Trust being lost, all the social intercourse
of men is brought to naught.
LIVY, ROMAN HISTORIAN
THE PRIMARY MEANING of integrity is wholeness or soundness. Integrity implies a unity – an interdependence of parts and completeness or perfection of the whole. But integrity also means adherence to a set of moral, artistic or other values, especially truth, that are – so to speak – outside oneself. And so integrity is closely related to an undeviating honesty in what you say or do. Therefore it is entirely incompatible with any form of insincerity. Consider the personal ideal that Mahatma Gandhi set before himself: ‘What you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony.’ It is a good star for all leaders to follow.
A person of integrity, then, is honest to such a degree that they are incapable of being false to a trust, responsibility or pledge – or to their own standards of conduct. For integrity is the opposite of a condition where a person can be moved by opportunist or self-seeking impulses, which threaten to break up his or her unity as a whole being.
It is a wholeness which stems from being true to truth. We know what it means when people say of a scholar or artist that he or she has integrity. They do not deceive themselves or other people. They are not manipulators. As Oliver Cromwell once said in a letter to a friend, ‘Subtlety may deceive you, integrity never will.’
The critical importance of adhering to truth in the context of leadership – and indeed in all personal relations – is that it creates and maintains trust. Mutual trust between the leader and the led is absolutely vital: Lose that and you have lost everything. Moreover, it is very hard to re-establish it. As the Roman poet Catullus says, ‘Trust, like the soul, once gone, is gone for ever.’
Just why is it that people who have integrity in this sense create trust in others, I shall leave you to reflect upon at your leisure. Certainly, we all know that a person who deliberately misleads us by telling lies sooner or later forfeits our trust. It is a leadership principle which those political leaders of nations who lie to their people have been – and are – slow to learn, or have chosen to ignore. They do so in the naive belief that this time they will be able to get away with it. But they are often found out in the long run, often greatly to their discomfort: for the truth has a way of surfacing into the light of day, however deeply it has been buried in the ground, at dead of night.
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Our world today is plagued by those who practise bribery and corruption or countenance it in others: two sides of the same coin. Corruption, namely, being influenced by using bribery or indulging in any kind of fraudulent activity, is rampant worldwide for one simple reason: Many people occupying roles of leadership are not leaders in the true sense of the word – they are imposters. The discovered instances of their corruption, or other signs of moral depravity, are merely symptoms of their lack of integrity, the backbone of true leadership.
Here the elections of representative democracy are a limited tool for weeding out candidates for high office who are deficient when it comes to personal and professional integrity. The reason lies in the difference between personality and character. Personality is up front – we can see, feel and assess it. Character is hidden; no one can judge it at first sight, only over the course of time, in the trials and tribulations of office. Plutarch, the Greek writer of the second century CE, described the unfortunate Roman politician Gaius Antonius, elected to the highest office in Rome, as ‘a man with no aptitude for leadership in any direction, either good or bad’. And it was said of the Roman emperor Galba that everyone thought he would make a great emperor until he actually occupied the office.
Confucius observed the same phenomenon in his own time and place, which suggests that it is a universal problem:
What about men who are in public life in the present day?
The Master said, ‘Oh, they are of such limited capacity that they hardly count.’
Does this mismatch between holders of the office of leadership and leadership ability matter? Clearly Confucius thought that it did. Otherwise why would he go to such lengths to sow the seeds of a new kind of leadership in China, providing advice for the sages of tomorrow?
Does it matter today? Of course it does. More so, in fact, because the consequences of the lack of leadership in public life – in politics and business life, not least in that form of economic management we call banking – reverberate throughout the world. In our complex and interdependent world, vulnerable to disruption, few things are more important than the quality and credibility of leaders.
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Confucius is insistent upon the importance of trustworthiness in a leader, and he recognized that in order to inspire others’ trust, a leader must have integrity.
The Master said, ‘Duke Wen of Chin was crafty and lacked integrity. Duke Huan of Ch’i, on the other hand, had integrity and was not crafty.’
We can assume that Duke Wen was not acceptable to Confucius – how could he be? For integrity certainly implies, among other things, being trustworthy or reliable in word. It is not an exaggeration to say that Confucius regards integrity as the linchpin of moral character; indeed he uses that very metaphor:
The Master said, ‘I do not see how a man can be acceptable who is untrustworthy in word. When a pin is missing in the yoke-bar of a large cart or in the collar-bar of a small cart, how can the cart be expected to go?’
‘Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful’, Dr Samuel Johnson once said. Clearly integrity on its own is never going to be enough: It is the foundation but not the actual house of leadership.
A willingness to stand up to a powerful head of state when he or she begins to lead in the wrong direction is the test of a minister’s integrity, but it applies beyond the realm of government to all working contexts. All team members, associates or colleagues should be fearless in speaking the truth to their leaders if the occasion calls for it:
Tzu-lu asked about the way to serve a lord. The Master said, ‘Make sure that you are not being dishonest with him when you stand up to him.’
For Confucius the foundation of any government is the trust of the people. He had the wisdom to see that this principle applied in all States, whatever their form of government. Ultimately, he perceived, any government depends upon the trust if not the consent of the people.
And, as Confucius tirelessly taught, rulers ignore this principle at their peril. However well a government provides for the protection of its people or for its sustenance, if it neglects the mutual trust between itself and its subjects, the very foundation of a civilized society is threatened.
Tzu-kung asked about government. The Master said, ‘Give them enough food, give them enough arms, and the common people will have trust in you.’
Tzu-kung said, ‘If one had to give up one of these three, which should one give up first?’
‘Give up arms.’
Tzu-kung said, ‘If one had to give up one of the remaining two, which should one give up first?’
‘Give up food. Death has always been with us since the beginning of time, but when there is no trust, the common people will have nothing to stand on.’
In leadership, example is everything. As the Moorish proverb says, When the shepherd is corrupt, so is his flock.
Chi K’ang Tzu succeeded his father as the chief minister of Confucius’ home in the native state of Lu in 492 BCE, holding office for more than twenty-five years. On several occasions he sought advice from a neighbour already renowned for his practical wisdom.
The prevalence of thieves was a source of trouble to Chi K’ang Tzu who asked the advice of Confucius. Confucius answered, ‘If you yourself were not a man of desires, no one would steal even if stealing carried a reward.’
The phrase ‘a man of desires’ is rather obscure. In this context, it probably means outright greed, covetousness and corruption. They all amount to what is essentially theft, for a corrupt ruler, minister or official is in effect stealing money from their own people. They are as guilty as a common thief, even though the act takes place in secret and all too often escapes the kind of scrutiny that leads to justice.
Confucius, as always, stresses to those who came to him for guidance on how to become good leaders and leaders for good, the power of good example. The higher you are, he implies, the longer your shadow – the influence of the example you provide. If people see those occupying positions of leadership taking their own illegal or immoral shortcuts to wealth, for example, by seeking out bribes or by acting corruptly in other ways, will they not be tempted to follow suit? Of course they will, especially if they see their betters getting away with it. Such is the power of bad example.
Given, however, good example on the part of their leaders, few people will resort to theft or – by extension – to corrupt practices. And this will be the case even if – Confucius adds, doubtless with a smile – they were offered a considerable reward for doing so.
Is it true? Does it work? Of course it does. The prophet Muhammad and the first four caliphs of Islam, for example, led simple lives and were scrupulous in all financial matters, and corruption was unknown in the Muslim states of their day. The first president of Botswana and his three successors set their faces against corruption, and as a result Botswana became the least corrupt nation in Africa.
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Political leaders with such integrity shine like stars in their generation, however dark the sky may be. Of Joseph Addison (1672–1719), for example, who held political office, his friend and fellow poet Alexander Pope could write:
Statesman, yet friend to truth; of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear;
Who broke no promise, serv’d no private end,
Who gain’d no title, and who lost no friend.
Such a statesman was George Washington (1732–99), first president of the United States and an example of uprightness to all his successors – some of whom have dropped the torch. In a letter to James Madison, Washington writes, ‘It is an old adage that honesty is the best policy. This applies to public as well as private life, to states as well as to individuals.’
The presence of strong ambition in a person – I mean, ambition in the pejorative sense of an inordinate striving after rank and wealth – will usually test their integrity. For the promise of shortcuts to the top at the expense of one’s moral values is sometimes just too tempting. Yet those who sacrifice their integrity upon the altar of ambition may well live to regret it bitterly. As a Chinese proverb expresses it, he who sacrifices his integrity to achieve his ambition burns a picture to obtain the ashes.
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You must be the change that you
wish to see in the world.
MAHATMA GANDHI