
- Get comfortable with productive disagreement. We have to be able to disagree with people, have genuine conversations and hold others accountable as well as ourselves. That’s often the tricky bit.
- Learn how to say sorry – this isn’t easy and for leaders can be incredibly hard, but if you can own mistakes, be accountable and share why things can’t happen, your team will see that integrity shine through.
- Prioritise the right things – don’t get stuck being busy. Know what’s urgent and important, and ensure you’re allocating time in the right places. Make sure you’re doing the things you’ve said you will do, not other things that are taking you away from them. And if they do, explain that they have.
*Not his real name
You can hear more about the subject of integrity in this episode of the Redefining Communications with Jenni Field podcast.
To find out more about my research into credibility and my book click here. Or you can find out how credible you are with our free Credibility Gap Assessment here.
