What Trait is Critical to Your Success as a Leader?
It turns out that all of the discussion occurring about the importance of leaders possessing good ethics to maintain their integrity in the workplace is not idealistic talk.
It’s actually important to the careers of anyone whose role involves managing and leading others.
This is true whether you want your senior leadership to promote you to higher levels of management responsibility OR whether you want your team to support you as their leader.
Your integrity matters where your management career is concerned.
In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one’s actions. Integrity can stand in opposition to hypocrisy. Source: Wikipedia.
What Real World People Say About This Trait?
A classic survey by Robert Half Management Resources of more than 1,400 Chief Financial Officers identified integrity as the most important trait for professionals being groomed for leadership positions in the workplace.
Specifically, when asked to identify the traits that they most look for in potential future leaders (other than technical or functional expertise), CFO”s identified the following:
| Integrity | 33% | |
| Interpersonal/communication skills | 28% | |
| Initiative | 15% | |
| Ability to motivate others | 12% | |
| Business savvy | 10% | |
| Other/don’t know | 2% | |
| 100% |
For those who would dismiss this survey because it was done in the midst of the Great Recession, this action would be a mistake. If there is anything that is constant, it is human behavior. As the saying goes: Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it!
The following excerpt from the original news release for this survey sums up the importance of ethical leadership and management in the workplace:
History has shown time and time again the importance of ethics in business — even a single lapse in judgment by one employee can significantly affect a company’s reputation and its bottom line,” said Paul McDonald, senior executive director of Robert Half Management Resources. Leaders who are principled and forthright inspire this same behavior in their teams, creating a culture in which integrity is a core value.
There’s more evidence that shows the importance of integrity to leadership. Another classic research report on ethical leadership from the National Business Ethics Survey® (NBES) showed that leaders set the tone for how others interact with each other in the organization. In fact, everything a leader does sets the tone for how others behave in the organization. This includes senior leaders, middle managers, and first level supervisors.
The finding from these classic studies is that values, ethics, and integrity all matter where effective leadership is concerned.
Why This Matters To You?
To have a significant impact on the behavior of your team, they need to see you as an ethical leader. As noted by (NBES), here’s the three most important factors that your people will use to evaluate your ethics:
- Their personal experience with you as you interact with them
- The way you manage crises
- The policies and procedures you put in place to manage operations
Here’s further proof that ethics and integrity matter where your management career is concerned. To be competitive for higher level management positions, you’ll have to show that you can handle your current managerial role.
Your credibility as a leader (your integrity) is shaped by how others view your ethics. If your employees view you with suspicion, your ability to maintain their commitment to work with you (instead of against you) becomes more difficult.
It’s true: Integrity really matters!
This article is accurate to the best of the author’s knowledge.
Content is for informational or educational purposes only and does not substitute for professional advice in business, management, legal, or human resource matters.
