How can you build a team integrity? By modeling some key qualities.
Vulnerability
A leader who is approachable, available, and open to other ideas, thoughts, and even criticism has learned to be a humble person and further develops his or her integrity.
Executives often overlook the power of vulnerability. They confuse vulnerability with being weak. Too often, and for whatever reason (fear, circumstances, office politics, and so on), leaders build walls around themselves. They add one brick at a time until one day they become walled off from their people and their peers. The walls give them protection, but at the same time, the walls hide them from the harsh realities that confront every leader and keep them from communicating effectively. They are insulated and protected, but they are also cut off from others. Behind the walls, they can control and be hidden from failure. Behind the walls, they do not need to trust others or be vulnerable.
Gates, instead of walls, give others access to leaders, which enables leaders to demonstrate that they are trustworthy, open, and humble. Gates also allow leaders to share their visions and values with others. Open gates allow leaders to be vulnerable, to let go, and to trust others, which in turn builds others’ trust in their leaders.
Once a leader takes this step of vulnerability, others will give back, and an effective team can be built on interpersonal integrity.
Self-Disclosure
Leaders need to be the first to share what they stand for, what they value, what they want, what they hope for, and what they are willing to do in order to get where they want to go.
Self-disclosing leaders also need to be willing to risk trusting and being open with others if they want people’s trust and openness in return. The only way to receive others’ trust is to first trust others yourself.
Self-disclosure is risky for a leader. However, most people will appreciate the openness and will buy into a leader’s plans, vision, dreams, and actions more easily than if a leader is walled off.
Prioritizing People-Development
Daniel Pink in his book “Drive” helps us understand that the three main driving forces of motivation are Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. People have a strong need to direct their own lives, a great desire to get better and better at something and a yearning to accomplish things in service of something larger then themselves. Giving people a purpose and then helping them grow and develop so that they become capable of doing great things on their own and with others adds to the integrity, wholeness of a team.
Learning to Change
Another way a leader builds team integrity is through a willingness to make changes. How does a leader do that? How does a leader react when challenged or confronted by peers or subordinates?
Tom Peters is no stranger to change. He insists that embracing change is the single most competitive weapon in business. He suggests the following major points to help leaders effect change:
- Trust/respect/don’t underestimate potential.
- Insist upon (and promote) lifelong learning.
- Share information.
- Get customers involved.
- Emphasize ‘small wins.’
- Tolerate failure to the point of cheerleading.
- Reject ‘turf’ distinctions.”
Trusting Others
When leaders work to create high-trust cultures within their organizations and to ensure a sense of security, people feel that they can trust one another.