Executive Podcast #236: The Road Back to Integrity

We all make mistakes. We all have things we are not proud of. It’s easy to feel as though we are not worthy or even a fraud. How does a person reconcile being a person of influence and integrity while having a major failure?

Recovering from any kind of failure, whether business, personal, or moral is a process. If we have a setback, we can’t allow that setback to define us. Failure is an EVENT, NOT A PERSON!

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Perry Holley:

Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast, where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team, to deliver remarkable results.

Hi, I’m Perry Holley, a Maxwell Leadership facilitator and coach.

Chris Goede:

And I’m Chris Goede, Executive Vice President with Maxwell Leadership. Welcome and thank you for joining.

I want to just start today off by just saying thank you to our listeners. This is the first time Perry and I have had a chance to be in the studio and to be recording, both if you’re listening in the car or exercising, or if you’re watching us on YouTube. And we spent some time at the International Maxwell Conference-

Perry Holley:

Yes. It was [inaudible 00:00:51].

Chris Goede:

… and so many of you came up to us and talked about the impact of our podcast on you personally, and then how you’re using it for your team.

Perry Holley:

Very encouraging.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, very encouraging. And Perry and I, that was our highlight. It was our biggest takeaway from our three days down there. And by the way, if you don’t know what International Maxwell Conference is and you’re listening, I want to encourage you, we have an incredible personal growth day the first day. And then we do certification for those that are in the corporate environment, or if you’re an entrepreneur. And so, I’d encourage you to join us. We do it twice a year. But I just wanted to start off by saying that-

Perry Holley:

[inaudible 00:01:25].

Chris Goede:

… because it was the highlight of our week.

Perry Holley:

I was blown away by the generosity and kindness of the comments and how people treated us. Just makes you want to pick up and go, let’s go with the next… Look to the next mile.

Chris Goede:

Next podcast.

Perry Holley:

Yeah, yeah.

Chris Goede:

Yeah. I think outside of that impact, I think our favorite comment was, “We didn’t know you two were so tall.”

Perry Holley:

You don’t look that tall.

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Chris Goede:

We’re like, “Well, we are sitting down when we’re on YouTube and our voices don’t tell you how tall we are, but that was a lot of fun. So thank you again, for listening. We’re grateful for the impact that’s happening across the world, not only on you, but on your teams.

Well, as we get started today, just remember that if you go to maxwellleadership.com/podcast there you can download the learners guide that Perry’s created to go along with the content we’re going to discuss today. You can learn more about what we do with organizations by filling out a form and submitting that. And our team will be back in touch with you, so don’t hesitate to do that.

Well, today’s topic is the road back to integrity. And this topic is one that kind of grabbed us. We received an email from a listener or maybe even somebody that just watches instead of listening on YouTube. And he was talking about a personal failure, a setback that they had experienced and that the team had forgiven them. And he felt their grace, he felt their trust beginning to build back from something that had happened to him in the past.

And hearing us talk about the importance of integrity on a previous episode really just kind of triggered him to send this email to us and said, “Can you talk a little bit about, or how would you deal with this? I’m continuing to wear it even though my team is not.” And I think all of us have been there before personally and professionally. And so, is that part of your reputation forever? Do you ever get past that? Are you able to rebuild the integrity?

And I know you and I talk a lot about the five levels of leadership and how it takes so much time to build that influence. And then when trust is broken, it’s like right back down to level one. We have a lot of examples of that in the public, but we also all personally probably experienced that in the past. So super grateful for the transparency, but talk a little bit about the road back to integrity, the topic and the content that you have for us today.

Perry Holley:

Yeah, thanks. When we got that email, you and I both received it at the same time, and I just reached out to you and I said… My first reaction was, I would not do a podcast on this. Then I thought, “You know what? I have struggled.”

Chris Goede:

No doubt.

Perry Holley:

And I thought, “I bet almost all of us have some way or another have struggled with, like you said, climbing those levels of influence, being everything going great, make a failure of some sort, and then fall back down, then lose that trust.” And I thought, “Maybe we should talk about that.” And what grabbed my attention was this individual pressed on the fact that he felt like this was on him forever, he couldn’t get away from it. And I just wanted to put my arms around him and say, “Hey, we all make mistakes. We all come up short from time to time.”

And I really did write him personally and say, “I really appreciate your courage-

Chris Goede:

Yeah, that’s good.

Perry Holley:

… in reaching out. You didn’t have to do that.” But it caused me to start thinking about, how does someone reconcile being a person… he asked a question, “I’m trying to be a person of influence, but I have this thing hanging over me forever.” I said, “Not only if you look backwards, look forward.” So I thought, “Are there some things we can do that if you fail in some area, it could be a personal failure, it could be a business failure, how do you get back on the road to integrity? And don’t let the past overwhelm you and take you down permanently?”

Chris Goede:

Yeah, that’s good.

Perry Holley:

But I thought this person really got me thinking about it, and that’s what I wanted to share.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, recovering from any type of… And when we say, failure, this could be a failed project, this could be maybe failed communication. It could be all kinds of things in regards to this where you may wear that kind of personally or internally. And so whether it’s a business, whether it’s personal, whether it’s a moral issue, there’s a process to recovering from this. And so, I love your title today where you said the road back to integrity.

And so, I just wanted everybody to know that if we have a setback, that it doesn’t define us. That failure, that failed project, that whatever it might be, that’s an event, but it’s not who you are as an individual.

Perry Holley:

That’s really good.

Chris Goede:

And I want to make sure that people understand that, that it won’t define you, it’s not who you are. It is part of your story, and we’re going to talk about this today about, how do you then begin the process of recovering? And so, I know you have some ideas and we’re going to talk about what this looks like on this journey.

Perry Holley:

Yeah, I love that. And by the way, that’s a great… just doesn’t identify, I’m not identifying as a failure.

Chris Goede:

That’s right.

Perry Holley:

It’s an event, it’s not a person. It’s just something that happened. But I make a decision. Number one thing I thought you have to do, and this person that wrote in captured it right away, said, “Acknowledge and take responsibility for your actions.” It’s tempting, depending on what it is, to want to hide it, to want to somehow excuse it, maybe to blame others, to blame the circumstances, blame the government, blame the president. I don’t know. Blaming everybody today.

Chris Goede:

Yeah.

Perry Holley:

No, no. The first thing that you need to do is to take ownership of it, acknowledge it. And that’s the first step on the road back to integrity is, “I’m guilty, did this, yeah, this happened. I own it. Now, let’s move forward.”

Chris Goede:

I even think about some of our KPIs that as business owners that we have. And sometimes we don’t attain those, sometimes we fall a little bit short. That could be a failure. And I know that maybe that’s not necessarily in the same line as with the moral failure or the integrity. But at the same point in time, I love what you said, which was, “Take ownership of it, be responsible.”

The next thing I would add to that is, then be coachable to those that you trust through that process. And that I think, will help as you move along. But make sure that as you’re working through this, that you talk to, you confess, you communicate, you’re transparent to those that you have hurt in the process of this failure. Your failures of integrity rarely just hurt you. Matter of fact, I don’t know if they ever just hurt you. There are other people involved, and that’s the first step, is making sure that we are communicating to those people.

You may need to go one by one. It may take you a little bit of time. You may need to maybe have a lunch, maybe have an outside of the office meeting, and just have a very candid conversation to be able to acknowledge your mistakes, take responsibility. And then work towards making amends with those people, those that you have affected.

I also want to say that it’s not just those that maybe were personally impacted by this, but those that are aware of it as well. You need to communicate so that they understand that you are remorseful, that you are living in the moment of the mistake and owning it. Because believe it or not, there’s a lot of water cooler talk around organizations, and so it does impact more than people that it directly impacts, if that makes sense.

Perry Holley:

Well, it does. It reminds me of John. I heard John, he talks about this from the stage about how you need to be a little vulnerable and tell people about your struggles and acknowledge your mistakes. And he had an executive come up out of the audience and say, “I totally disagree. I would never tell anybody about my mistakes. Why do you say I should tell people about my mistakes?” And John just calmly tells him, “Because they already know. They just want to know if you know. And when they know that you know-

Chris Goede:

Then we’re good.

Perry Holley:

Yeah. Then we’re good.”

Chris Goede:

Then we’re on the road back.

Perry Holley:

Yeah.

Chris Goede:

Yeah.

Perry Holley:

I’ll say here too that people are people. Some people are going to love the fact that you confess and receive that. Some are going to judge you, some may reject you. That’s on them. But your role is to acknowledge and own it, and then that’ll be the first step. You can’t be responsible for how other people respond to that.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, that’s good. As we move into the next point, I just had a thought, and I wanted to just share this. Maybe you’re on the other side of being impacted by somebody that had an integrity issue, [inaudible 00:09:54]. I want to encourage all of us not to put people on pedestals. You just mentioned it, because we are people, it’s going to happen. Right? And sometimes our expectations of people and of leaders is put on a pedestal that they’ll never be able to live up to. And I’ve seen that happen over and over again. So, that was a little bit of my delay there just a minute because you had me thinking about that. And I just wanted to give a little bit of context or maybe a little thought to those that are on the other side of it.

Well, the second thing you have for us here is practice self-reflection. So, take time to reflect on what happened. Where did the problem occur? Why did the problem occur? Oftentimes, we talk about this because we travel a ton and we work a lot of hours. And I would just say a lot of times when you reflect on some of those things, you can identify what those triggers were. Like, I’ll give a completely non-relevant example to a moral failure, but when I’m trying to watch my weight and I’m on the road and I’m tired, I go by Five Guys in the airport and I’m like, “I am making a bad decision right here.” And I go ahead and do it because I’m tired. But just be aware as you self-reflect, because then the next morning I’m like, “I feel miserable. Why did I do that?” I’m like, “Oh, it’s because I was tired and I was hungry and I made a bad decision and I went to Five Guys.” Right?

Perry Holley:

Yes. That’s why I like this idea of self-reflection, is once I acknowledge it, maybe I should look at what caused it.

Chris Goede:

Yes.

Perry Holley:

Where are my triggers, like you said. What are the circumstances that occurred? Can I make sure that I put boundaries in place that would avoid that happening? But I can only do that by reflecting and thinking and being-

Chris Goede:

Love that.

Perry Holley:

… honest with myself. And we always talk about self-reflection is one of the key components of self-awareness. It’s easy to fool myself to think, “I’m doing pretty good. Matter of fact, I had a pretty hard day. Having a little Five Guys, who would argue that?” And think, “I can justify a lot of things, but if I’m being honest with myself and that reflection to go, ‘I notice when I’m tired and I’ve had a long day and I’m running through the airport, I am tempted to do this.’ How can I put a barrier in, have boundary?”

Chris Goede:

[inaudible 00:12:00].

Perry Holley:

“How can I percent put a fence around that?”

Chris Goede:

I think we might’ve just found a sponsor for our podcast.

Perry Holley:

Yeah.

Chris Goede:

The Five Guys.

Perry Holley:

[inaudible 00:12:07] Jake to make a run. I’m starving all a sudden.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, that’s right. So real quick though, another thing around this self-reflection that I want to add is, make sure that your actions are in alignment with your personal values. And I think that gives you, again, that gives you part of this decision making filter. Now you may say, “Well, I don’t even really know what my personal values are.” Well, that’s where we’re going to start because that’ll allow you to have some of those guardrails to be able to say, “This wasn’t necessarily in alignment with my values.”, or, “I need to make sure that I’m aware of my values so that I can make sure I do X, Y, and Z.”

Perry Holley:

That’s good.

Chris Goede:

And then learn from that failure.

But to your point, the self-reflection, and we’ve learned this from all the years of the work that we’ve done with our military, with the after action reviews, and John talks about it as well, even from an experiential standpoint, it’s not about the experience, positive or negative. It’s, what did you learn? What did you reflect on about that experience, that’ll be the takeaway.

Perry Holley:

Yeah. Number three, I think we’ve just hit it a little bit-

Chris Goede:

Oh yeah,

Perry Holley:

… was a… and that’s okay. It’s really an interesting topic to me, that we want to make these steps, take the ownership. And then number three I said was, “Establish guardrails or boundaries to ensure it never happens again.” And so with that self-reflection, allows me to kind of understand how these triggers, how these things happen, and what are the boundaries I need to put in place?

This was a concept I never understood when I was younger. And as I’ve gotten more maturity and grown up and realized that everything’s possible, you can do almost anything now, but not everything is profitable. And so, what should I be doing? And I know at my house, I have a small yard, but I have a fence around it. And that fence tells me what’s mine and what’s someone else’s. And so I like this in this role of my life is, the boundaries. What’s in play and what’s out of play for me? Where do I need to draw the lines? And just even a guardrail. Guardrails are not right beside the road, they’re back a bit from the road, but they keep you from disaster happening. You can go off the road a little bit, but if you go too far, yeah, you got to a guardrail to bring you back.

So I like this idea of, people around you are watching and you’ve confessed. You say, “Yeah, I had this problem. Yeah, I did this.” But then they see you doing the same habits that led you to that, it’s going to result in lack of trust, lack of… Your inconsistency will breed lack of trust in them.

Chris Goede:

Yeah. I love that. I went to a university where the chancellor and the president of the university was very interactive with the students and was always around having a good time, high-fiving at all the social events and at the athletic activities. But he made it very clear. He used to always say that. He said, “Listen…” And we always knew he drove this big black suburban around school and honked at you, tried to hit you. I mean, it’s just a lot of fun. But he made it very clear. He said, “Even if we’re in the worst snowstorm, rainstorm, or whatever, if I’m driving down the road and there’s a member of the opposite sex, I may honk and wave at you, but I will not stop to pick you up.” And it was just a guardrail that because what was the perception of seeing people get in the car or all those things. So to your point, set some of those guardrails and those boundaries up so that doesn’t happen again.

Well, number four is practice consistency. I love this. John talks about consistency compounding, but integrity is built through that. It’s built through your consistent actions over time and what you’re doing according to your values on a daily basis. This is a combination of vulnerability and being consistent. And that will begin to build that road back to integrity of what you are trying to do.

No one expects you to be perfect. None of us are perfect. Well, Perry and I might be, but besides that, no one is perfect. But they do expect you to be honest. And I know that even in some of my personal relationships. Sometimes I try to be perfect in the way that I’m wired. And it’s like, “No, no, no. Just be honest and own up to the fact that you’re not perfect.”

Perry Holley:

And a lot of us, you mentioned at the very top of the broadcast about leaders sometimes on a pedestal, were put there by others. But to be honest, sometimes we like being there.

Chris Goede:

Yeah, that’s right.

Perry Holley:

You don’t mind you thinking I’m perfect. And I’m not trying to make you think I’m perfect, but I don’t mind if you think I’m perfect, or you think highly of me. And I thought, “That’s really setting us up to not be consistent, not be honest with ourselves.” So that vulnerability word about sharing where my weaknesses are, sharing where I need help, sharing things I don’t know, it opens a door to trust. And that people say, “Wow, you’re real. Most leaders would never say, ‘I don’t know.'” The three most unused words in leadership. I don’t know says, “I’m opening the door for you to help me.”

Chris Goede:

That’s good.

Perry Holley:

And to say that. So, it builds trust in that. And consistency just says it builds psychological safety with people. I know you’re a known quantity. I know how you’re going to… like you’re chancellor. I know how he’s going to respond in every situation. He’s very consistent in that, and that brings more trust to say that. That consistency and that vulnerability, I love that.

And then number five is established or and I said, reconnect, to your inner circle. And if you’re not familiar with this term, inner circle, it is another thing I didn’t know as a young leader, but I think we all as leaders, as humans, need to have someone in our life that will loves us unconditionally, will watch over us unwaveringly.

Chris Goede:

Yeah.

Perry Holley:

They will make sure that they’ll call us when we’re doing something silly. They’ll commend us when we’re doing something well. We can bring things to them.

My inner circle, probably two guys, my wife’s in there of course, so she’ll, for some reason, has no problem telling me what she thinks. But these two guys, I have to really urge them and say, “I want you to watch over me.” We share this with each other and we can tell each other anything. And they want to know where I am, who I’m with, what I’m doing. They follow my actions, my reactions, my interactions. They’ll call me on stuff. And I just love having this group… a small… It’s usually, if you have three, it’s amazing. One or two would be amazing to have somebody that knows what you’re doing and can see how you’re acting and can call you on it.

I use it for self-awareness. When I enter a room, “Could you watch and see, how am I received? How am I carrying myself? Am I communicating? Am I connecting?” Because I’m easy to fool ourselves. And I saw that inner circle is that safety net for me that says, “I have somebody watching.”

Chris Goede:

Yeah. Speak truth into you. I love that idea.

Perry Holley:

Yeah.

Chris Goede:

Well, as we wrap up, there’s a couple of things, just to review. The five points that Perry brought to us today as we think about this road back is, number one, acknowledge and take responsibility for your actions. Number two, practice self-reflection. Number three, establish those guardrails and boundaries so that it never happens again. Number four, practice consistency. And then finally, the inner circle that you were just talking about. Establish an inner circle and allow them to speak truth into you.

Let me just close by saying this. We talked about in the beginning about the five levels of leadership. And building influence with your people, both personally and professionally, takes time. Yes, when mistakes happen, trust is broken. It does kind of bring you right back. Here’s the good news. There is a road back to building that influence again.

We gave you some points here, and as you work through these points that Perry brought to us, you’ll see your influence begin to increase. You go to level two, you’ll go to level three, and you’ll begin to work your way up. It’s not going to be quick. It’s going to take some time. It’s going to take some work.

And understand this. As leaders, we all make mistakes. And so if you’re transparent, if you’re vulnerable, if you go through these steps in this process, your team will forgive you. And then remember this as a team member. Just know that the shoe could… the foot could be on the shoe, the shoe could be on the other foot at some point in time, so let’s show a little bit of grace. Let’s not put people on pedestal, and let’s walk through that with them.

Perry Holley:

Beautiful. Thank you. And to the listener who wrote in, thanks for your courage in doing that. And to any of you that would like to send us a question or a comment, we’d love to hear from you. If you’d like to know more about what we’re doing here at Maxwell Leadership or would like to leave a question or a comment, you can do all that at maxwellleadership.com/podcast. Also, download, download the learner guide for this episode.

We’re grateful for you to join us today. We’re very grateful that you would spend this time with us. That’s all today from the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast.