By Linda Van Valkenburgh, MS, CCMC, CJSS, CSMCS, CELDC
When asked, 75% of workers will say that integrity is the most important attribute of a corporate leader. As a leader, if you lack integrity, your employees won’t trust you. It’ll foster a culture of deception, immorality, and distrust. These are the last adjectives you want someone to use when describing your leadership style and company culture.
As the leader, change starts with you. Strive to embody the qualities that you want in your employees. Show them what integrity looks like and foster a culture where integrity is valued and praised. When you lead by example, you can enjoy these benefits by having integrity in the workplace.
Better Work Product
When you and your team act with integrity, you take pride in the work product you produce. By encouraging people to step up and do what’s right when they find an issue, your overall product or service will be better for it. Sure, this means facing the problems head-on, but a temporary setback is better in the long run than ignoring a problem and allowing it to grow into a debilitating issue.
By showing your employees that you take pride in your work, you’ll also inspire them to take pride in what they produce.
Reputation
When it comes to business and your career, your reputation is everything. The people you work with and do business with need to be able to trust you. When you say you can deliver, the people around you need to trust that you will deliver on your word.
When you act with integrity, you build a positive and strong reputation. With a strong professional relationship, more doors will open for you, and you’ll find more opportunities available to you.
Better Company Culture
You want your employees to act with integrity, so you’ll behave in a manner that shows you embody this quality. This behavior will spread throughout the company. Your employees will make better decisions that are in line with having strong moral principles.
This leads to improved employee satisfaction. People will be able to trust each other, which reduces the amount of conflict. The fewer conflicts you have, the more you can focus on collaboration and innovation.
Clear Focus and Direction
Deception and cheating take a lot of time and energy. Imagine what you could accomplish if you redirect this energy to more important tasks.
You wouldn’t have to keep track of your lies or what story you told to which person. This web of deception only grows and becomes more complicated as time goes on.
Don’t waste energy on this. Redirect the time and effort spent on nefarious activities to something more honorable or noble. Own up to a mistake and face it head-on. You can address the issue and immediately begin searching for a solution.
This sets your company up for long-term success. While deception and cheating may benefit in the short run, they fail to measure up in the long term.
Learn to Lead by Example
As you can see, leading by example and having integrity in the workplace can bring several benefits that reach beyond you personally. It will permeate the company culture, which in turn spreads to a higher quality work output. Your employees and people you work with will trust you more and recognize that you have integrity.
If you aren’t sure how to get started, it can help to brainstorm with other leaders. This gives you the opportunity to create an action plan with specific examples of how to show integrity in the workplace.
Let’s get to work!
Linda
If you are ready to move your executive career forward contact me today at [email protected]