Inside Books
January 2009
The Integrity Dividend:
Leading by the Power of Your Word
By Tony Simons
(Jossey-Bass, 256 pp., $27.95)
While many books have been written on effective leadership and integrity in the workplace, few have been able to measure the impact that such management has yielded on the bottom line—until now.
A recent study of the consequences and dollar significance of behavioral integrity in the hotel industry reports that employees’ sense of their supervisor’s strong behavioral integrity might be a more important performance driver than employee satisfaction, sense of trust, commitment, or feelings of fairness.
Author Tony Simons explains how behavioral integrity—or the ability to keep one’s promises and show the values one possesses, while being perceived by others as doing so—“is a cornerstone on which trust and leadership must be built.”
Simon[sic] describes how leaders can manage their behavioral integrity by promising less and talking fewer values. Leaders should also openly acknowledge their limits and uncertainty, embrace conflict, and communicate their promises clearly. Finally, leaders can empower others toward performance excellence by publicly defining behavioral integrity, linking behavioral values metrics to financial metrics, and encouraging accountability.
Each chapter concludes with a summary of main concepts, as well as ideas to consider and apply. The book also contains a self-assessment and a survey for others to complete regarding the reader’s promise-keeping abilities.
Ann Pace
http://www.astd.org/TD/Archives/2009/Jan/0901_Books.htm
Integrity Pays Off
December 31, 2008
Integrity Pays Off 
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Leaders Who Keep Their Word Enhance The Bottom Line
It seems like common sense that the integrity of leaders is key to their success and the financial success of their companies.
But no one has ever proved that this is true. In his new book, The Integrity Dividend (Jossey-Bass, October 2008), Tony Simons, reveals the results of an in-depth study he did with thousands of employees at a U. S. hotel chain.
Simons has found that employees who believe that their managers can be counted on to keep their word, show deeper commitment to the business, leading to lower employee turnover and superior customer service which in turn results in higher profitability. “Leaders’ consistency between word and action supports employee trust and gives them clear direction,” he explains. “It promotes engagement of employees hearts in their work, which leads to a host of discretionary contributions, from enhanced initiative to problem solving to customer service. It trickles down through the organization to create a leadership culture of integrity . . . Behavioral integrity also increases the strength and efficiency of relationships with customers, suppliers, and unions.” All of these improvements can be expected to show up on the bottom line as “the integrity dividend.”
Yet, keeping one’s word and practicing one’s stated values on a daily basis is extremely difficult to do. For most managers, real life interferes and managers unwittingly undermine their own credibility. In the book, Simons explains the factors that drive and impede integrity, including mission statements (as often a minus as a plus), company cultures, leadership hierarchies, communication habits, and personal discipline.
Simons points out that not only must leaders be credible, but they must also be seen as such. Employees bring their own “baggage” of expectations and past hurts to the task of interpreting their boss’ actions. Unfortunately, when employees misunderstand their boss’ request, they typically blame . . . the boss. Therefore communication has to be ultra clear. “When you take the subjectivity of perception into account, the leader’s already challenging task of maintaining credibility is made all the more difficult,” says Simons. The book includes many exercises that managers can use to analyze their own levels of integrity; recognize how they are perceived by those around them; and enhance the power of their word.
“Preserving credibility and maintaining people’s sense that you live by your word means avoiding casual overpromises and respecting the weight of your words. It means openly acknowledging your uncertainty, the limits to your ability, and other awkward truths . . . Communicating this way is not automatic for most people. It has to be learned and practiced,” writes Simons.
Some people say that talk is cheap. But when it comes to leadership, talk can be very expensive. When leaders or managers speak and then do not “walk their talk,” it costs them credibility. And credibility makes or breaks companies.
Contributed by: Information Strategies, Inc.
http://www.snohomishtimes.com/snohomishNEWS.cfm?inc=story&newsID=230
