The commanding leadership style in corporate has a bad reputation. Mind you, the commanding leadership style has the ability to produce quick results in chaotic situations.
With an ethical leader that has good intentions for their team, no matter the leadership style, the team will certainly flourish and the project will most likely be successful.
However, a leader with pernicious intent, using this leadership style, will on the long run reduce productivity, bring down the general mood of the team, and consequently create a toxic work environment.
Without integrity, without financial leverage, this type of leaders have difficulty pushing their vision forward, motivating and communicating with their teams.
Wondering how to acquire more credibility and convey integrity in your leadership style and in the workplace?
Integrity is currently a rare character trait and most sought after leadership attribute that can help you succeed in the workplace as much as in life. It actually goes a long way and projects more authority and the credibility than a title or a position would.
Acquiring integrity is a matter of developing character and is a personal choice. Leaders with integrity are not duplicitous nor hypocritical.
In fact, they are complete, ethical and authentic, up-right in character, are committed to their core values, synchronize their beliefs, principles and decisions with their actions, are transparent with their employees, are trustworthy and dependable.
The benefits of integrity
When your actions in the workplace don’t align with your values, your self-esteem, confidence and motivation not only drop but you also lose the respect and credibility of your colleagues.
There are many strategic benefits to demonstrating integrity. Leaders with integrity have probably formerly infringed their values or wrestled with doing what is right but are consistently able to:
- admit their mistakes along the way, learn from them, correct them,
- are accountable for our past and present actions,
- discipline themselves,
- produce their best work whether in public or in private,
- have strong relationships that they preserve and genuinely be preoccupied by others,
- sustain social situations because they are not faking it,
- sustain long effort because they know their strengths, weaknesses and limitations,
- live a balanced lifestyle and live their values,
- increase their credibility, instill trust and loyalty in their employees,
- use their behavior and actions as a positive example for their followers,
- fight against group-thinking,
- arouse high expectations in followers and hold themselves to higher expectations. The leader’s integrity is significant to their followers who want to know who they can trust and if they should follow that leader.
How to demonstrate and maintain integrity in the workplace?
Both employees and leaders of an organization should seek to exhibit integrity in their workplace because it creates a positive and healthy environment, because it fosters good relationships with the organization clients, great reputation and generates new customers.
Developing integrity is a time-consuming process. To demonstrate and maintain integrity among your employees:
- Write a mission statement, and a list of your core values and non-negotiables that stand as a code of conduct and share it with your employees.
- Provide training programs to your employees and team member to put rules into practice.
- Reward employees that exhibit integrity and discipline those that are not.
- Take opportunities to acquire new skills as a leader, be disciplined and be willing to transform and improve yourself first and others afterwards.
- Use tools and assessments tests to identify integrity issues during the hiring process.
- Commit to your words and promises, follow through on schedule.
- Trust yourself and your decisions. Live by your principles, use your gut and your values to make decisions.
- Communicate openly, gently express their disagreement, avoid shifting blame, give credit when it is due, keep some conversation confidential and be transparent. Also, surround yourself with people who will be honest with you.
- Respect others, don’t judge them, include those that have been excluded, find solution to their problems and treat them fairly.
- Don’t be eager to please everybody, be objective about yourself, know your strengths, weaknesses and blindspots, be unapologetic about yourself and stay the same person no matter who you are with.
- Create a habit of doing what is right even if it is high risk, even if others are doing differently, even when others try to convince you otherwise.
Hope that I’ve helped you get it together on your way to leadership!
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Really interesting article. I like your tips on how to maintain integrity in the workplace. Very useful.
Thank you Timothy Gagnon!
These are valid tips to build great leadership capacity and integrity and capacity are vital for leadership growth and the followers to rely on you and what you believe in.
yes, indeed. Thank you for commenting!