Unifying Integrity
Who is following and listening to you? To whom are you listening to and following? These are questions everyone should be asking themselves, because, willingly or not, everyone leads and follows someone or something. The next question that needs to be asked is, why? Why are you following and listening to the people or thing you are? Why should anyone listen or follow you? We need to be extremely careful of whom we follow, because by following them, we follow the same trajectory. A lot of us follow because someone seems knowledgeable and educated. Others follow because of aligning visions. Some of us follow because we have no choice in the matter. These are often the same reasons people follow us.
Regardless of the reason an underlining factor is trust. People will only follow someone they trust, or deem trustworthy. That trust can be perceived or earned, but nevertheless, there has to be trust. In the church, you will often find that long standing members of a church have a great deal of trust for the senior pastor, that is until they are given a reason to no longer. This is one of the major reasons people will commit to a church for years if not decades. It doesn’t matter what anyone does or what decisions are being made, you will find that if people trust their church, they will steadfastly support it and actively be involved. However, when that trust is broken, people leave and they leave fast. When someone doesn’t trust that a person or organization has their best interest in mind, they pack up and go find somewhere that does
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This is why integrity is so crucial for organizations and everyone who finds themselves in a leadership position. Integrity is what gives an individual moral authority, which is the foundation of trust. People trust those who practice what they preach. They trust people who follow through in what they say. When an organization or leader has a character that has integrity, they are able create a culture in which trust is a staple. When they step up to the microphone to make their vision or plans known, people listen. Why? Because they made the previous choice to be the kind of person or organization worth listening to. When that happens and the organization acts, no one can stand up against it, if anything the people follow.
A great example of this is Nehemiah. In Nehemiah 5, Nehemiah see the injustice the local leaders committed to the people of Jerusalem and when he called them out on it, they couldn’t say anything against him. They actually complied without objection. Why? Because he as governor had made sure that his integrity and moral authority was that in which they couldn’t accuse him or anything he stood against. He had the ability and authority to take what he was entitled to as governor, but because it was a burden to the people, he deferred those. As a result, the work on the wall continued and what was taken was returned.
That was the simplified version of Nehemiah’s story, but it shows how important integrity is. If Nehemiah didn’t have the integrity that he worked to build, people would not have trusted him to have their best interests at heart. If he didn’t have the trust of the people, they wouldn’t have worked and completed the wall. The same is true now in our churches and even or families today. When there is trust everyone involved will be willing to engage in the plan and vision set before them. It there isn’t, they will either leave or disengage. If you want to unify a group, integrity is key, because integrity allows for a group to unify with the knowledge the leader they follow is headed in a trajectory that has their best interest in mind.