chapter 7

Flip Your Focus

You’ve had some really tough decisions to make. Some pretty small. But there are other decisions that are a little more complicated and distressing. Should you cut that project’s budget over another project? Do you give that piece of feedback to someone even though you know it will be hard for the person to hear? Do you really have to officially reprimand someone or do you let it slide? Do you recommend going forward with a decision that is cost-effective even though some cuts are involved? It’s so uncomfortable. But there’s this quote from a CEO:

“You will be confronted with questions every day that test your morals. The questions will get tougher, and the consequences will become more severe. Think carefully, and for your sake, do the right thing, not the easy thing.”

I love that quote for a couple of reasons. Whether you are an individual contributor, a brand-new boss, or well-seasoned leader, it speaks to where your focus is. Where is your integrity? Your character? How do those come into play when you make decisions? The quote speaks to the difficulty of doing what is right. It’s difficult to do, and even when we try, we may fall short. Mistakes will be made in our careers because we are imperfect people. But what I hope you realize, now that you are a leader, is that your actions and decisions, and the aftermath, may be amplified. It’s not just you who may deal with the consequences; your actions and decisions will affect others too. As a new leader, own it. Now that you are a boss, your focus must constantly be on your character, integrity, and doing what is “right.” Why?

Let’s face it: people look up to leaders and expect a lot out of them, damn near close to perfection 24/7/365, at work and even away from work. You may even feel the same about your leaders too. I know I do. On the flip side (pun intended), you probably have people right now looking up to you, expecting just as much. That’s a hard thing for any of us to live up to. The pressure can be unbearable at times, I know. I feel it myself as a new leader. I feel it’s way too much to ask, and it borders on being unfair. But that’s what many of us demand from our leaders. It comes with the territory of wearing the “Leader” T-shirt and “Boss” hat.

You clearly have a lot of power and influence over others. And so you have the potential to affect the lives of people outside of your own. “It’s not about me anymore,” remember? Accept it.

For some new leaders, that’s a huge rush, and it fills them with pride. For others, it can be intimidating, maybe even a little frightening or humbling to think about. However you feel, don’t take it for granted, because it’s so damaging to so many when leaders are involved in scandals because they didn’t flip their focus, and they didn’t focus on integrity, character, and doing what is “right.” Every few months, a leader’s inability to flip his or her focus and realize just how much his or her actions and decisions affect others comes up in the news and blows up into some sort of scandal.

It’s pretty heavy stuff, but too important not to bring up. In my opinion, flipping your focus—understanding and embracing that who you are and what you do can have repercussions beyond yourself—is the most challenging aspect of flipping your script as a new leader.

Oh, the Irony

There’s another reason why I love that opening quote. Picture yourself on your graduation day. Your commencement speaker, a CEO of a multibillion-dollar global organization, motivated you with those words of advice. Then, you throw your cap in the air and get your diploma, ready to take on the world.

Two weeks later, that same CEO, who gave such an amazing speech and inspired you so much with that quote, is arrested.

That’s what happened to former Tyco International CEO Dennis Kozlowski.¹ At a commencement speech at Saint Anselm College, he spoke those words to the graduates. Seventeen days later, he was arrested and later was found guilty of grand larceny and conspiracy, falsifying business records, violating general business law, and misappropriating (or stealing) hundreds of millions of dollars from his organization.

Why do I really love this quote? Irony. A leader, talking about morals and doing not what is easy, but what is right, didn’t follow his own advice. He only looked out for himself and didn’t care how his actions and decisions would affect others. He didn’t flip his focus. The quote constantly reminds me that even though I am human and imperfect, if I don’t flip my focus, I am no better than Kozlowski. It could happen to me.

So, would you do the “right” thing in every situation, in the face of difficulty, unpopularity, discomfort, and distress? It’s easy to say, “Of course,” when it’s just a hypothetical or a scenario on paper. I know I would. Anyone would. No-brainer. But if our lives as leaders resemble anything like the TV shows with hidden cameras or the latest gossip news on TMZ, people don’t always do what’s right. Many are self-centered, only think of the short-term gain, and don’t always think of how their actions affect others and the future. They still believe, “It’s not you; it’s me.” They never flipped their focus.

We are all human. None of us are perfect. But I will level with you. You know as well as I do, people look up to you, put their trust in you, follow your example, even emulate you because you are their leader. You will make many decisions in your career. Your actions and decisions will affect others whether you know it, realize it, are purposefully doing it, or not. This chapter will help you understand just how important flipping your focus is now as a new leader, and for the rest of your career.

Some, though, may feel this chapter comes a little too late. You, or others around you, may have already started to question your actions and decisions as a new leader. Maybe things you did before your promotion led to these rumblings. Be assured, it’s not too late to change course. Use this chapter to check yourself so you don’t ultimately wreck yourself. Get the proper insight, the tools, and the confidence from this chapter to flip your focus and be the boss everyone wants to work for.

Why You Should Flip Your Focus

Although I hope my passion about this topic convinces you of the importance of flipping your focus, I know that some of you may still be skeptical. I get it. You see that others get promotions, fame, and fortune without ever thinking about the implications of their decisions. I’ve had similar thoughts too. But don’t allow those thoughts to convince you to not flip your focus. Here’s why.

Character and integrity at the top. When you flip your focus, you understand that your actions and decisions affect more than just you. All leaders have agendas. Some are very self-focused (what philosophers would call ethical egoism). Many of us are like that; we want to make it to the top. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it. But as a leader, you must seriously consider flipping your script by flipping your focus. Thinking about the greater good (what philosophers would call utilitarianism) or doing what is best for others, not yourself (i.e., altruism) will come across your mind. You’ll start to question what you really should do and where your focus really should be. That’s where your character, particularly your integrity, comes into play.

Starting in 2010, my colleagues and I began looking not at character flaws, but instead at the character strengths of leaders.² In particular, we concentrated on 4 of the 24 character strengths Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman classified in their “Values in Action” model³—integrity, bravery, perspective, and social intelligence.

In our first study, we investigated these four character strengths among 191 top leaders of organizations (presidents, CEOs, and the like). The direct reports of these 191 leaders supplied the ratings of the four character strengths, and the bosses (in this case, board members) of the 191 leaders told us how effective these top leaders were in their jobs. After crunching the numbers, integrity, bravery, perspective, and social intelligence each positively related to performance. So, for example, top leaders who were high in integrity tended to have pretty high job performance ratings. And those who weren’t high in integrity likely performed pretty poorly in their jobs. We found the same pattern of results for the other three character strengths too.

Looking deeper into the data, we also learned which of the four character strengths was most important. Integrity came out on top. In the highest of levels in an organization, character strengths are important to a leader’s performance. And of the four we analyzed, none are more important than integrity.

Character and integrity are even tied to the financial performance and bottom lines of organizations, and how people feel about their jobs too. According to research by KRW International,⁴ CEOs rated as having high character, including integrity, had a five times greater average of return on assets than CEOs with low character. They also found that employee engagement was 26 percent higher in organizations with CEOs high in integrity. Character does matter at the top, especially integrity.

Character and integrity in the middle. In our next study of character strengths, we examined 246 middle-level managers—the leaders to whom you more than likely directly report, where your next leadership promotion will likely take you. Same variables as before, same method, same results: integrity, bravery, perspective, and social intelligence, each positively related to performance ratings. If you want to be effective at the next level, our results recommend you need strong character.

And just like before, we dug deeper into the data to find which of the four was most important. We were surprised. Social intelligence, not integrity, was the most important character strength. And when we looked at all four character strengths together, integrity had very little to do with how well these middle-level managers performed their job.

As you know, we usually get promoted based on our current performance, not the things we need in the future. Our findings suggest that integrity is not seen as being as important to the current performance of managers working in the middle of organizations. So leaders climbing the corporate ladder might not necessarily have the character strengths necessary at the highest of levels. No wonder so many people think you don’t need integrity to reach the top. It sort of played out in our research.

Character and integrity for you, now, in your current role. So now you may be left wondering,

What about new leaders like me? The research suggests integrity may not matter as much in my next step up in the organization, but it is definitely needed at the top. But what about now? As a new leader, do I need it now, where I am in the organization?

You may or may not be surprised by this. There was an absence of the mention of integrity in the close to 300 new leaders that I studied. For example, there were no mentions of integrity in any of their top challenges. I also collected written comments about the strengths and development needs of the new leaders from their own bosses, peers, direct reports, and new leaders themselves. In total, there were 3,294 written responses. Fascinatingly, only one entry, from a new leader’s direct report, mentioned that integrity was something that the new leader needed to develop. Looking at the strengths of these new leaders, integrity was mentioned only 96 times in the 3,294 entries. That’s less than 3 percent.

Why is this the case? Why does it look like integrity and character and doing what is “right” just doesn’t matter all that much unless you are at the top? Well, one way to look at it is that perhaps it’s just the “price of admission” to your new leader role. Perhaps integrity and character and doing what is “right” are treated as “a given” when you become a boss. That’s just what we expect of our leaders. Only when people have ethical failures does it come into our consciousness. Many times, unfortunately, it’s too late to do anything about it.

But you can do something about it now. Flip your script by flipping your focus. If you are interested in climbing the corporate ladder, making it to the top, and having that corner office with the windows looking out on the skyline (and don’t forget that all-important access to the executive washroom), you need integrity and character. Let these studies convince you to flip your focus. If character, particularly integrity, will be even more critical to your success as you continue to progress to the top levels of your organization, why not focus on it now and be prepared for your future?

But what if you have no desire to climb the corporate ladder? You don’t want to put in the time and effort to get that corner office. Being the next CEO or president of your organization is not your end goal and is not your definition of career success. That’s okay—there’s nothing wrong with that. But realize, that’s not an excuse to not flip your focus. Your actions and decisions will carry weight, and lapses in character and integrity can catch up to you, no matter where you are in the organization. It can happen to anyone.

Now some of you may be thinking:

Okay, I know integrity is important in flipping your focus, and that I need integrity, especially if I intend to go higher and higher in the organization. Not a problem. I have integrity.

No doubt, many of you do have integrity, and your followers are lucky. We all know how much integrity we truly have, right? Like this famous leader said:⁵

[I] lived my life in a certain way to make sure that I would never violate any law—certainly never any criminal laws—and always maintained that most important to me was my integrity, was my character, were my values.

Truly, this leader thinks he has character and integrity. So who was he?

Former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay. He said this in his first primetime interview on CNN’s Larry King Live after pleading not guilty to criminal counts. I probably don’t have to tell you how many suffered from the corruption of Lay and others from Enron. Clearly, Lay overestimated his integrity.

Lay’s story shows you that oftentimes we misjudge and in fact overestimate our integrity. As a matter of fact, our character strengths research⁶ hints to this phenomenon too. Leaders in our study tended to overrate how much integrity they had, particularly the top-level leaders we studied. Interestingly, the new leaders I studied also tended to overrate their integrity compared to what their direct reports saw.

The Real-Life Evidence

Although the studies speak to the importance of character strengths, particularly integrity, others still might not be convinced that they truly do matter. You’ve seen people make it to the top and not get caught. They reaped the benefits and got away with it. If it worked for them, it can work for you too, right?

As I wrote this chapter, Martin Shkreli (the thirty-something pharmaceutical executive who jacked up the drug Daraprim from $13.50 a pill to $750) was arrested for securities fraud and essentially running his business like a Ponzi scheme. Then there’s Bernie Ebbers of WorldCom, John and Timothy Rigas of Adelphia Communications, or Bernie Madoff. They were all leaders in their field, were connected with fraud, and got caught.

How about United Airlines CEO Jeff Smisek trading perks for influence with senior officials at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey? Or several officials from FIFA, international soccer’s governing body, who received kickbacks and bribes? They got caught and personally suffered the consequences.

But their actions and decisions didn’t just affect them. Failing to flip their focus affected so much more than just the individuals involved.

Think about what happened at Worldcom or Adelphia, for example. The actions and decisions of those leaders didn’t just set in motion the downfall of their organizations, but also affected the livelihood and well-being of those who worked there. People lost jobs, couldn’t collect paychecks, couldn’t make a living, and that affected their families, their kids.

Do you think the decisions made by Volkswagen leaders who allowed the implementation of illegal software to help cars cheat pollution tests hurt only them? Look at the stock price of Volkswagen after the scandal; their stockholders and investors felt the pain in their pocketbooks, wallets, and 401(k)s. You can also imagine how the faith and trust of people who bought VW vehicles are now compromised because of it.

Many all over the world probably still lament over subprime mortgages and how the events surrounding decisions made at Lehman Brothers and other companies affected massive downturns in the United States and world economies. How many people lost homes, jobs, or retirement savings, or couldn’t afford to care for their family or future because of those decisions and the inability of leaders to flip their focus?

Is it your plan to end up like these notorious leaders? Do you want your name even associated with those people? I would hope not. The research is clear. But it happens in real life too. Leaders do get caught when they don’t flip their focus.

What You Can Do to Flip Your Focus

You have the potential to touch the lives of so many beyond you. When you flip your focus, you understand that your impact is bigger. Your actions and decisions truly affect others. Integrity matters. And you can’t just have it overnight.

Rome and integrity. I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” The same thing goes for integrity. Integrity takes time to develop and strengthen. Put in the time.

If you have the drive to make it to the top, you clearly need integrity. It’s the most important character strength we studied. It takes time, a career, a lifetime, to build your integrity; you can’t just flip a switch and overnight have it. As a new leader, start now: build your character and integrity for what is coming up in your bright future.

And though integrity isn’t built in a day, it can be ruined with one action or one decision. It takes a lifetime to build your integrity, and one instance, one second, to ruin it. Always be mindful of your integrity in everything you do because one action or decision can ruin a reputation you have worked so hard to build and can affect so much more than just you.

None of us are perfect, and a lapse in character can happen to even the best of us. If it does, swallow your pride, own up to it, and work extremely hard to build that reputation of high character all over again. We all make mistakes, and it’s not impossible to overcome them. But be prepared to put in the work if this sort of thing happens to you.

So the big takeaway here? Pay attention to integrity because you need it in many things you do as a new leader. In particular, you need integrity when making decisions and when building trust.

Integrity when making decisions. It’s not easy to flip your focus. Like the quote that opened this chapter, doing what is “right” is not necessarily easy. It will test you. But the more you are able to think about it, learn about it, and prepare for it, the easier it will be to flip your focus.

If you are doing things for your own selfish interest, not understanding the ramifications of your decisions, and not caring how it will affect others, you haven’t flipped your focus. The bosses everyone wants to work for, however, look beyond themselves and flip their script. How can you do that? Here are some tips to increase your odds of doing the “right” thing when the time comes.

What would Mom or others think about you? Ask yourself if the behavior you are about to engage in or the decision you are going to make would be approved by your mother, grandmother, or primary school teacher. If you think that’s a bit too far out there, what would your current coach or mentor think? What would your wife, husband, or partner think? Is this something you want your friends to read about in the local paper or the Wall Street Journal? Fifty years down the road, how would you describe what you are about to do to your grandkids? What would they think?

Promise and then deliver. Be clear about what you can do and the timeframe around it. Confidently commit to what you can do. Then deliver on it. Don’t “overpromise and under-deliver” as the old saying goes. A proven track record of constantly promising and then delivering builds your integrity. And proverbially speaking, when your “mouth writes checks that you can’t cash,” your credibility and integrity take a hit. The more that happens, the more difficult it is to recover.

Learn from why good people do bad things. We tend to think that only bad people do bad things. But that’s not necessarily the case. Researchers have shed light on the fact that good people, even us, may do bad things or may not do the “right” thing even though we know better. We oftentimes don’t do the “right” thing because we don’t fully comprehend the entire situation; we don’t see the big picture or understand the actual choices we can make.

But you don’t have to fall into that trap.

First, don’t dwell on the people in the present, but rather, think about the future. Many of us like to help people, which is a noble thing to do. It’s totally natural and normal to care about and help the people we like. Yet doing so can cloud our judgment and prevents us from seeing what’s wrong in our actions and the future repercussions. By no means am I saying you no longer should help people or that how you feel about someone shouldn’t be part of your decisions. But according to research by Lamar Pierce and Francesca Gino,⁷ you shouldn’t let your relationship, or wanting to help someone, be the driving force and only reason behind your decisions. They recommend taking yourself out of the situation. Understand exactly what the cost to the future will be. How will your decisions truly affect you? The other person? Other people connected to your decision? That will be difficult because we can’t predict the future, and it’s so much easier to deal with the people we like in the present. But that’s how you can flip your focus and do the “right” thing. Fully understand the possible aftermath of your decisions, and be transparent to all parties involved about why you are making that decision.

Second, know the triggers and pressures that prompt making the wrong decision. There are circumstances or situations that would predict us acting unethically, or doing the “wrong” thing when we know all too well that we shouldn’t. Bazerman and Tenbrunsel in their book Blindspots⁸ and dean of Harvard Business School Nitin Nohria summarized research⁹ indicating we are more likely to act unethically when we work in uncertainty; we are under extreme time pressure; we work alone; or there are big rewards (usually monetary) tied to our work. If you are in any of these situations, you are more likely to go down a path you shouldn’t go or make a decision you don’t need to make. Act with integrity and do the “right” thing, particularly under these circumstances.

Integrity is needed when building trust. Although the findings of our character strengths research suggest that integrity only really matters at the top, trust is a reason why integrity is critical to you now as a new leader, and in your future, no matter where you are in your organization. Integrity has a lot to do with building trust. And as a leader, you know that without trust, you won’t get things done. So how do you build trust? Apply the work of Roger Mayer and his colleagues,¹⁰ cited over 13,000 times according to Google Scholar at the time of me writing this (so trust me—or Google, it’s good).

First, understand that you don’t have control over how trusting other people are. Some people are more trusting than others. So go easy on yourself if it seems difficult to build trust with someone—he or she may not be that trusting of anyone. Trust is not an automatic guarantee with everyone.

Second, to build trust, you must be trustworthy. Some people have an easier time being trusted than others. It’s usually because they are trustworthy, which embodies three elements according to Mayer and his colleagues: ability (are you highly skilled within the domain that is relevant to the relationship); benevolence (do you want to do good by the other person); and—you guessed it—integrity. And you can’t get away with just one of these; you really need all three.

Third, take a risk. If the other person is willing and you are seen as trustworthy, the next step is to take a risk and determine if the person can be trusted. Remember Brené Brown’s work: a little vulnerability goes a long way. That’s how trust really starts. Maybe it’s giving someone a project that you have some apprehension about because the stakes are high. Maybe it’s asking someone to do something a little beyond his or her talents, resources, or time. Maybe it’s having that person stand in or represent you in an important meeting or by delivering an important presentation. But that’s a necessary risk to take to build trust. And know that the other person is taking a risk too. If he or she does come through, that person is banking on you acknowledging it, giving him or her proper recognition, and not leaving him or her hanging out to dry. If the outcomes are favorable for both you and the other person, trust will grow. If not, trust fades.

Trust is essential to relationships at work, and there’s a big prize in the end once it’s built. A team of researchers led by Jason Colquitt¹¹ analyzed 119 different studies and observed a consistently strong connection between high levels of trust and (1) high levels of job performance, (2) high levels of going above and beyond what is required in jobs, and (3) low levels of doing things that are counterproductive to the work and productivity of organizations (like sabotage or stealing). And in their study, although ability, benevolence, and integrity (the aforementioned three indicators of trustworthiness) are needed, Colquitt and his team found integrity had the strongest relationship to trust for leaders. Flip your focus, and you can build better and more trusting relationships at work. In the end, trust will benefit you and, more importantly, the people you lead and serve.

It’s Not Easy Writing about This Either

Flipping your focus is hard. It isn’t easy writing about it either. In fact, this was the hardest chapter for me to write in the entire book. I’d write something. Then rewrite it. Then change it again. And again. Over and over and over again. I felt like I could never get it right. I wanted the perfect words there on paper, to help you understand just how important flipping your focus is, because not enough is being done about it.

I also found it hard to write this chapter because I didn’t want to scare you out of your mind. I didn’t want you to feel that you must be perfect every single second of every single day or else you’ll fail as a leader. That was not my intention.

Let me make this absolutely clear: you don’t have to be perfect in everything you do, and you shouldn’t feel like you can’t make mistakes. You will make mistakes. I do. We all do. And most mistakes can be fixed. In fact, decades of research through our “lessons of experience” work at CCL show time and time again that we learn from our mistakes and failures, and they make us better leaders and people.¹²

There’s a reason why this is the last part of your script to flip. Aside from being the hardest part of your script to flip, in my opinion it’s the most important to how you lead and what your future will be as a leader. I hope as you read this chapter, you are fully aware your actions and decisions can affect the lives of not just the people you lead and serve, but your family, friends, and possibly people way beyond your control or span of influence, now and in the future. You have the ability to be a great leader, one that people look up to and follow, one that is a shining example of character, integrity, and doing the “right” thing. Flip your focus and be the type of boss everyone wants to work for, not just for the rest of your career at work, but just as importantly, in your life away from work with your family, community, your place of worship, and the society we all live in.