Consistency and Integrity

Business concept image of a hand holding marker and write Consistency word isolated on white

Imagine that one day on your way to work a person walks up to you. This person is smiling and asks you to answer a simple question: “What do you look for in a leader? What are the characteristics that, in your opinion, must never be missing in a person who directs an institution? What do you think are the main elements of leadership, what to expect from a leader?” To help you answer, this person begins to make a list: courageous, competent, has vision, dedicated, role model, decision-maker, focuses on people, communicator, consistent…
A medieval warrior might have answered “courageous” without the slightest hesitation. Today this quality would occupy the last place among those persons interviewed by Covey.[1] Out of 54,000 answers, the winners were leader-communicator (nearly 9,000 replies) and leader-consistent, which garnered a consensus of 15,000 responses.

Behind this answer there are many things that are at least worth acknowledging. In the first place, one can affirm that to be consistent invites us to begin our discussion of leadership with character. Consistency – integrity[2] is not something one can take up today because it is in his or her interest to do so, and then tomorrow put it back on the shelf. No! To be consistent implies a way of life, beginning with a conscious choice (I want this lifestyle), and going forward with daily effort to truly be consistent. It is a daily exercise, an effort that must be maintained over time through all it successes and failures. To speak of forming one’s character might seem old-fashioned today, yet it is the basis of all lasting things in our lives. What is the formation that everyone receives from childhood but a daily forging of character? I would even go further and say that to not form one’s character “in time” can be a determinant obstacle to one’s leadership, as well as one’s familial and professional life. And so it is, for changes come on slowly and take time and require consistency until they consolidate into habits. By definition, to be consistent means that over time consistency is chosen as a lifestyle, a choice that requires a continual effort to make it habitual, part of my character. I agree with those who say, “Ninety percent of all leadership failures are character failures.”[3]
Consistency yields trust, which beyond being the key to relationships,  “is the fruit of the trustworthiness of both people and organisations (…) You give me trust and I return it (…) it’s something shared and reciprocated between people.”[4]