According to Dr. Henry Cloud – an international lecturer, clinical psychologist , leadership coach and corporate consultant – integrity is an active process of decision-making when faced with various professional and personal challenges. In his best-selling book Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality, one of several best-sellers that have received wide acclaim within the leadership development community, he explores the six definitive qualities of character that consists of integrity, explains why they are so important in an age when amoral attitudes are often viewed as a short-cut to success, and how to develop those characteristics. The book it both a stand-alone guide to helping develop the qualities needed for success in business, and is also part of a series on servant leadership – a branch of business literature based in Biblical, Christian values. In this field of thought – one that has found endorsements by some of the largest and most successful American companies – success is determined not onlyby the bottom life, but also by one’s capacity to attain business goals through compassionate, authentic and morally upright behavior. Integrity in Dr. Cloud’s view is not, a la Gordon Gecko, the ruthless pursuit of personal enrichment whatever the cost may be to others but is instead the daily work of management and owners collaborating with workers, suppliers, customers, regulators, and everyone else that interacts with a business enterprise in such a way that there exists a strong foundation of trust and respect between those relationships.
While Charles Koch is nowhere cited within this book, how Dr. Cloud explains about how one’s character is the truest foundation of success it made me think of Charles Koch’s quote, I’m paraphrasing, that given the choice between hiring someone with talent and virtue that the person with virtue should be the one that is chosen. Integrity as explicated by Dr. Cloud is in many ways based on an Aristotelian and/Christian conceptualization of character. The opening chapter of the book, in fact, starts by defining character and relating it to integrity while the second explains how it is thatcharacter, or virtue, that is the foundation of personal and professional success – however that is defines – more so than mere talent. Talent, for Dr. Cloud, is something that is a component of character, along with their competencies, their level of energy, their deal-making abilities, and their capacity to exert their intelligence towards various efforts. Ethical functioning if a component of character, in other words, but not all of it.
The importance of this character in this sense is described via an, in my opinion, very compelling analogy – that of the wake. Each interaction that we have with someone leaves a two-fold impression. One on the person impacted and the other based on how that impact is recognized and interpreted – aka the Task and the Relationship. Results matter, and the whether or not Tasks are successful performed according to the agreed upon requirements are the foundations of the Relationship. The utter simplicity of this conceptualization and the ease with which it can be visualized via the wake of a boat is, in my opinion, what makes this so powerful.
From this opening, Dr. Cloud then starts to expand on the specific character traits related to this dynamic that one can develop in order to demonstrate and expand one’s integrity chapter by chapter. The six character trait that Dr. Cloud states is necessary to embody and build integrity are as follows:
- The ability to connect authentically
- The ability to be oriented to Truth
- The ability to work in a way that gets results and finishes well
- The ability to embrace, engage and deal with the negative
- The ability to be oriented toward growth
- The ability to be transcendent
These qualities are the foundations of integrity and personal and professional success as, in order:
- This leads to the creation of mutual trust
- This leads to the assurance that one is operation in reality
- This leads to the attainment of whatever the success indicators are – be it goals, profits or the completion of a mission
- This leads to the resolution, cessation or transformation of problems
- This leads to the continuation of an business enterprise, as well as its potential to grow and increase across various metrics
- This leads to an enlargement of the individuals involved in an ethical/moral/spiritual manner
Each of the chapters provides a series of examples takes from business history, Dr. Cloud’s experiences as a business consultant or hypotheticals which are all insightful. Though a book within the field of Christian/Service Leadership business literature, and thus aligned with scriptural values, the manner in which he illustrates the benefits of applying such principles in business is not by saying “this matches what Jesus said, ergo it’s good” but by showing how that by embodying virtuous qualities of character that success is reached. More that an a mere guide for work-place relations, Dr. Cloud is keen to illustrate how if one has issues in one’s personal lives wherein a lack of integrity is causing problems that this will seep over into one’s professional life as well. “It behooves all of us to be working on whatever unresolved pain we are walking around with,” Dr. Cloud states following an explanation on the importance of managing one’s emotions “lest some issue in “reality” tap into it and overcome our ability to make good decisions.”
Emotional self-management here means the ability to lose well – with grace. Being able to cut your losses and move on, the ability to process and integrate loss such that strength, hope, patience and optimism can be developed from the experience so that success can be obtained in the future. Life is full of problem, without it there would be no potential for profit, so the proverbial elephant in the room must not be avoided but used a means towards orienting one’s intellect. As my father would put it – you need to have the capacity to Face, Trace, Embrace, and Replace the mindsets that lead to loss in order to integrate your character to go forward with a success-oriented mindset. Blaming others, even if the “outside” may have had a role in it, is another form of hampering self-improvement. It is the hallmark of narcissism and an indolent – meaning pain-avoiding – mentality. Being able to confront problems – which is what structures teams, projects, relationships and, well, life – creates structure by developing limits for what will be tolerated.
The ability to thrive, to flourish in an ever-changing environment and to overcome the self-pitying pull of negativism in the wake of failure, to resist the internal voice of “I’m not good enough” that allows for character growth and the integration of new capacities and skills. It’s what separates those with a growth-mindset from those with a fixed-mindset. It’s what separate those that are able to take risks based on a desire for growth versus those that foolishly leap into an enterprise like a gambler. It’s what separates those that realize they could benefit from personal coaching, therapy, training experiences, accountability relationship, groups for spiritual development, continuing education, etc. and those that have closed themselves off from having someone in their life whose views they must wrestle with or submit to. It is the difference between authenticity and integrity and narcissism. By being smaller, in other words, you can become to bigger – for it is by working to rid one’s self of ego-centricity and allowing universal values such as love, compassion, honesty, faithfulness and responsibility to be one’s gravitational center – personal and professional success are obtained.