Ginny Wilson-Peters' Blog
Exerts from July 4th, 2009 column by Tim Dahlberg: http://tinyurl.com/lcdfkw
“Woods is a killer, he will run over you…But as an individual for social change? Terrible. Terrible. Because he can get away with teaching kids to play golf, and that’s his contribution.” Former Football great Jim Brown
“What Brown doesn’t appreciate is that Tiger Woods doesn’t seem to be burdened by much of a social conscience. He thinks Woods should be doing more—far more—than just playing golf and making money…
Indeed, with a person of mixed heritage much like himself running for president, Woods wouldn’t even publicly endorse Barack Obama.” Tim Dahlberg, Associated Press
It struck a chord. I read the opinion piece in last Sunday’s paper and immediately wanted to respond. I carried the paper around for a week before sitting down to write. Why did the attack on Tiger Woods and the comments about his perceived lack of commitment to social change bother me so much?
It comes back to the concept of integrity. The word integrity often seems to bring up strong emotions for people. It also brings up a great deal of confusion and judgment.
During a meeting last week we were talking about attempts to measure integrity in people. Someone turned to me and said, “You called your company Integrity Integrated. What does integrity mean to you?” My response was not what they wanted to hear. Angeles Arrien, an author and expert in cross-cultural communication and leadership, once said that integrity, from a cross-cultural standpoint, is the “alignment of our actions and communications with our values.” In order to know if someone has integrity, we need to first know their values.
When most people say that someone else has integrity, what they are really saying is that the other person demonstrates values that are similar to the speaker. In other words, the other person’s actions are in alignment with our OWN values. Hence, we conclude they have integrity.
WRONG! We cannot know if someone has integrity unless we know their values. In fact, it is an act of arrogance to assume that we can claim integrity in another person without first knowing more about them.
My biggest lesson in this came during my trip to South Africa two years ago. In a country dealing with post-apartheid issues, we heard about continued high incidence of AIDS and HIV, high poverty, and high crime rates. One of the South African leaders was talking about the difficult choices that some people have to make in order to feed their families. She was speaking to a group of predominantly white women from the United States and she gently, but candidly said, “I ask you NOT to pass judgment on someone who is making a choice to steal in order to put food on the table.”
That was a tough one for me. Stealing is wrong; pretty black and white for me for most of my life. And yet, when I heard her plea, I found myself with a pit in my stomach. There is no part of me that could personally relate to many of the experiences I heard about in South Africa—so how could I possibly impose my own set of values on others?
As for Tiger, who are we to pass judgment on the types of activities he chooses in order to give back to the world? And suggesting that Tiger should have provided an endorsement to Barack Obama simply because they are both from mixed heritage is dangerous at worst, and a harsh judgment at best. Mr Dahlberg and Mr Brown obviously have their ideas about what Tiger should be doing, but those ideas come from their own set of values.
Posted in Integrity, Values | 1 Comment »
“Balance is an engineering term that means you put the little weights on each side, and if you’re really a good person, you’ll come out equal. We have to be aware that we swing back and forth. It is choices all the time, not balance.” (Warren Bennis)
Work-life balance is an ongoing conversation we’re having in the MBA Leadership class I’m teaching right now. The students are working full-time and taking courses at nights and/or weekends. Ages range from mid twenties to mid forties, with the majority in their late twenties and thirties.
The topic of balance came up the first evening as our guest speaker shared his life story with great candor. At the end, one of the students commented, “I’m hearing stories from you and other CEOs about gaining success in your careers, but I’m concerned about whether it is truly possible to achieve professional success without undue sacrifice to our families.” And so the conversation began.
Following are three excerpts from the first reflective papers written by the students this week about the perceived struggle between balance and success:
Male student #1: “While I feel excited about the prospect of participating in any organization in a bigger & more strategic role, I also get a feeling that I will have to give up a significant part of my personal life to be able to succeed in that level. When I shared these thoughts with my group, I was pleasantly surprised to hear from everyone a similar willingness to stay lower in the organization as long as they are able to have more time with their families. As I’ve come to understand that leadership could be demonstrated at any position and at any time in my life, I am also starting to think – what if I am able to figure out who I really am and what I would really want to do, will I be able to, as True North explains, find the right role within an organization or even create an organization where I could be a better leader?”
Female Student #2: “It is scary to think that the majority of leaders/managers that I have heard speak, or those I have interacted with have only made it to where they are currently by sacrificing their home lives. I know that it was mentioned in class that there has been those who have succeeded at maintaining a balance, and learning more about their experiences and lives would be very interesting and I believe insightful. I just don’t want to be the one that ends up in the upper management/leadership position speaking in front of a group and have to be the one that is looking back at the work/life balance aspect of my career and stating once again that to get where I am today I had to sacrifice the home life.”
Male student #3: “I consider myself an extremely ambitious professional and my goal is to climb the company ladder as high as I can so I can influence the direction of an organization. That being said, I look at the life of a VP and above and aside from the prestige and financial compensation, there are very large downsides. There seems to be no way to adequately balance work and the demands of a family.”
In my years of teaching and consulting, I have yet to find a good answer to the question of work-life balance. I have concluded it is very much a personal choice. And making that choice requires a strong sense of who we are and a commitment to staying grounded.
In the book, “True North” Bill George and Peter Sims offer the following insight.
Finding Time for Yourself. It does not matter what you do, as long as you establish a routine that enables you to manage the stress in your life and gives you time to think clearly about life, work, and your personal issues.
Spiritual and Religious Practices. Understanding our role in the world by asking questions like “What is the meaning and purpose of my life?” or “Why am I here?” is the most personal and profound area of our leadership development.
What does it mean to live your life with integrity? Real integrity results from integrating all aspects of your life so that you are true to yourself in all settings. Think of your life like a house, with a bedroom for your personal life, a study for your professional life, a family room for your family, and a living room to share with your friends. Can you knock down the walls between those rooms and be the same person in each of them?
See also their website at http://www.truenorthleaders.com/ for more discussion and reflective questions.
