I’ve learned a lot of hard lessons over 25 years in this work. I’ve seen leaders rise and fall, organizations thrive and struggle, and teams rally together or completely fracture. And through it all, I’ve watched one quality separate the most effective leaders from those who merely occupy leadership positions: integrity.
Integrity is your superpower as a leader. It’s also your Achilles heel if you neglect it.
When I talk about integrity, I’m not talking about some abstract moral concept you check off in a compliance training. I’m talking about the daily, often difficult work of ensuring your words and your actions stay in close alignment. Because when what you say and what you do drift apart—even slightly—you’re not just being inconsistent. You’re actively eroding the foundation of your leadership influence.
The Trust Equation
Let me put this plainly: trust is the currency of leadership. You can have the best strategy, the most impressive credentials, and the sharpest business acumen, but if your people don’t trust you, none of it matters. And integrity is how you earn and maintain that trust.
Think about it this way. When you tell your team you value work-life balance but then send emails at 11 PM or 1 AM and expect immediate responses, what are you really communicating? When you say transparency is important but withhold information when it’s convenient to you and your objectives, what message does that send? When you preach accountability but make excuses when you miss a deadline, how does that land with the people watching you?
Your team notices. Trust me. They are always watching. And they always notice.
The Foundation That Changes Everything
I like to think of integrity as the foundation of a building. You can design the most beautiful structure imaginable. You can have stunning architecture, innovative features, and impressive scale. But if the foundation is compromised, the entire building becomes unstable. It doesn’t matter how good it looks from the outside; eventually, the cracks will show.
Your leadership is no different. Without integrity, your influence becomes fragile and unreliable. You might maintain your position for a while, but you’ll never build the kind of lasting impact that great leaders create.
The leaders I respect most aren’t perfect. They make mistakes, they have bad days, they sometimes get things wrong. But they have something more important than perfection: consistency between what they say and what they do. When they mess up, they own it. When they make a commitment, they keep it. When they establish a standard, they live it themselves first.
The Daily Practice of Alignment
I’ve discovered something important throughout my career. Maintaining integrity isn’t a one-time decision. It’s a daily practice, a constant calibration between your words and your actions.
I challenge you to reflect on a time when you experienced a leader whose words and actions didn’t match. How did that make you feel? Maybe it was a boss who talked about valuing your input but never actually listened. Maybe it was an executive who preached belt-tightening while enjoying lavish perks. Whatever it was, those specific behaviors created a disconnect that likely damaged your trust and engagement.
Now flip the question: Where might you be creating that same disconnect for your team? This isn’t about shame or guilt—it’s about honest self-assessment. Is there anything you need to address because your words and actions are currently out of alignment? Maybe you’ve been talking about priorities that your calendar doesn’t reflect. Maybe you’ve been asking for behaviors you’re not modeling yourself.
The good news? You can start correcting this today. Right now. Pick one area where you know there’s misalignment and commit to closing that gap. Then communicate about it transparently with your team. Acknowledging the disconnect and taking visible steps to fix it actually builds more trust than pretending it never existed.
Building Your Integrity System
The most effective leaders I know don’t just hope they’ll stay aligned. They intentionally build systems to ensure it. They create regular checkpoints to audit their own integrity and catch potential misalignments early, before they become credibility killers.
Here’s a practical step you can implement immediately. Schedule a weekly 15-minute “integrity check” with yourself. Block it on your calendar like any other important meeting. Use that time to review the previous week honestly. Where did your words and actions align beautifully? Where did they diverge? What patterns are you noticing?
This isn’t about perfection. It’s about awareness, accountability, and the commitment to keep closing the gap between who you say you are and who you actually show up as every day.
Your Leadership Legacy
At the end of the day, your integrity determines your impact. It’s the difference between being a leader people follow because they have to and being a leader people follow because they want to. It’s the foundation that allows you to build something that lasts.
The world needs more leaders with integrity. Your team deserves a leader with integrity. Start building that foundation today.
Our team helps level up leadership for our partners every day and we can help you too. Email me at andrew@dickersonbakker.com, or call or text me at 612.201.1967 if you want to talk about how to gain clarity for your organization.