Description
Book SynopsisCorporate and government scandals continue to deepen our mistrust of leaders. While credibility is the foundation of effective leadership, most leaders struggle, and sometimes fail, to align their words and their actions. Now for the first time, leadership expert Tony Simons has measured the bottom-line value of business leaders who live by their word and actually do what they say they are going to do. In
The Integrity Dividend, Tony Simons shows how leaders? personal integrity drives the profitability and overall success of their organization. This groundbreaking book is based in on solid research and reveals that businesses led by managers of higher integrity enjoy deeper employee commitment, lower turnover, superior customer service, and substantially higher profitability. This improved performance is the
integrity dividend.
Simons conducted dozens of focus groups, surveyed thousands of employees, collected financial and operational numbers, and interviewed over 10
Table of Contents
Foreword ix
PART ONE: WHAT IS THE INTEGRITY DIVIDEND? 1
1 The Dollar Value of Your Impeccable Word 3
A definition of behavioral integrity and evidence for the dollar return on leaders’ living by their word
2 Executive Sightings of the Integrity Dividend 18
How executives describe the integrity dividend in different contexts
3 Behavioral Integrity Drivers and Payoffs: Why Small Mistakes Can Have Big Costs 39
An overall framework for seeing how small integrity missteps can grow in impact
PART TWO: MANAGING YOUR OWN BEHAVIORAL INTEGRITY: BUILDING TRUST AND CREDIBILITY 53
4 Promise Less, But Do It More Often 55
Selecting fewer key values to emphasize so you can send a clear and consistent message
5 The Language of Living by Your Word: Confronting and Committing 73
Addressing common communication errors that undermine integrity perceptions
6 Behavioral Integrity as a Personal Discipline 96
Developing the power of your own word through delaying gratification, facing fear, self-awareness, vigilance, and other self-management
PART THREE: BEHAVIORAL INTEGRITY AND THE RIPPLE EFFECT: BUILDING AND SUSTAINING A LEADERSHIP CULTURE OF INTEGRITY 135
7 Easing the Middle Manager’s Dilemma 137
Reducing the strain middle managers feel when they are asked to implement policies with which they disagree by giving them opportunities to voice their concerns.
8 Creating a Culture of Accountability 158
Shaping a high-integrity community through an integrated approach to performance appraisal, training, coaching, and incentives, coupled with a leader’s personal enactment of integrity
9 Management Fashions and the Flavor-of-the-Month Club 185
Experimenting and learning without looking foolish
PART FOUR: BROADER APPLICATIONS AND SUMMARY 203
10 The Integrity Dividend and Outside Stakeholders 205
A brief application of emergent integrity principles to relationships outside the company: customers, suppliers, and unions
11 Capturing the Integrity Dividend 223
An encouraging summary of what you can do
Notes 232
Acknowledgments and Dedication 236
About the Author 237
Index 238
