I came across a very good article by Col. Eric Kail here, in The Washington Post, a part of a series on Leadership with a capital L.
Integrity, at least for me, is mandatory in a leader or role model, especially in the way described in the article. I cannot imagine following someone who is many things or has many faces to many people. Consistency, such an important part of strategy, stems from that. How can you be consistent about your actions if you don’t have integrity? Sooner or later, you will give up and go astray.
As author says: “Our actions must mirror our words in all facets of life.” I wonder how many of us can say that it is really so. I am striving toward that goal, but I have to admit that I am not yet there.
I noticed that behaving in agreement with yourself tends to annoy a lot of people, as many of them are asking you to do something (especially at work place) which you would rather not do. They call it “compromise”. I call it treason of your own values. Each time I catch myself rationalizing my lack of integrity, I lose a piece of myself, but at the same time I hope that I am getting stronger, not weaker. That it is harder, not easier, to do this – to lose integrity – again. It is really frustrating sometimes…
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