Page 18 - The Bible On Leadership

Honesty and Integrity 5

to build a new plant next to the old one. In order to do so, the company
would have to buy the home of a retired employee in his seventies and
force him to relocate. The president vetoed the plan, exclaiming,
‘‘When we bought it (the company parcel), I promised he could stay
there as long as he liked. Making him move now might upset him to
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the point where it shortens his life.’’ The new plant was built on the
other side of the property.
And consider the integrity of Jean Maier, director of policy services
for Northwestern Mutual Life. In a sense, she is watching over the
‘‘vineyards’’ (financial resources) of thousands of policyholders. Before
she took the job, she told her boss, ‘‘ ‘I can’t do this job unless I know
I can do the right thing. I can’t take some old lady’s policy away . . . if
I think it’s not honorable.’ And my boss said to me, ‘You will never
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have to do that.’ And I have never been put in that position.’’ Naboth
would have been safe with her as a neighbor.
Too often, it seems honesty and integrity don’t pay off in the short
term, whereas dishonesty and lack of integrity do. How often have we
heard sayings like ‘‘Do unto others before they can do unto you’’ or
‘‘No good deed will go unpunished’’? In the Bible (as in business and
organizational life), wrongdoers ultimately receive their proper conse-
quences and virtuous people their just rewards, although not without a
lot of needless suffering. If only people could be more honest from the
beginning.
For instance, there’s the ancient case study of Pharaoh, whose lack of
integrity rivals any modern leader. This absolute ruler of Egypt could
not tolerate any threat to his power. To keep his Hebrew slaves and
build his vast monuments to himself, he was willing to rain destruction
and death on his own people. When he refused to let the Hebrews
go, God visited ten progressively destructive plagues on the Egyptians,
starting with frogs (a relatively benign affliction) and moving to the
killing of the firstborn (talk about progressive discipline!).
Pharaoh relented, probably because his own son was one of those
killed. The story of the Israelites’ hurried packing and exodus (resulting
in the world’s fastest-baking bread, matzoh) is well known to Jews and
Christians alike. And it’s a good thing that they were able to ‘‘bake and