Integrity and leadership

Integrity can be defined as the possibility and the capacity to be very honest and possessing moral principles which are strong accordingly. Integrity can also be termed as the choice of a person to be responsible and hold on to the ethically strong standards. When it comes to ethics, integrity is considered to be the honesty, accuracy, and truthfulness of what one does. Hypocrisy can be the opposite of integrity and many people in leadership lack the integrity through their actions which do not indicate any good level of control. Integrity can be used to identify the wholeness of an issue holding qualities such as being honest with the consistency of character. Leadership, on the other hand, has a varying difference from person to person all around the world (Avey et al., pg580). It can be a related to political leadership, religious leadership, community leadership and a number of other forms of leadership. Leadership can be defined as the act of getting various persons or a person to do what is required to be done but with the aim of being in control. Leadership can also be defined as the capacity to rule and control other individuals through guidance for the benefit of the involved members. People in authority are regarded to be leaders in the community and the followers are always expectant of the best from their leaders. Leaders should be in possession of integrity in order to control others to the right direction for the benefit of the community.

Every leader should be able to uphold some level of integrity through their actions, methods, values, principles, measures, outcomes and the expectations. Individuals who possess integrity are incapable and incorruptible of breaking the trust of the people who support them. Every individual is born with a conscience and therefore has the capacity to know what is right and what is wrong. Integrity requires that every person chooses to do the right thing and walk away from what is wrong. Many leaders have been corrected for showing the wrong direction to the people they lead. In the olden days in history, many leaders held upon being integral at what they wanted to be done by their followers. It is upon the integrity of leaders that they are given the chance to lead for many years in many parts of the world. For example, there are great leaders who indicated that they had the capacity and the ability to be leaders in the history of America (Avey et al., pg575). Someone like Abraham Lincoln lead the united states with the best type of leadership skill ever known in the world. The United States was facing a military, moral and constitutional crisis but Abraham leads the country in the direction it required. Abolishing slavery, civil wars, preserving unity and strengthening the government in making the economy great was part of his duties as a leader and he did that with the best level of integrity.

Leadership is a part of a person that he must acquire through having integrity in what he or she does for the community. Many of the African leaders do not have integrity since the only thing they consider is being in power. Power hungry individuals fight for being the leaders not because they want to show how great they can do for the country but to hold the most powerful pieces of the country. This is what has created a lot of trouble in such countries and leading to civil and political battles that never end (Carver, pg220). From the article He becomes deeply and famously drunk, one can identify that Archie who was the son of a ranch owner and who was murdered by a friend after having drunk alcohol to an uncontrollable level. Archie was poised to make sure that the person responsible for murdering his father was dead as payback or revenge for the crime he committed. At this time, Archie was the ranch leader and his actions would have been noticed by many who he was controlling. In many cases, revenge is seen as a perfect way of dealing with people who wrong us but it is a bad way since it shows that one does not have the abilities of a leader among them integrity. In the end, Archie does not kill the friend who killed the father since he learnt that the same person was in big trouble and therefore killing him was just useless (Craig, pg147).  Also in the case of the cathedral, the characters show concern and a lot of passion for each other through the situation in the family of Robert is not that very good. People should be able to be very honest with one another in order to reduce the chances of being in a quarrel every moment.

 Robert showed a lot of integrity and ability to deal with his wife through making her friend feel comfortable while in the house of Robert. Individuals should be able to directly influence correct and the best types of behaviors while they can (Carver, pg102). In the community, showing that the capacity to be a leader comes from the capacity of being honest is vital for its occupants. Another case from an article the things they carried, Jimmy feels as if he had not done enough for the people whom he was involved with who were fellow soldiers. This is so since in the battlefield, many people died and as a result it became very devastating for other soldiers who felt weak. While giving his story, not many are excited to listen or even participate in the talk making it even hard for him. All the three characters can be used to influence a level of leadership and good control over their families, troops and the rest of the society. The society is lead by a people who have the willing and power to showcase good qualities of leadership. For example, Archie was very eager to make sure that the person responsible for the killing of his father paid for his mistakes through revenge. This is proven to not work since Archie chose to be the bigger person and let his mistakes of killing take cause and inflict pain on the perpetrator rather than kill him (Craig, pg149). This is the same case with Robert who uses his intelligent to make sure that the right thing is done for the sake of the family which was on the edge.  Being blind does not qualify a person not to lack integrity but should rather push a person to act accordingly. Leaders should emulate such ideas and example and lead in the right way for a community to be successful. Giving the best should be the aim of the leaders and not showing wrong examples for their own benefit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works cited

Avey, James B., Michael E. Palanski, and Fred O. Walumbwa. "When leadership goes

unnoticed: The moderating role of follower self-esteem on the relationship between ethical leadership and follower behavior." Journal of Business Ethics98.4 (2011): 573-582.

Carver, Raymond. Cathedral. Vintage, 2015.

Craig, Chauna. "Letting Loose the Hounds." (1999): 147-149.

O'Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Spark Publishing, 2014.