Integrity

Leaders without grace set the demand and do nothing to help people meet it. Then, when they don’t, they turn on them as adversaries.

the reason why research has for decades proven that you can help desperate people immensely by giving them no answers at all, and only giving them empathy.

And that comes from seeing and caring about another person’s heart, and communicating that, whether or not you agree. You must connect first.

True listening and understanding occurs only when

the other person understands
that you understand.

When you empathize, you feel for the other person, but still know it is not your experience. In that way, you can be a bridge to a new and different experience from the one they are having, such as hope

Why can’t some really nice leaders capture the hearts of their people? It is sometimes because when it comes to human behavior, being nice is not enough. We have to be connected with, and that is a whole different dimension of character. What is that dimension?

character equals the ability to meet the demands of reality.

Things go “bad” when they are out of balance and integration. The person of “integrity” is a person of balanced integration of all that character affords.

the concept of integrity being about needing wholeness in all areas of character does not negate the reality that we are not gifted in all areas, nor the reality that we do best when we are working within our gifts. What it does say is that if we do not have integrity of character, wholeness of character functioning in the ways that we will describe it, then our ability to capitalize on our strengths will be severely affected.

When we are talking about integrity, we are talking about being a whole person, an integrated person, with all of our different parts working well and delivering the functions that they were designed to deliver. It is about wholeness and effectiveness as people. It truly is “running on all cylinders.”