Category: Guiding Principles and Values

Living with Integrity in Your Community (I)

Earlier this week, I talked about community values as the promises you and the members of your community make to one another about how we will act and interact with one another as you go about your daily lives.

Now let us move on to consider whether you are indeed living with integrity in your community as you go about your daily life and activities.

Integrity is, first and foremost, living from the core. It is behaving, speaking and acting in ways that are consistent with the guiding principles and values that you commit to — the guiding principles and values that help you grow in credibility. In principle, it should make little difference what community you find yourself in.

Your ability to live with integrity in your community is easier when the values of your community align with your own — when the promises that the members of the community make to one another about how they will act and interact agree with the promises you make to yourself about how you will behave, speak and act.

For instance, one of the values of my community of professional leadership trainers is that we appreciate and look out for one another. I consider that this aligns with my personal values of honor other. The wording is different, to be sure, but as I think about the spirit that underlies these two values, I am comfortable with saying that the behaviors and actions that originate from my core around honor others are consistent with my professional community’s shared value that we appreciate and look out for one another.

Now to you. Given the values of your chosen community, let’s look to where you are in agreement — that is, with which values it is easy for you to live with integrity, to live from your core?

 

Excerpted from The Citizen Leader

Chapter 4: Community Values

Community values — or shared values — are the promises that we make to one another about how we will act and interact. Shared values hold a community together, whether it be a family, friends, a fellowship, neighbors, a virtual network, a town, a team, a troop, a company, a country or a culture. Shared values are our glue. When we collectively adhere to a set of shared principles about how we will act and interact with one another, we strengthen our bond as a community. Conversely, when we fail to adhere to our shared values, we weaken our communal bond — we become unglued.

At the extreme, when there is no set of values that are commonly shared and actively observed by the members of a community, there is no community. There is, perhaps, a collection of individuals who inhabit the same space and time but who (understandably) are acting in their own self-interest, often in ways that serve to keep them apart from one another rather than create the bonds that hold them together as a part of a whole.

Let’s take a look at your communities. Begin by considering them all. Think about the various bands and crowds with whom you come together (real or virtual) to support and serve one another. Choose one. It could be any other community that is particularly influential in your life.

What do you consider to be the essential handful of shared values of that community?

Excerpted from The Citizen Leader

Peter’s Perspective: Cheating Yourself, Cheating Others

All judgment aside, I’ve grown to accept that cheating is probably part of the human condition – good, bad or indifferent. Sometimes we are the ones who are doing the cheating. Sometimes we are the ones being cheated. Either way, cheating eventually (if not immediately) injures both the cheater and the cheated.

While the severity of injury caused by cheating depends on the circumstances — superficial, shallow, profound, grave — no repeated injury is harmless. At their most grave, repeated acts of heinous cheating (like the systematic deceit about WMDs that led us into the Iraq War) cause death. Yet, even at the lesser extreme, a superficial injury like a paper cut, if experienced daily, makes for a painful existence. As for the points in between, when we cheat on ourselves or others, the injuries we cause contribute to an already existing population of wounded spirits, wounded emotions and wounded bodies.

To be clear, cheating comes in many forms. The following examples illustrate many and varied definitions (printed in bold) of the word cheat:

I cheat myself when I blunt the effect of my diet by eating more than my prescribed 2,500 calories a day.

A teenager cheats when she violates the rules of copyright protection by copying a friend’s CD or software onto her computer.

A college student cheats when he defeats the purpose of a term paper by paying someone else to write it.

A teacher cheats a student when she deprives her of full information about a controversial topic, and thereby prevents her from making clear and informed decisions and choices for herself. The same can be said of a parent and child.

An employee cheats when he defrauds his employer by making a false claim on his expense report or time card.

A manager cheats when she leads us to believe, by behaviors and words that she knows to be insincere, that a decision is entirely up to us — only to veto it or change it if it is not the decision she expects.

A corporation (or any taxpayer) cheats when it defrauds the U.S. Treasury by misrepresenting its taxable income.

An athlete cheats when he violates the rules of the sport by taking prohibited, performance-enhancing supplements.

Friends, public figures and spiritual leaders cheat when they are sexually unfaithful to their partners or spouses.

A government cheats when it leads us by deceit into war.

Of immediate concern to our exploration of and commitment to guiding principles is this: When you or I repeatedly cheat on our values, and when we injure and reinjure ourselves or others in so doing, we join (or more deeply entrench ourselves among) the ranks of the walking wounded.

Personally, I’ve had my fill of being cheated, but I expect more to come — I would be naïve to think otherwise. More important, I’ve had my fill of doing the cheating, too — of self-inflicted injury — despite its short-term benefits and payoffs. I’ve learned that eventually the damage I inflict upon myself and others by cheating does add up or the truth does come out, and in the longer term, I pay out much more in wreckage to my reputation than I ever reaped in the first place.

But that realization didn’t come early on. It came slowly over time, through trial and error, and after a few devastating blows that I delivered to myself. Then as now, I live in a world in which some of our elders, our purported role models and too often our culture itself turn a blind eye to cheating, on condition that it helps achieve desired goals – profit, power, prestige, position, personal pleasure, personal gain. I’ve tried my hand at that approach, believing that is how the game is played. And I have crashed terribly, and have writhed in pain as I felt my integrity and credibility ripped to shreds at my own hand by attempting to game the system for my own benefit.

Honesty in action and word come much more naturally to me now by way of routine adherence to my guiding principle — dare to be true. I strive to make it the basis of my behaviors. I endeavor to conduct myself from a place of knowing and owning how I want to be in the world, regardless of how anyone else might choose to act or be (or want me to act or be). Mind you, my execution is not perfect. There are still the occasional paper cuts, and even flesh wounds. So, perfection aside, I strive for excellence — and that is a standard I want to meet every day.

Excerpted from The Citizen Leader

Peter’s Perspective: What We Choose is Who We Are

I too am shocked and sickened by Rick Perry’s divisive tone and bigoted words in his Christmas campaign commercial for the Presidency. (As of this writing, YouTube “dislikes” are outnumbering “likes” by a count of 40:1).

Perry reveals a character that resorts to maligning and marginalizing minorities as a show of strength. He is really no different than the racists who denigrate African-Americans, the skinheads who slander Jews, and the bullies who mock Americans with disabilities. He is so insulting to the dignity of so many that, at the end of his 30 seconds, he is really just an embarrassment.

What I wonder about is this: There was a whole team of people involved in the polling, planning, scripting, shooting and reviewing of this ad. Of them I ask: What are your values and guiding principles? Are they reflected in this ad or do you find this ad repugnant? If the latter, how much further will you personally be willing to go in this ugly show of divisiveness and bigotry? At what point do you personally draw the line and say “enough.” (Before or after Gov. Perry goes public in favor of yellow stars and pink triangles?)

Our Declaration of Independence proclaims: We are all created equal and endowed with the unalienable Rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”

Mr. Perry’s tone and words mock both. To the degree that you continue to support this candidacy or any candidacy that spews hate and bigotry toward any human being, you condone this mockery of human equality.

Today is your defining moment. Right here and right now is your time to ask yourselves, “Does this message reflect who am I and how do I want to be in the world?” There is no right answer. There is, however, the truthful answer. Go for the truth.

If your response is yes, that’s good data. Carry on.

If your response is no, that’s good data. Act accordingly.

What we choose is who we are.

I take heart in the words of Thomas Jefferson: “…in matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock…”

And I find courage in the wisdom of Mohandas Gandhi: “A ‘No’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please or, worse, to avoid trouble.”

To acquiesce for a show of loyalty or to pursue victory at the expense of your values causes injury to your character — an injury that can be a lasting liability to your career and your conscience. 

It takes real courage to say “no”, especially if doing so might deny you something you desire. But by making the choice to say “no” when faced with events that could damn your own character, you safeguard the only thing that you can truly call yours — your integrity.

It’s up to you. In the end, you are the final arbiter of your actions.

Character: Personal Integrity and Credibility

Character is the embodiment and the expression of our guiding principles and values. It is who we are on the inside, and what we show on the outside. Our guiding principles and values are the promises we make to ourselves about how we will behave, both in private and in the world at large. When we live up to those promises — when we act consistently with what it is we say we stand for, and consistently deliver on our promises (even when no one else is looking) — we are living in personal integrity.

For most of us, our personal values don’t remain a private affair, either. We often share them with the other members of our community. We make a promise to them, and we give them the expectation that we will conduct ourselves in ways that are consistent with our promises. By living up to those promises, we build our believability – and strengthen our credibility.

Credibility derives from the Latin verb credo, which means I believe. Our believability — or our credibility — rests in the eyes of others. Our credibility manifests in others as I believe you. I believe you because your actions are consistent with your promises. Our credibility is other people placing their faith and trust in us. It is their having faith that we will continue to behave and speak and act in ways that adhere to the expectations we have created or stated.

Naturally, we all trip up on occasion and do things that are against what we say we stand for. To the degree that we have built a well of credibility in the minds of others, we can ask for forgiveness and be forgiven. But, if the pattern of our actions, behaviors and words over time start to suggest something other than what we claim about ourselves, then it’s that pattern that begins to speak the louder.

Now, none of us is perfect, and we may all momentarily step on our principles or hot headedly transgress them. That’s the cost that comes along with being human, yet a basically healthy credibility can weather the missteps.

During our lives, most of us will face many challenges that will invite us, if not require us, to lead. When we step into the role of leader, the content of our character will shape the relationships that we form with the other members of our community. The ways in which we express our character will enhance or diminish our capacity to engage their willingness and their enthusiasm to want to participate, serve, act and persevere. You have the opportunity to be of such character that your partners will not only follow your lead, but will surge out ahead of you as, together, you strive to make contributions that are meaningful to everyone.

Excerpted from The Citizen Leader

Peter’s Perspective: What is Citizen Leadership and Why is it Important Today?

Citizen Leadership is:

Character and courage: Men, women, young adults and teens getting clear on who they are and how they want to be in the world, so they act and speak with authenticity and with the courage of their convictions day in and day out, in private and public – at home, in school, at work, in their club, in church and temple, on a team, in a troop, in the support group, in the neighborhood.

Contribution to the community: Men, women, young adults and teenagers applying the qualities of their character as they participate in or champion efforts to better their world and create great places for us all to live, work and play.

Today: 

We live among circumstances that test our character every day. We live in an era during that barrages from all sides and online by forces — whether psychological, physical, spiritual or other — that can leave us struggling to know: What is the right thing to do? How is the right way to be? To act? What is the right thing to say? Pressure from peers, parents, partners, teachers, bosses; professional pressure, social pressure, popular culture, and social media; prospects for personal gain, power, profit, prestige and position; noxious preachers and pundits, prejudice and fear mongering — they fog up our minds, and sicken our hearts.

I believe these forces are particularly treacherous for those who have not yet developed a personally meaningful set of guiding principles and who are struggling to hang on to a clear, steady sense of who they are in the face of a daily assault by these forces. I think, in particular, of younger people, just starting out, just trying to find their way and figure out the rules of engagement in our culture, in their world.

They, and we, all risk falling prey to the influence of those who would manipulate us for self-serving purposes. This is especially true in our culture in which the dominant forces – at least the very public dominant forces – seem to be profit/wealth, power, prestige and personal gain. These are amoral forces. They are not necessarily bad or good.

What is good is when the men, women and young adults who find themselves in the throws of these forces hold constant to their personal principles and act in ways that reflect those principles. That is the foundation of citizen leadership.