Page 22 - The Bible On Leadership

Honesty and Integrity 9

those who have always taken the high road. In the early 1990s, audio-
tapes revealed that a group of Texaco executives had racist attitudes and
were systematically denying the hiring and promotion of Afri-
can Americans. Texaco denied the problem at first, but finally CEO
Peter Bijur decided to take an approach with more integrity. He fired
one of the offending executives, denied retirement benefits to another,
established a plan to hire more African Americans at all levels of the
organization, and settled a lawsuit for $140 million. That’s a pretty big
turnaround for an oil executive.
Rick Roscitt of AT&T Solutions might have been tempted to mis-
represent his organization’s capabilities, since his new venture repre-
sented a huge financial risk for the organization and a personal risk to
his professional future. Although he needed every bit of new business
he could get, he turned away clients he didn’t feel he could serve cor-
rectly, and admitted errors immediately, without the all-too-common
hemming and hawing. ‘‘What inspired me most about Rick was how
honest he was about the business,’’ notes Chief Technology Officer
Dick Anderson. ‘‘He wouldn’t hesitate to say to a client, ‘You know,
we didn’t do this right’ or ‘We don’t think we should work for you’
. . . His aim wasn’t to smell like a rose all the time, but instead to make
things right.’’ Adds a client, ‘‘He engaged us in good faith give and take
. . . he was honest, a man of his word, and courageous, and I’ll only
work with a partner like that.’’ 7
Warren Buffett, who has risen to the top in the rough and tumble
world of investing, notes that lack of honesty can create adversity. You
might think that his hiring criteria would be aggressiveness and hard-
headed numbers-crunching. But listen to his real hiring criteria: ‘‘integ-
rity, intelligence, and energy. Hire someone without the first, and the
other two will kill you.’’ 8
The Bible is very specific about doing business honestly: ‘‘Do not
have two differing weights in your bag—one heavy, one light. Do not
have two differing measures in your house—one large, one small. You
must have accurate weights and measures, so that you may live long in
the land.’’ (Deut. 25:13–15)
If you want to ‘‘live long in the land’’ of Merrill Lynch, integrity is