– By Ofer A. Lidsky – OCTOBER 2020
As part of my self-growth I came across a very special type of leadership model that was introduced by Mr. Werner Erhard and Prof. Michael Jensen and called Leadership as an ontological/phenomenological model.
Before we start, I wish to make an important distinction regarding leadership. What I mean in the word leadership is not authority. A leader is something much bigger than being someone with authority such as a prime minister. Leadership begins with one leading himself before he can lead others. We are all leaders of our lives.
The basic foundations of a leader have four main ingredients:
- Integrity
- Authenticity
- Being committed to something bigger than oneself
- Being a cause in the matter (a master of reality)
This article focuses on the first and most important ingredient of a leader – INTEGRITY.
Most people think that integrity is honesty. It is true that integrity also contains honesty, but you will be surprised to find out that it unfolds much more than that.
Moreover, studies and work from great leadership masters such as Werner Erhard (the father of self-help) has shown that integrity is a fundamental virtue that has a crucial impact on how things work in life and in business.
To simplify it, integrity is honoring one’s word. But you will now see what it means is a very broad thing.
Now let us examine the real compounds of integrity. Since we said that integrity is honoring one’s word, let us examine what that means. According to work that has been going on for many years, the most current accurate definition of one’s word is:
- What I said I would do, or not do
- What I know to do, or not do
- What is expected of me by others (even if they have not said so)
- What I say is so (assert)
- What I stand for
- Moral, ethical, and legal standards of the societies, groups, and governmental entities in which I enjoy membership
We can now start to understand that integrity is much more than honesty by itself. Moreover, we can now start to evaluate and understand the importance of integrity in our lives and in our businesses.
It is More Important Than You Think
If you will start to examine your life and to look for things that do not work you will be surprised to find out that in almost all cases something or someone is out of integrity and that is the reason for things not working.
Integrity is the fundamental factor for making things work. When someone or something is in integrity, it is whole and complete and works the best way possible. And the other way around is true as well, when someone or something is out of integrity, things will start to breakdown and at some point, will stop working.
Honoring Your Word
No one is 100% in integrity, as human beings we are going to be in situations where we cannot keep our word. As a matter of fact, the more you do in life the bigger the chance you will confront situations where it is not possible to keep your word.
A person of integrity who honors his word will react the moment he understands he cannot keep his word and let the other side know about that in order to fix the integrity and make things work. And that is the most important point, most people ignore this part. Instead of letting the other side know that they are not going to be able to keep their word and to acknowledge the impact that has on the other side, they just try to ignore it or ask for forgiveness.
Be A Leader – Start With Integrity
Once one has understood the importance of being a person of integrity, he will start a long journey of improving and thus making things work much better in life.
Honor your word.
