Honesty and Integrity
21
thousand shekels were weighted out into my hands, I would not lift my
hand against the king’s son. In our hearing the king commanded you,
‘Protect the young man Absalom for my sake.’ ’’ (2 Sam. 18:11–12)
This low-ranking foot soldier showed true integrity, refusing to be
swayed by material reward or the wrath of his immediate superior. He
knew he was not ‘‘alone’’ in the woods; whatever he did, Absalom (and
perhaps a higher power) would see.
The New Testament also has many references to honesty and integ-
rity, such as this passage from Matthew: ‘‘Live as though God were
watching. Don’t do your good deeds in front of men only.’’ I worked
in an organization where one work group had put up a sign that said,
‘‘Do nothing you would not do if Jesus were coming. Say nothing you
would not say if Jesus were coming. Think nothing you would not
think if Jesus were coming.’’ The sign was needed, because there was a
lot of tension and dissension in the unit, due at least as much to the
nature of the work as to the personalities of the people. I can only
imagine how the unit would have functioned without the sign!
Paul Galvin, former CEO of Motorola, went by this credo: ‘‘Tell
them the truth, first because it’s the right thing to do and second be-
cause they’ll find out anyway.’’ Whether in the short run or in the long
run, dishonesty has a way of being exposed. And often, exposure hap-
pens just at the time when its purveyors can least afford it.
Employees are watching, not just in the electronics industry, but in
the airlines too. Gordon Bethune took over Continental Airlines at a
time when morale and trust were extremely low. He burned the proce-
dures manual, painted the planes, made the first profits the airline had
experienced in years, and delivered on a promised $65-per-employee
bonus for on-time performance. Employees were watching carefully to
see if he could be trusted; any failure to deliver on any of these promises could have spelled the end of Continental’s revitalization.
And if you are a leader with a conscience, you are watching your-
self (you don’t need a chicken). Chris Graff, founder of Marque, an Indiana-based ambulance manufacturer, says, ‘‘I guess it’s just a moral
or ethical decision for me. When we make a decision, we should be
22
THE BIBLE ON LEADERSHIP
able to explain that decision in the same way to anybody who asks, be
it our spouse, our business partner, an employee, a creditor, or a cus-
tomer. I have to sleep at night.’’21
James Burke, former CEO of Johnson & Johnson, made many of his
biggest decisions based on Johnson & Johnson’s famed credo, which has
been in effect for almost six decades. The basic message of the credo is:
Be straight with your employees, your customers, the public, and your-
self, and you will achieve long-term success. During the Tylenol crisis,
the company made an ethical decision that before risking even one
more life to potential cyanide poisoning, economic sacrifice was neces-
sary. Large amounts of product were destroyed, but Johnson & Johnson
was not.
No one could ever accuse Jack Welch of being ‘‘soft-headed.’’ But
even Welch, the ultimate hardball player, believed that ‘‘excellence and
competition are totally compatible with honesty and integrity. The A
student, the four-minute miler, the high-jump world record holder—all
strong winners—can achieve those results without resorting to cheat-
ing. People who cheat are simply weak.’’
Welch was taken aback when almost half of a group of business stu-
dents, in a hypothetical case situation, said they would deposit $1 mil-
lion in a Swiss bank account to an agent in order to book a $50 million
order. ‘‘I was shocked! Shocked! I told the students someone was teach-
ing them the wrong things. This was not one of those cases where you
had to interpret the law; this was a simple bribery case.’’22
Bill O’Brien, president of Hanover Insurance, declared that though
‘‘once the morals of the workplace seemed to require a level of morality
in business that was lower than in other activities, we believe there is
no fundamental tradeoff between the higher virtues of life and eco-
nomic success. We believe we can have both. In fact, we believe that,
over the long term, the more we practice the higher virtues of life, the
more economic success we will have.’’23 At the time he spoke, the com-
pany was in the top quartile of its industry and had grown 50 percent
faster than the industry standard over a ten-year period.
Honesty and integrity are not easy traits to implement over the long-
term, but they’ve stood the test of time—over 5,000 years if we want
Honesty and Integrity
23
to take a true ‘‘strategic’’ (biblical) view of this issue. Frances Hesselbein, former CEO of the Girl Scouts of America has noted that the longest-lasting organizations are usually blessed with leaders who have a sense
of ethics and personal integrity. She may have been thinking of the
Girl Scouts or century-old companies like Procter & Gamble, but her
comments could equally apply to the organizational leaders of the Old
and New Testaments.
Whether the time is 5000 .. or the twenty-first century, honesty
and integrity ensure organizational success in the way it matters
most—in the long term!
BIBLICAL LESSONS ON HONESTY
AND INTEGRITY
People won’t follow leaders they think are dishonest.
You can’t expect honest followers if you model dishonesty.
The higher you go, the more visible your integrity or lack of it
becomes.
‘‘Insignificant’’ dishonest acts usually beget larger acts of
dishonesty.
In times of crisis, adversity, and temptation, a leader’s integrity
becomes most evident.
Integrity is exhibited in actions, not pronouncements of
intention.
Honesty and integrity pay off long-term, though they may
involve losses and sacrifices short-term.
An organization with an ethical code and system of safeguards
can create more consistently honest leaders.
Act as if someone else with more power than you is watching.
C H A P T E R
T W O
Purpose
‘‘Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.’’
— C. 4:16
‘‘I consider my life worth nothing to me . . . if only I may finish the race and complete the task . . .’’
—T P, A 20:22
ll of us need a purpose. Work without purpose (even if it
takes great skill) can become mindless, heartless drudgery.
Add purpose, even to so-called grunt work, and our work
lives take on an expanded, even inspired dimension.
Noah, a novice shipbuilder if ever there was one, was spurred on by
an ennobling purpose—the knowledge that he was going to save
enough of the sinful world so that it could continue to survive after the
most catastrophic natural disaster it had ever experienced.
Abraham’s purpose was to establish and spread the radical belief that
there was one God whose spirit permeated and unified the entire uni-
verse. Until his time, the universe was thought to be split into many
compartments, each of which had its own reigning force or ‘‘god.’’
Moses’ great goal was to lead the Hebrews out of Egyptian slavery to
the edge of the Promised Land. Joshua’s goal was to lead them in. Solo-
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Purpose
25
mon’s was to build a temple, not for his own glory, but for the glory of
a higher power and purpose. And the goal of the prophets was that each
in his own way would keep an entire nation from straying from its
original purpose.
For the modern corporate leader, the ability to formulate a clear,
compelling purpose and stay ‘‘on purpose’’ is often the difference be-
tween success and failure, between an inspired and inspiring work life
and the mere pursuit of profit or a paycheck. All the recent emphasis
on mission and vision is something that the leaders of the Bible would
have resonated with; indeed, they invented the terms, or at least lived
with them daily.
Can you imagine Moses visiting the ten plagues on Pharaoh, fleeing
a hostile country with a few bundles of flat bread, and trying to lead
thousands of people through a parted sea without having a mission to
sustain him and his followers? Steve Jobs of Apple also threw down a
gauntlet of purpose to John Sculley when he convinced him to leave
Pepsi to join a tiny company with few resources and little name recog-
nition. Jobs did not offer Sculley more money (at least to start) or secur-
ity. What he offered him was purpose: a chance to change the world.
Jobs pointed out that all Sculley was doing was manufacturing more
and more ‘‘sugar water’’ at Pepsi, whereas at Apple, he would have the
chance to radically change the way the world communicates, learns,
and exchanges information.