Integrity: The Thank You Note Investment

We do an exercise in our leadership trainings where the students write a thank you letter to someone who is very important in their life. They must have their mailing address because the letters are sealed, stamped and we mail them right after the session. Students normally take a significant amount of time writing their letters - sometimes a full hour.

At a recent training, a student noted that his letter was probably the longest letter of any type he had ever written. Ever.

A) As a leadership trainer that is a pretty cool thing to hear. That he (and a ton of other students) put in that much effort into something as simple as writing a thank you letter. It reinforced my belief that our work as leadership trainers, especially in the student market, is more meaningful than just helping leaders learn how to lead their team or organization. Most of the skills and concepts we handle at leadership conferences are highly valuable life skills that, when properly applied, will enable the students to be great at whatever they do.

B) A very cool leadership lesson popped up after the students turned in their letters. It was nine at night. The students were wore out from a full day of high-energy training on how to serve their organization effectively during their term. They had just turned in their thank you letters (again, some of them took almost an hour to complete.)

I held up the pile of letters and asked the group how would you feel if I just took the pile and threw it away? They responded with, I would cry, I would be very mad at you, I would feel like I just wasted a ton of time, etc.

I asked why? Of course they said because they spent so much time and what they said and who they said it to were both very important to them.

I then asked them to remember that feeling when they are half way through their year and they are thinking about not applying or acting on the concepts and tools we spent all day talked about. Not doing something with the learning from the day is just like me throwing away the letters (which I didn't do.) However, in order to do that, you have to care about what you are doing and saying as a leader like you care about what you put in your letter. Maybe it won't be the same level of caring (our personal relationships should always be more important to us than our professional associations), but it should be the same style of caring - passionate, important, meaningful, a guiding force in your life, etc.

It was a very cool moment. Thanks to the elected student leaders of the Oregon Career and Technical Student Leadership Organizations (FFA, FBLA, DECA, SkillsUSA, HOSA, FCCLA and AOFC) for creating it.

Integrity: Don't Serve It

Great line from the bottom of Seth Godin's post today...



In my favorite hotel's kitchen, there's a big sign on the way out to the dining room:


"If you're not proud of it, don't serve it."



This is true for all of us in the context of what we are called to serve everyday - a speech, a conversation, a clean floor, a taught student, a completed project, etc.

Fostering Relationships: Three Ideas for Bringing the Best Out of Others

As you read this post, you might wonder, "why the forks in the pictures?" People are like forks. They can be used for good or bad based on the hands they are in. Also, I have a new keynote slide show titled "The Fork." It makes fork-related leadership points: the eating fork, the tuning fork and the fork in the road.

If you are in charge of leading others, the following list highlights three practices to maximize performance.


You need to decide whether or not your people are in the right job. Knowing this requires an intimate understanding of the person and the job responsibilities. My mother was a high-level leader in a hospital for years. A lady worked for her that was a hard worker, but consistently under-performed. Mom found out she was in the wrong position. This lady was an introvert and was working in a very social position. Once mom placed her in a more solo position, she thrived. She was able to give her best because her best was asked of her. When you have people in the wrong type of position, they are asked to engage a weakness every day. Only when people are asked to engage a strength can they perform at a high level.

You also have to make job placement about the table, not the person. It's about the position and the behaviors they demonstrate in that position. Don't make it about them personally. Talk about the duties of the job and what it takes to succeed in it. This will result in everyone being able to keep a non-personal point of view. There are enough reasons for personal squabbles in the workplace - whether someone is in the right position or not doesn't have to be one of them.


This decision is about clarity and expectations. People can naturally give their best when they know what their best should look like, feel like and move like. As a leader, you have to decide what "an amazing job" is for each individual. You then have to put language to it and get them talking about it. Get things out in the open. Keep an eye on their progress and then guide them through the gap between average and amazing. This is where high level leaders and performers live.

Once you get the gap between average and amazing identified, work with your team on getting one percent closer to amazing. Start small. Start with one skill. One process. One job. Figure that out, perfect it and then move on to another. Before you know it, you and your team will be much closer to amazing than average. Just make sure you, nor they ever feel like amazing has been reached. This can be just as dangerous as never reaching for it at all. (See my post on the dirty little secret of high performers.)


I did a post a few months ago about the difference between MySpace leaders and YourSpace leaders. To bring the best out of others, you have to care about them. You must have a genuine interest in seeing them personally and professionally succeed and then communicate this by asking questions, learning what is good with them, what is a challenge for them, etc. These interactions need to be positive in nature, even when helping them improve. Again, make it about the behavior or the job, not the person. Always coach up (here are a few suggestions on coaching strategies) and look for the good. The bad will reveal itself immediately. The positive is sometimes more elusive to find. It is your job to recognize the positive and emphasize it daily.

Integrity: Inspect What You Expect

Leaders check-in on what they expect to improve. Not for keeping score or ego-boost purposes, but because improvement is at the core of what effective leaders do and they make it a priority to stay on top of things.

A few weeks ago we conducted the first of five speaking skills conferences in the month of January for members of the Oklahoma FFA Association. The great little town of Dover hosted this first training. A good friend of mine is a Dover High School administrator and he came over to say hi. I thanked him for hosting the event and for stopping by. He replied with a very leaderly statement...

"Well, I expect good things today and I always inspect what I expect."

Ask yourself this question, what are you expecting from others today and what is your system for tracking goals, actions, improvement and/or decline?

Regarding your expectations, keep them high, look for the good and remember to separate the person from the performance.

Integrity: What Produces Competency and Trust?

(Download and hang up the PDF...)

Integrity: The Final Thoughts on Leadership

The Final Thoughts
by Rhett Laubach

(This is from a slide show I use in my keynotes. To view the actual slide show, click here.)

Take time to relax… you deserve it.

Grow trust… everything grows from there.

Find balance… it does exist.

Smile… you’ll look much better.

Seek knowledge, not data… data is cheap, knowledge is priceless.

Be enthusiastic… others will follow.

Enjoy your friends… you’ll have more.

Be a student… your brain will thank you for it.

Risk before value… value before valuable.

Communicate clearly… clear is rare.

Buck the system… or the system will buck you.

Create something beautiful… I need to be inspired.

Keep going… the view is phenomenal.

Everything is connected… neglect nothing.

Be a friend… to everyone.

See things differently… you’ll see different things.

Be a team player… the team will let you play.

Make a splash… make it big.

Leave your mark… leave it today.

Ask why… there is a much more to know.

Integrity: When Attending Conferences Is a Bad Thing

During the busiest month for conferences and conventions (October), it is relevant for us to take a quick look at the biggest downside of attending conferences - particularly leadership or other training conferences.

Attending conferences can be a bad thing when you don't keep the promises you make to yourself once you get back home.

One of the upsides of attending conferences is you get to learn new ideas, new methods, and challenge yourself to do better, perform better, and be better. However, if you fail to follow through on some or all of these commitments, you might as well have stayed home in the first place. Our most detrimental broken promises are the ones we break with ourselves.

So, set big goals, bring out the best in yourself and keep it out even after you get back home.

Integrity: Leadership is Improvement

Stan Clark, President of Stan Clark Companies and co-founder of the famous Eskimo Joe's in Stillwater, Oklahoma, passed on to me some simplifying leadership wisdom he recently received...

"Leadership is improvement."

Integrity: The End Result of Authenticity

Read these words in the context of how others respond to you being yourself as a leader...

Authenticity leads to transparency.

Transparency leads to
honesty.

Honesty leads to confidence.

Confidence leads to trust.

After all, trust is what it is all about.

Integrity: The Clark Kent Effect

The corporate and education worlds are full of people who want to be Superman. They want to possess super leadership powers that will allow them to communicate at the speed of light, inspire others to leap buildings in a single bound and see straight through the walls people/competitors/potential buyers put up.

The challenge here is the Clark Kent Effect. If you want to be Superman, you have to be Clark Kent, also. You have to be okay with not being in power. You have to understand that Superman was a hero not because of his powers, but because of what he did with his powers. This strength of character, inspiring integrity and service-mindedness lived within Clark Kent. It just so happened he had the powers to help others in extraordinary ways as Superman.

If you want to be Superman (or Superwoman), be Clark Kent first. Be yourself. Be humble. Be a klutz. Be a person of integrity.

Integrity: Output vs. Outcome

Expert Leaders understand a project's success needs to based on both the overall outcome, as well as each team member's output.

The concept of hard-work is not directly labeled in the Personal Leadership Insight "Ten Essentials of Leadership" structure (Vision, Integrity, Innovative, Wise Judgment, etc.) However, internally we have always housed this very important leadership concept under the Integrity Essential. We've believe a person of integrity not only does what he/she says they will do, but they give 100% to everything they do.

When judging the success/failure of a project, the final outcome many times has too many moving parts that are out of our control. Thus, this metric can sometimes be a poor test of true success/failure.

However, each team member's output during the project is controllable. Call it what you want, energy, enthusiasm, passion, drive, or ambition, high-level output is what makes great teams outperform the competition. Here are a few of the dynamics that create high-level output...

1. Everyone on the team is engaging a core strength.

2. The team leader is trusted.

3. The mission of the team was created by the team and/or each team member went through an "ownership" process.

4. Everyone on the team is clear about why their individual output matters to the team's success.

5. There is an established protocol for how decisions are made.

If your team is not functioning at the level you know they can, cross-reference this list with the dynamics of your team and look for disparities.

Finally, output discussions are only relevant after a team has determined how and how often it is measured. Once clarity of expectations is obtained, high-level output becomes easier and easier to create and sustain.

Integrity: Why we Aren't Always Honest

With expert level leadership skills comes expert level responsibilities and expert level pressures.  Everyone knows it is important to be honest.  Not everyone knows how to remain honest in your dealings with others while having to deal with high level pressure.  Below are a few reasons why we aren't always honest:

1.  Self-preservation. 

2.  Relationship-preservation.

3.  The truth will lead to a difficult conversation.

4.  We can't remember what the truth is (I.e. we are continuing to string lies together.)

5.  We will lose something important to us.

The real challenge here is not identifying the items on this list (which is actually much longer), the real challenge is two-fold:  1)  recognizing the reason for the dishonesty in the moment and 2)  figuring out how to stop trading our trust with others for these reasons.  Obviously the reasons we are dishonest cut to the core.  We deeply want to protect ourselves and our relationships.  We want to avoid conflict with others at all costs.  This only adds to the difficulty of mastering the honesty equation.  There are too many compelling reasons to not be truthful. 

Expert leaders fight this fight every day.  Expert Leaders are very self-aware of their core beliefs and values and they behave accordingly.  The solution to the honesty equation is complicated and varied.  However, I suggest you consider attaching a strong positive anchor to telling the truth.  Dishonesty produces a tremendous amount of unnecessary stress in our lives.  Continually remind yourself the short-term stress of honesty is tiny when compared to the overwhelming weight of lies stacked on lies.

Integrity: The Value of Leadership Conferences

John Maxwell once said that any individual who wishes to improve their leadership expertise needs to have at least three things in their life:  the right people, the right media (books, videos, music, etc.), and the right personal and professional development experiences.

I firmly believe this to be true - especially that last one.  As a full-time speaker and trainer for over 15 years, I have attended literally thousands of conferences.  The change that happens in people who experience leadership conferences is overwhelming and comes in many different forms.

At a recent conference for college level student leaders, an attendee summed it up like this, "I am normally disappointed by the choices I make in life.  This weekend I have surprised myself and those around me by the positive actions I have done, the things I have learned and the people I have met."

The coolest part of watching her say that is she did it while standing in front of all her peers.  That one act is probably one of the most courageous things she has ever done.  A defining moment.

Integrity: The Three Leader Transformations

There are three transformations individuals must go through before they become highly effective leaders...

Entry Leader to Emerging Leader
This occurs when an individual decides to use their influence for positive.  

Learning lessons:

1) Everyone is an Entry Leader because everyone has influence.
2) We teach that positive behavior is a prerequisite for effective leadership.

Emerging Leader to Engaged Leader
This occurs when a positive individual gains followers.

Learning lessons:

1) Being positive is important.  Being others-focused and specific with your "others" is also important.
2) "Nice guys finish last" is a popular theory when it comes to movement up the leadership ladder.  However, in the long run, the positive individual gains more respect, more responsibility and more satisfaction.  This positivity infiltrates their language, their emotions, their thinking, their focus, their managing and their leading.

Engaged Leader to Expert Leader
This occurs when a positive individual creates significant value for their followers.

Learning lessons:

1) Effective leaders are primarily focused on and concerned with creating value.
2) To become a highly effective leader, you must have all three - positive behavior, followers that trust you and value creation.

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Integrity: The Greatest Trait of All Is...

Humility.

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Integrity: The Secret of Marriage

The power of once.

Say I love you once a day.
Go on a date once a week.
Talk about your relationship once a month.
Take a vacation once a year.
Do all of these and you can do the most important once...

Get married once a lifetime.

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General: Influence Signals

Following are five direct ways to signal a positive influence to others:

1. Care-isma - People naturally like to be around people who are pleasant, joyful and smiling. It is a natural response to a natural trait of influential people who are great at attracting others. Call it charisma if you want. I prefer to call it care-isma. It demonstrates you care about your attitude, you care about the influence you have on others, and you care about others.

If you want more influence, have care-isma.

2. Encouragement - Every person at some level wants, needs or enjoys praise from others. I recently encouraged a couple of my friends and they said they weren't looking for approval from others. Well, there is a difference between approval (which occurs after the performance) and encouragement (which occurs before and after the performance).

If you want more influence, encourage more.

3. Visit C.V.S. - If clarity in communication is integral to your responsibilities, get and digest Made To Stick by Dan and Chip Heath. It is relevant, timely and has changed the way we teach communication. In the book, they discuss the Knowledge Gap, which says that people get curious when they notice a gap between what they know and what they don't know. And if that gap isn't filled quickly, they either get more curious, irritated, stressed or simply check out. This dynamic happens everyday in your communication to others. You know things that others want or need to know. The more concrete, more visual and more simple you can make these communication streams, the better. Just remember C.V.S. in your communication - Concrete, Visual, Simple.

If you want more influence, visit C.V.S.

4. Take Responsibility - This is a simple fact of process - with more influence comes more responsibility and with more responsibility comes more influence. Accept more responsibility that is in alignment with your core strength and talents.

If you want more influence, accept more responsibility.

5. H.E.R. Work - As a Christian, I do His work. I strive to be a strong, Christian role model for my wife, my daughters and others. As a business owner, speaker and teacher of leadership, I strive to do H.E.R. work. Hard work. Efficient work. Remarkable work. Six words to sum up an influential person's work ethic.

If you want more influence, do H.E.R. work.

These five signals will demonstrate to others that you have chosen to use your influence (which is a given) for positive (which is a choice)

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General: Grant Me Leadership...

God grant me...


Vision to see opportunity.

Integrity to be what I say.


Innovativeness to create value.

Wise Judgment to choose right.


Service mindedness to be significant.

Processed Goals to live purposefully.


Emotional Maturity to act with control and grace.

Skill Assessment to engage my strength.


Fostered Relationships to experience the richness of life.

Masterful Communication to bring clarity into an unclear world.

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Integrity: Students Making a Difference!

We were speaking to a phenomenal group of young people tonight with the Oklahoma FCCLA and they blew us away with their leadership. First of all they broke out of every comfort zone they had to do leadership in multiple ways - they socialized with strangers, they created teams where none existed before, they acted silly and they were on total high receive all night long. And after we (and probably they) thought they couldn't give anymore, we asked them to stretch a little further and write a letter to someone in their life they appreciate, admire and call their hero. Some of the students took literally 30 minutes drafting this letter. They spent a tremendous amount of emotional energy after a long day of spending social, physical and intellectual energy just to say thank you to their mentor. They addressed the letters, sealed them, and they will go out in the mail tomorrow. Very cool stuff. Sometimes I wish the adult leaders I mix and mingle with had half the energy and integrity that youth groups like this one have.

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Integrity: 9 Ways to Keep Commitments

Doing what you say you will do is at the heart of living with integrity. Here are some commitment-keeping thoughts…

1. Know when to say no

2. Stick to a list of priorities

3. Under-promise and over-deliver

4. Gain clarity on all time and duty expectations

5. Apologize when necessary

6. Remember that you aren’t what you do once, you are what you do repeatedly

7. Respect people’s time and show up early

8. You make time for the important things

9. If you add a commitment, take one away

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The Unmade Leader: The Jinga Moment

We are all born with others trusting us. The human baby is the international symbol of trust, kindness and innocence.

At some moment, that trust is switched off. It is similar to the Hasbro® game of Jinga. We build a tower of trust blocks. We then begin a precarious process of taking the blocks out (breaking trust with others) and placing them back on top (trying to rebuild that trust). We feel like we are succeeding, but in reality we are breaking down the integrity of our trust tower and if this pattern continues it will fall and the rebuilding process will be long and arduous.

Effective leaders understand the power of developing the correct patterns in life that serve to maintain their tower as is and they avoid the process of taking out and replacing trust blocks. They keep their blocks in place. If and when trust is diluted or damaged, they take the time to very carefully put the block right back in place. It takes time. It takes focus. But it is worth it.

An example is the pattern of Stop, Drop and ROLLL....

Stop... When you recognize that trust has been diluted or damaged, stop what you are doing and respond to it.

Drop... Drop your pride, drop your emotion (very difficult to do) and drop any old negative patterns that you know will prevent you from getting to the ROLLL.

ROLLL...

Respect the other person first. When trust has been damaged, you need to focus on the person involved, not the process. Show them you recognize you were wrong. Apologize. Be humble. Ask their opinion on the situation and deal with the circumstances second. Deal with the relationship first.

Open the dialogue with seeking to understand the other person’s position first. Then work to help them understand your position and interests second.

Listen Like a Leader. After the dialogue has begun, your task is to listen like a leader. Effective leaders listen intently, actively, purposefully, and openly. They don’t just wait to talk. They purposefully listen.

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Integrity: Placed... Re-engineering Responsibility

A select few in this world are chosen to serve in a position of influence. They are placed as protectors of integrity and faith in a world of indifference and false-witness. Many assume this responsibility is a choice - a conscience decision. I believe this assumption encourages responsibility to be viewed lightly and without the appropriate level of intensity. When looked at from the point of view of the former, it becomes clear the position has chosen the person.

This demands respect and humbles the recipient into action. If you are in a position of authority and\or influence, it is your duty to hold yourself accountable and have the highest level of expectations in regards to your conduct and performance! You were placed in that position because you are part of a much larger plan! It is your responsibility to perform at your personal best, thereby inspiring the same in others!

So, how is this discussion relevant to you and your life?

First of all, it is human nature to desire to understand the meaning of life and why things happen as they do.

Secondly, we as a country desperately need to infuse a hefty dose of personal responsibility into the national psyche. Starting one person at a time.

It is also important to note this discussion is not meant to serve as a cop-out for those in less-fortunate or under-privileged situations. This is certainly not a ''life just did this to me'' philosophy. This philosophy and the supporting arguments serves the purpose of re-engineering the responsibility of those in power and influence in America – no matter the size of that influence.

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Integrity: What I Believe

There are three things I most believe in that direct everything I do and everything I am.

Belief I

I believe God is the creator of heaven and earth and I believe Jesus Christ is my personal savior. Which is a good thing because I struggle at life sometimes. But every time I make a mistake, I know He's got my back. This belief also allows me to have a self-worth that isn't based on my behavior or other people's opinions or in comparison with my peers or society. My self-worth is worth more than I will ever be able to comprehend (so is yours by the way.)

Belief II

I believe my most important task in life is to be a great husband. Three reasons why...

1. My wife is my best friend and I want to keep her loved and happy! It is a phenomenal place to be when you know that your actions every day, big and small, are bringing joy to your best friend. I also have the benefit of having a strong mental anchor that keeps me focused on how lucky I am to have the most beautiful woman in the world (she's pretty cute on the outside, too) as my best friend. I still vividly remember the first time I met Ashley in January of 1997 and I still remember thinking, "Whoever marries this gal is going to be one lucky guy."
2. I believe that being the best husband I can be is the most important thing I can do to be the best father I can be. This means that of all the things I need to do to be a great father, and that list is long, doing what I need to do to be a great husband will have the greatest impact on my daughters. I want them to see and feel and know what true love and commitment to another person looks like.
3. I believe many of society's ills would be closer to being solved if we had a wide-spread epidemic of fathers being better fathers. Especially the fathers of our young boys. Because if we don't solve that problem, helping the fathers of boys be great fathers, then we have a self-perpetuating problem that nothing else will wholly fix.
   

Belief III

I believe everyone is born with what it basically takes to be a positive leader. We were all born with ears to listen, not just hear; mouths to build others up, not just tear others down; eyes to see the good, not just the bad; minds to learn, not just to waste; and hearts to care, not just to beat. The great leadership question of our time is,"Are leaders born or made?" I believe leaders are born and then they are un-made. Our ability to listen, to build others up, to see the good, to learn and to care become filtered and weakened and neglected and over time the leader in us becomes un-made. We teach each other not to be leaders by criticizing and demoralizing those who step away from the pack and risk boldly. We have also created too many very attractive reasons to be a negative leader.

• At home - We can get a $99 divorce and have half of our adult peers to lean on for reasons why it was acceptable and prudent to not follow-through on the most important commitment we will ever make.
• At school - We can cheat on our tests and still get the grades we need because we are mainly tested on whether or not we got the answer right on paper instead of being tested on how we went about answering the question.
• At work - We can lie, cheat and steal our way to the highest rung on the "success ladder" and no one is there to boldly convince us that we aren't truly a success because our ladder is leaning on a wall of dishonesty, deceit and moral bankruptcy.

These three beliefs operate as magnets for how the ten PLI Essentials manifest themselves in my life. They impact greatly my Vision, my Integrity, my Innovativeness, my Wise Judgment, my Service-Mindedness, my Goal Processing, my Skill Assessment, my Emotional Maturity, my ability to Foster Relationships and my Masterful Communication. What impacts yours?

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Integrity: Quotes

“With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity.”
Keshavan Nair

“Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous, half possession.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Integrity is so perishable in the summer months of success.”
Vanessa Redgrave

“You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
Winston Churchill

“In looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you.”
Warren Buffett

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Integrity: Where do you come from?

WHERE I COME FROM
By Rhett Laubach (circa 1991)

Where I come from there is a spot of grass in an open field
The field is a couple of acres in size and the grass soft and friendly
The closest highway is a country mile away
The closest city is thirty city miles away

Not many strangers pass by this field
Course, not many strangers pass by anywhere around there
Where I come from no one is a stranger
Just a friend you have not made yet

Where I come from you can stand in that field and feel safe
The kind of safe you can not get from locks or whistles
That field and grass hold more than security where I come from
They hold a window to a way of life

You can stand in the middle of that field on a clear night
You can see every single star in the sky
You lay down in that soft grass and just stare
The only noise you hear is the distant howl of the coyote
The sound of your thoughts

Where I come from life is simple and clean
Where I come from family, friends and the land are paramount
Taking care of all three is at the very being of who we are
It is where we draw our strength and our values

We understand who we are because we have had time to think about it
That is why we respect that field and that grass so much
When you are lying there in the cool night, just you and the coyotes
The land and the heavens become one

This place of freedom which I hold in such regard
Is right behind the house – the home where I grew up
Where I come from heaven was in my own backyard

If I could have one wish
It would be for everyone to have a backyard like that
Their own little heaven just to think, feel ultimately safe
Appreciate where they come from

I am who I am because of this life building experience called where I come from.

[Download PDF version]

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Integrity: The 5 C's of Leadership Effectiveness

Personal Leadership Insight is a framework for leadership development. One or more of the ten PLI Essentials is an area of development need for all leaders. However, PLI is not a framework for leadership effectiveness. That is why we have the 5 C's...

Clarity

Spend time chasing ambiguity out of your life. Get clear on your strengths, your areas of weakness, your mission in life, your organization's purpose, etc.

Commitment

Trust is at the heart of a leader's effectivness. Everytime you give your word, keep it. (Especially to yourself.)

Change

Like the old saying goes, "When you're green, you're growing. When you're ripe, you rot!"

Commune

Life and leadership are team sports. Strategy, execution, competency, etc. are important, but all are secondary to the human side of leadership.

Create

The only test of leadership that matters is the answer to this question, "What value are you bringing to the table today?"

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Integrity: Stop, Drop and Roll!

How do we safely and effectively reconcile when we act without integrity? This is a difficult question to answer. Popular theory is that a positive attitude thrives on a bad memory. Meaning we can be more optimistic about our future when we can forget the bad choices we made in our past. This is certainly true to a certain extent. When I think about times I acted in a manner that wasn’t congruent with my core values it tends to knock the wind out of my sails. However, I think a better theory is that a positive attitude thrives when we don’t dwell on our bad memories.

But that is all in the past. Let’s deal with what we do have control over – bad choices we make today. The next time you make a mistake and your behavior does not line up with your core values…

STOP – Recognize it when it happens and choose to deal with it now.

DROP – Drop your pride and say I’m sorry if it is an interpersonal situation or drop that habit if it is an intrapersonal situation.

ROLL – After you have sought out reconciliation, move on! My good friend and associate Kelly Barnes says that we must seek to be the BEST; Better Every Single Time. Just seek to be better next time.

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Integrity: The Fujita Scale for Trust

We were discussing the PLI Essential of Integrity today and we developed a Trust Scale. Every effective leader understands and uses trust power to positively influence others. This trust scale doesn't speak to the importance of trust - it is always important. This scale helps us examine and conceptualize the impact of trust when it is lost. The Fujita Scale is how they rate the wind speed and thus the destructive force of tornadoes. F1 - lowest speeds/limited damage. F5 - highest speeds/dog is in the next state. The Trust Scale is rated from T1 - impact of trust loss is low to T5 - you might as well physically be in the barn pictured here.

When you lose trust with someone, the way you can rate the impact is based on your present shared interests and on the level of connections that person has that you have vested interests in. So, if I lose trust with a stranger in Portland because I didn't let them have that cab, that is a T1. However, if I lose trust with my wife or with a key client that is heavily connected in my niche market, that is a T5.

The primary reason for rating the lost trust is to know what to do next. If you just had a T1 come through your life, apologize and move on. If a T5 blows you to New Zealand, you have some serious damage control to do.

However, there are two secrets that the most effective and influential leaders know and leverage.

1. Someone might be a T1 today, but a T5 tomorrow. That is why the maintaining of trust across all levels of relationships is vital to a leader's ability to grow and strengthen their personal influence.
2. Trust has a cumulative effect. A year's worth of T1's can have a very destructive force. And in terms of my preference, I would rather work with someone who causes one F5 in our relationship, learns from it and regains my trust than someone who continually throws F1's my way. The reason for this is that I judge people's performance based on what they do habitually, not on what they do one or two times.

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General: Understanding the Pitfalls of Missing Links

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The Personal Leadership Insight Blog is built around our ten PLI Essentials. As you peruse through the posts, you will find each post discusses one of the ten. For deeper study into each Essential, click on an Essential in the PLI Tags list in the right-hand sidebar.

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Integrity: Coach, I Weigh 160

You have more power in you than you know.

Invest six short minutes and watch this video clip of someone tapping into their full power.

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Integrity: The Way to Loyalty

Stephen Covey on Integrity...

"One of the most important ways to manifest loyalty is to be loyal to those who are not present. In doing so, we build the trust of those who are present. When you defend those who are absent, you retain the trust of those present."

Think about how you can manifest that in your relationships today.

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Integrity: The Impact of Authenticity

Know your beliefs... know your strengths...

Act on both...

Be authentic...

Period.

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