LEADERSHIP Series: Guided by Integrity

Leaders who are driven by integrity make a difference – they are the ones who manage change well. Completeness I believe, has at its core an obligation of each leader to “know self” and this is a journey of three, interconnected phases:

Understanding Purpose:
· Do you know why you are here?
· What is your purpose? Have your written your personal vision statement?
· Why were you created?

Establishing Personal Ethics:
· What are the guidelines that direct your intentions and behavior? Do you have a list of words that you hold fast and dear?
· Do you believe that personal truthfulness, accountability and respect for the individual are without variation even in the face of changing circumstances?
· Have you written your core beliefs? Do you read them?

Developing a Worldview
· Why are humans on earth? How did we get here? Have you thought this through in a way that will help you motivate, inspire and challenge followers?
· What is the human condition? Are we just blank slates imprinted by environment and DNA? Are all humans sinners?
· What is the answer - the solution - to the human condition? Is our salvation a good education? Riches? Government? The Lord Jesus Christ?

Proverbs 11:3 (AMP) The integrity of the upright [righteous] shall guide them, but the willful contrariness and crookedness of the treacherous shall destroy them.

“Integrity,” here meaning not only complete, but also ethical straightness and perfection, is from a Hebrew word used only in this verse in Proverbs and four times in the book of Job - notably when God challenged Satan that Job would continue to “hold fast his integrity,” and Job’s wife challenged him by asking, “Do you still cling to your integrity? Curse God and die.”

Job apparently wrestled well with these questions. Even in the midst of horrific circumstance, he knew who he was, what guided him and how that fit into his worldview. He was an authentic leader.

Who and what guide you?


Copyright ©2009 by P. Griffith Lindell