Tag Archives: integrity

Doing Right When No One’s In Sight

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to enhance your integrity. Reading time: 2:39

The Greek sculptor diligently carved the back of a statue’s head.

No matter that virtually no one would ever see his handi-work. star fish 1Especially on 40-foot tall statue placed against a wall.

“Who will know?”

A bystander chided Phidias for working so hard on his Athena that would be positioned inside the Parthenon in Athens.

“I will know,” Phidias stated sternly.

Leaders always know. No matter who’s watching. Or not.

Leaders have INTEGRITY, meaning they always remain whole. (Root word “Integer” = a whole number.)

Leaders remain whole no matter how many ad hoc situations or circumstances tempt them to cut corners. Leaders don’t cut corners. And leaders don’t get cornered. Or cut off.

Cut one of the arms of a starfish and a new arm will grow Continue reading →

Weaving the Thread of Integrity Straight From Your Gut

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to solidify your sense of integrity. Reading time: 2:38.

Watching a spider weave its web is a lesson in leadership execution and disciplined project management. So resourceful. So committed. So deliberate.

As I watched a spider create something from deep within itself, something that was meant ultimately to help sustain it (with food caught in its threads) and protect it (from prey), I thought how much a leader’s integrity is built and maintained much like the integrity of a spider’s web. From within.

Just like spiders build their webs thread by thread, leaders build their integrity, decision by decision, action by action- each previous action serving as a stepping stone to each subsequent decision, each subsequent action. All decisions -like all threads- connected, coordinated, and concentrated.

Indeed nothing happens until the spider – and the leader—initiate an action, an action that comes from deep within. Consider the spider’s initial action that spawns the dawn of a pending achievement-a full web woven in less than hour.

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Beware of Spraying Praise Like Perfume

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By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea on appreciating more than simply praising your employees.

“Oh, Mrs. Cleaver you look so very nice today,” gushed Eddie Haskell in the old television program Leave It To Beaver.

Leave it to Beaver cast (Beaver (l) and his brother Wally (r) flank Mrs. Cleaver.

The teenager‘s sugar-coated voice oozed with a specious sap of insincerity.

Eddie Haskell sprayed praise as if it were some kind of perfume that choked the air with manipulation. Casting his gratuitous smile and unctuous politeness on anyone and anything, Eddie Haskell killed his victims with faux kindness.

Do you know any Eddie Haskells in your organization?

Worse yet, are you falling into the Eddie Haskell trap of sugar-coating your relationship with your boss?

After all, gratuitous praise (a.k.a. brown-nosing) can become a weapon to stun and stunt others who hold a more powerful position than you do. As Sigmund Freud noted “When someone abused me I can defend myself. Against praise I am defenseless.”

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