| (Excerpted From Cultivating An Unshakable | | | | be seen one way or the other, make no mistake |
| Character)For a leader, honesty and integrity are | | | | about it.One of the most challenging areas of |
| absolutely essential to survival. A lot of business | | | | leadership is your family. Leadership of a family |
| people don't realize how closely they're being watched | | | | demands even higher standards of honesty and |
| by their subordinates. Remember when you were a | | | | integrity, and the stakes are higher too. You can |
| kid in grammar school, how you used to sit there | | | | replace disgruntled employees and start over. You can |
| staring at your teacher all day? By the end of the | | | | even get a new job for yourself, if it comes to that. |
| school year, you could do a perfect imitation of all your | | | | But your family can't be shuffled like a deck of cards. If |
| teacher's mannerisms. You were aware of the | | | | you haven't noticed, kids are great moral philosophers, |
| slightest nuances in your teacher's voice - all the little | | | | especially as they get into adolescence. They're |
| clues that distinguished levels of meaning, that told you | | | | determined to discover and expose any kind of |
| the difference between bluff and "now I mean | | | | hypocrisy, phoniness, or lack of integrity on the part of |
| business".And you were able to do that after eight or | | | | authority figures, and if we're parents, that means us. |
| nine months of observation. Suppose you had five or | | | | It's frightening how unforgiving kids can be about this, |
| 10 years. Do you think there would have been anything | | | | but it really isn't a conscious decision on their part; it's |
| about your teacher you didn't know?Now fast forward | | | | just a necessary phase of growing up.They're testing |
| and use that analogy as a manager. Do you think | | | | everything, especially their parents.As a person of |
| there's anything your people don't know about you | | | | integrity yourself, you'll find it easy to teach integrity to |
| right this minute? If you haven't been totally | | | | your kids, and they in turn will find it easy to accept |
| aboveboard and honest with them, do you really think | | | | you as a teacher. This is a great opportunity and also |
| you've gotten away with it? Not too likely. But if you've | | | | a supreme responsibility, because kids simply must be |
| been led to believe that you've gotten away with it, | | | | taught to tell the truth: to mean what they say and to |
| there might be a good probability that people are afraid | | | | say what they mean."Praise is one the world's most |
| of you, and that's a problem in its own right.But there is | | | | effective teaching and leadership tools. Criticism and |
| another side of this coin. In any organization, people | | | | blame, even if deserved, are counter productive unless |
| want to believe in their leaders. If you give them | | | | all other approaches have failed."Now for the other |
| reason to trust you, they're not going to go looking for | | | | side of the equation, we all know people who have |
| reasons to think otherwise, and they'll be just as | | | | gotten ahead as a result of dishonest or unethical |
| perceptive about your positive qualities as they are | | | | behavior. When you're a kid, you might naively think |
| about the negative ones.A situation that happened | | | | that never happens, but when you get older, you |
| some years ago at a company in the Midwest | | | | realize that it does. Then you think you've really wised |
| illustrates this perfectly. The wife of a new employee | | | | up. But that's not the real end of it. When you get older, |
| experienced complications in the delivery of a baby. | | | | you see the long-term consequences of dishonest |
| There was a medical bill of more than $10,000, and the | | | | gain, and you realize that in the end it doesn't |
| health insurance company didn't want to cover it. The | | | | pay."Hope of dishonest gain is the beginning of loss". I |
| employee hadn't been on the payroll long enough, the | | | | don't think that old saying refers to loss of money. I |
| pregnancy was a preexisting condition, etc,etc,..In any | | | | think it actually means loss of self-respect. You can |
| case, the employee was desperate. He approached | | | | have all the material things in the world, but if you've |
| the company CEO and asked him to talk to the | | | | lost respect for yourself, what do you really have? |
| insurance people. The CEO agreed, and the next thing | | | | The only way to ever attain success and enjoy it is to |
| the employee knew, the bill was gone and the charges | | | | achieve it honestly with pride in what you've done.This |
| were rescinded. Then he told some colleagues about | | | | isn't just a sermon, it's very practical advice. Not only |
| the way the CEO had so readily used his influence | | | | can you take it to heart - you can take it to the |
| with the insurance company, they just shook their | | | | bank.To Your Success, |
| heads and smiled. The CEO had paid the bill out of his | | | | Jim RohnTo order Jim's best selling CD series |
| own pocket, and everybody knew it, no matter how | | | | Cultivating an Unshakable Character (6 CD's) from our |
| quietly it had been done.Now an act of dishonesty | | | | Inventory Blowout Product Special, go to with |
| can't be hidden either, and it will instantly undermine the | | | | permission from Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine. |
| authority of a leader. But an act of integrity and | | | | Copyright 2005 Jim Rohn International. All rights |
| kindness like the example above is just as obvious to | | | | reserved |
| all concerned. When you're in a leadership position, you | | | | worldwide. |
| have the choice of how you will be seen, but you Will | | | | |