What does it mean to be a leader of integrity, and what does integrity mean in the workplace? Companies with a culture of integrity know that when the value drives employees, they understand and execute their responsibilities ethically and proactively, hold themselves accountable for their results, and are – in short – a true asset.
In this episode of the Advance Podcast, Mike interviews coach and author Jeffrey Klubeck about the importance of integrity at work and how it powers organizational growth. They discuss ways to cultivate motivation, accountability and communication and dig into what it means to be an ethical leader. Watch out for Jeffrey’s 3-step method of holding people accountable for their actions!
EPISODE 20 SUMMARY & HIGHLIGHTS
Where do you draw motivation from?
1:34
Motivation can come from outside sources and can also be internal. External motivation involves the strategies, tactics, and resources that inspire you to take action or move from a place of mistake or confusion. Internal motivation is knowing what works for you and making decisions that go with your mindset, values, attitudes, beliefs, fears, perspectives, faith, and everything that influences your insides.
What is accountability? In what ways does accountability show up in our lives?
8:55
Accountability can sound confrontational and almost aggressive sometimes. Because when you confront somebody on their story, commitments, or report their work, performance, results, or mindset, it involves coming face-to-face with a report of their work. But it's far from it. Accountability is the willingness to be vulnerable.
What do you do when you don’t like the person you’re holding accountable?
11:41
Move from the point of dwelling in judgment and replace that with questions. Appreciative inquiry, mutual discovery, rapport, strategy building, offering debriefing. Drop your dislike for the person while you’re assessing them professionally. Use communication strategies, techniques, and questions to get to that point.
What strategies can an accountability coach employ to hold employees accountable for their actions?
15:07
Jeffrey’s three-step approach for holding people accountable for their actions involves:
What does it mean to be an ethical leader?
28:49
An ethical leader tries to motivate people toward pleasure instead of away from pain. Their principles, when simply stated, can be like, 'Don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal'. If you can lead people towards pleasure without lying, cheating, or stealing, or encouraging them to lie, cheat or steal, you're closer to an ethical leader than a boss, a manager, a director, a supervisor, or direct, according to Jeffrey.
(Full shownotes at https://connect.stepstoadvance.com)
What does it mean to be a leader of integrity, and what does integrity mean in the workplace? Companies with a culture of integrity know that when the value drives employees, they understand and execute their responsibilities ethically and proactively, hold themselves accountable for their results, and are – in short – a true asset.
In this episode of the Advance Podcast, Mike interviews coach and author Jeffrey Klubeck about the importance of integrity at work and how it powers organizational growth. They discuss ways to cultivate motivation, accountability and communication and dig into what it means to be an ethical leader. Watch out for Jeffrey’s 3-step method of holding people accountable for their actions!
EPISODE 20 SUMMARY & HIGHLIGHTS
Where do you draw motivation from?
1:34
Motivation can come from outside sources and can also be internal. External motivation involves the strategies, tactics, and resources that inspire you to take action or move from a place of mistake or confusion. Internal motivation is knowing what works for you and making decisions that go with your mindset, values, attitudes, beliefs, fears, perspectives, faith, and everything that influences your insides.
What is accountability? In what ways does accountability show up in our lives?
8:55
Accountability can sound confrontational and almost aggressive sometimes. Because when you confront somebody on their story, commitments, or report their work, performance, results, or mindset, it involves coming face-to-face with a report of their work. But it's far from it. Accountability is the willingness to be vulnerable.
What do you do when you don’t like the person you’re holding accountable?
11:41
Move from the point of dwelling in judgment and replace that with questions. Appreciative inquiry, mutual discovery, rapport, strategy building, offering debriefing. Drop your dislike for the person while you’re assessing them professionally. Use communication strategies, techniques, and questions to get to that point.
What strategies can an accountability coach employ to hold employees accountable for their actions?
15:07
Jeffrey’s three-step approach for holding people accountable for their actions involves:
What does it mean to be an ethical leader?
28:49
An ethical leader tries to motivate people toward pleasure instead of away from pain. Their principles, when simply stated, can be like, 'Don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal'. If you can lead people towards pleasure without lying, cheating, or stealing, or encouraging them to lie, cheat or steal, you're closer to an ethical leader than a boss, a manager, a director, a supervisor, or direct, according to Jeffrey.
(Full shownotes at https://connect.stepstoadvance.com)
How many of you would raise your hand say I'm a person of integrity now what does that mean those are some of the questions that Jeffrey Klubeck asked when he does keynotes and today we're going to talk about integrity and really how that's part of the success of motivating and holding your team accountable as well as for you as a leader as a person who wants to advance your life check out this fast and furious conversation with Jeffrey Klubeck Welcome to advance with Mike Acker the podcast designed to help entrepreneurs business leaders and professionals alike break through barriers by improving their practical leadership skills and increasing confidence in speaking. Your host is a best-selling author executive coach and founder of the advanced public speaking school and advantage publishing group two companies dedicated to providing an edge for leaders find out more about Mike at mikeacker.com Now here's your host Mike Acker Jeffrey thank you so much for being on the show today thank you mike looking forward to diving in and what I want to do is dive into a question that I'm intrigued by when I was reading about you kind of studying your book and studying a little bit about you you talk a lot about motivation and I'm a huge huge student I love the idea of motivation written about it thought about it a whole bunch so talk to us about where we get motivation from personally and how we can help others be motivated? Wow! that's yeah it's fun to take these concepts that may be subjective or nebulous or theoretical or conceptual right concepts and get them a little more actionable so like with something like motivation it's to be so broad it helped me to just look at two different frames internal and external right. so external motivation you're talking about "strategies" ,"tactics" and "resources". if my wife for example says make dinner for the kids I might be paralyzed or stuck but if she says make dinner for the kids and the ingredients the instructions and the tools are on the counter I'll just go so all of a sudden by giving me external motivation strategies tactics resources I'm a little less concerned about making mistakes or I'm a little less stuck a little so you know the map the directions the canteen of water these are external strategies tactics resources so it's not enough though just to get some strategy I think that people need to know themselves know their behavior behavioral instincts if you will their personality types or what's instinctually natural for them and select strategy that integrates that syncs with their natural behavioral style wouldn't do me any good to choose a strategy that I dislike or it seems like meals on the chalkboard for me um there's a lot of different ways to the same destination so there should be a strategy that's going to fit my behavioral style it's not a matter of finding it learning it studying it most things that can be achieved out there have been achieved and are study-able right uh it but none of that matters none of that matters if if you're trying to build a mansion on top of quicksand and I mean you know mindset so internal so external strategies tactics resources but internal is your "mindset" your "values" your "attitudes" your "beliefs" your "fears" your "perspectives" your "faith" anything that's influencing what's going on inside so that includes knowing what you want a lot of people don't know what they want right so deciding what you want is a great way to get yourself motivated where people have a hard time figuring out my purpose my gifts my potential and without making those decisions it's really hard to sync up internal external sources of motivation if we don't have a north star if we don't have a major major guiding force so there's a lot more to say about motivation but the the where I'd start is internal and external. yeah I think that's absolutely great! so as you're listening to this today thank you so much for tuning in check this out and I'm going to introduce Jeffrey a little bit let him talk about who he is where he comes from but here's a great starting point for you as you're driving as you're thinking as you're watching. what is your internal motivation? if you're not quite sure we'll give you some thoughts along the way today and maybe even just doing something temporary you don't have to set your whole life in motion and then what is your external motivation what's going to help you out there I love that Jeffrey that you're saying it's different there's different tactics a checklist is great for some not great for others so great realizations but who are you Jeffrey who are you to speak to us on self-image and motivation and all these different areas that we're going to cover today? yeah I'm just a guy just a guy that has just a guy from a credibility perspective why would people listen to a guy like me I have a master's degree in communication I believe I am a master of communication who has a master's in communication some of our gifts are God-given and then some of them are self-generated and I am a big fan of integrating God-given with self-generated gifts right so I taught public speaking for common public speaking and communication modules for 20 years so brick and mortar thousands of students have gotten past their fear of public speaking into a a level of competence when it comes to communication presenting ideas organizing thoughts etc. I obviously I'm preaching to the choir when we talk about the value of public speaking Mike I mean your track record speaks for itself and what you've done in public speaking and how you've helped others and and then what I'd when I got into personal professional growth that's when it got really exciting because they they fed each other I was a better per I was a better professor because I'm a professor but I just taught them talk to them like a coach like let's motivate you they told you accountable let's select strategy let's so there was the rah-rah that I was able to do and I had a stand-up comedian type of delivery style I love teaching classes. I didn't like grading papers so much but you know so I learned that you know you make it fun and you get people engaged. You and what you know public speaking was one thing the people that were going to embrace it and use it and later on that was cool but when I found out Mike I was teaching people to finish what they start I was teaching people to pay attention to to follow directions to support classmates I was teaching people to show up I was teaching people to be aware of due dates I was teaching right and to take pride in their work and to to not worry about the the the things not to worry about. so that had nothing to do with what was in the textbook of public speaking those things and I was able to to really make a difference for my students in those ways because I understood motivation, accountability, and engagement as from my personal professional growth education and I became a coach and built a coaching practice and built a coach's training because I was a professor so when I went through my coaches training right when I was consuming the content of coaches training and unstructured training I was a little critical you know because I knew about student learning objectives and I knew about content and exercises and homework and assignments and competency and quizzes and how to structure curriculum and there are some things you know to be noticed but I had to keep my head down and just stay in the training for what I was there for which is learn how to coach and learn how to build a coaching practice and I thought instead of correcting this guy's training I'll just do my own when I know how to coach so I built a coaching practice built a coach's training around my methodology for coaching I keep telling you what you know what it's built on these three words engagement motivation and accountability and um and I built the coaching practice it took me all around the world and I've been on four continents 12 countries many many major cities within those countries so I've worked with entrepreneurs all over the world I've gotten thousands of people past the fear of public speaking I've earned six figures year after year after year you know just convincing people to talk to me and I'm just think I'm just a guy you know but that doesn't mean that none of those reasons are reasons to listen to me that's just who I am. I always think that you know the reasons to listen to me are really truly in the ears of the beholder. yeah we'll get I'm excited to see what we cover here today and I know it's gonna be helpful to people as you as you know the huge area that I talk about is that fear of speaking in the book that I've written on that now has over a thousand ratings and a lot of colleges have picked it up so it's pretty exciting let's talk about this accountability aspect yeah when it comes to accountability there's some different thoughts on it and so how can we help people so think about the person who's listening right here and they're thinking I need to be held accountable or they're in a position of leadership and they need to hold people accountable so talk to us a little bit about the value of accountability and some of the forms and methods in which it takes? ah, this is one of my favorite topics um and you and you asked it in a really beautiful way I could you know to see the the the totality of it in front of me first of all to for the second part first of all for the second part the people that need to hold other people accountable right right the leaders the leaders right let's say you're a top contributing top producing contributor and then they elevate you to manager and now you've got to hold all of your friends accountable because you got the raise and the promotion of their job right yep You need to learn accountability or let's say you start a business you've got employees you want to run it like a family because but now you're a dysfunctional family that has no idea how to hold each other accountable. congratulations right so there's a lot of people out there that need to hold other people accountable and it's very funny I set this up to say this. It starts with being held accountable so if you are in a position where you know you're going to need to hold others accountable you must the first recommendation is that you've had the experience of being accountable being held accountable that you understand what accountability is if somebody came up to you said what's accountability that you have an answer that you have an idea of what it means and and I'm going to go deeper if you like really I'm going to go like this is the answer you may not have expected it takes LOVE it takes love on surface accountability we hear about a light a fire under my butt I need you to push me uh kick my butt get in my face hold me accountable! it seems so confrontational and almost aggressive and but it that's all on surface the truth of the matter is it takes love to hold somebody accountable and by that I mean the willingness to be vulnerable because when we do confront somebody on their story on their commitments on their reporting on their behavior and their performance and their results on their mindset it is so much confrontation okay let me pause on this right here yeah yeah I love that you're saying it takes love because absolutely right I mean with my son very easy to hold him accountable in some ways I absolutely love him and hey buddy this is not good for you etc. or this is good for you and I want the best for you but sometimes we manage people that we don't even like and sometimes we direct people we don't even like and if we're even honest with ourselves sometimes we are looking our own selves and we don't even like ourselves so right so what do you do when you don't like the person that you're holding accountable and therefore maybe don't even love them and what do you do when it's external or what do you do when it's internal? yeah um you don't like them you love them you're liking them isn't I'm not talking about liking them I am talking about loving them I'm talking about you know leadership is love right with your son your dad and you've got a little bit of a you know power authority you know some in-group association right you know um there's the the relationship is multi-layered you know and some of those layers can dilute other layers right um it's interesting but you know I love your honesty when you say well sometimes you don't like the person well we if we're a leader right it doesn't matter what we like we gotta get the job done we gotta we gotta you know maybe I'll like them better if I can help them grow personally and professionally so I have to stay out of judgment which is more of a management piece right and into leadership which is help this person be the best version of themselves they could possibly be and if I'm judging them and I'm paying attention to that voice in my head about a characteristic of behavior or decision they made that I wouldn't have made or I don't know why they did that etc. and if I let myself go like pain is mandatory but suffering is optional so I have to quickly sever the dwelling and the judgment and replace that with questions, appreciative, inquiry, mutual discovery, rapport building ,a strategy offering and debriefing uh 360 behavior I have all these other tools at my disposal that I would use instead of judgment or dwelling in any dislike for a person and now you bring up another interesting thing what if we don't like ourselves and we don't like the person well they're very it's the same thing we have to love ourselves we have to love other people so none of us are perfect none of us are going to be perfect but we all have the opportunity to say that we are trying to get better every day we're working to get better every day I have an idea of what better is I have a plan to get there and I'm in action on that plan. if you want anything else from me let's talk about it but I need to be a product of the product back to what I was saying before I need to be somebody that understands accountability I need to be somebody that has been held accountable I need to be somebody that can explain accountability maybe even teach structures in accountability which we could get to the x's and o's of how you actually hold somebody accountable like if somebody might makes a commitment to you on a Tuesday says they're going to do something for themselves for their own goal achievement. like it's not really going to matter for you whether they do it or not unless you're responsible for their productivity but if they say they're going to do something on a Tuesday and then you meet with them on the following Tuesday and you say yes or no did you do it or not they go no now what do you do there's there's communication strategies there's techniques there's communication structures there's questions and objectives that an accountability coach or a leader wants to achieve in that moment. The moment that somebody is quote out of integrity around a commitment there's x's and o's communication strategy for that but at a high level yeah Give us some of those x's and o's too because I think it's I think people are walking away going okay I love the the understanding I love the idea of loving them I get it that makes sense my mind grabs a hold of that what are some of the x's and those what are some of the strategies and tactics I can put into place? yeah I'll give you very very very very very very core core core very easy to understand harder to execute three-step approach when you are out of integrity with yourself or somebody's out of integrity with you and it doesn't mean they're a bad person you follow this is one of the things we have to get through like when you say you're out of integrity it doesn't mean you have no integrity it just means you said you were going to do something you didn't do it it's just math it's not judgment you follow right so that's that's a big piece but here are three things that you do a three-step approach so if your son Mike says to you that he's going to do something and then you follow up and say did you do that here are three things you can do with your son right if you're a manager and a direct report says they're going to do something and they didn't do it here are three things you can do with the direct report if you're a new coach out there and you're having a hard time holding your client accountable especially because you don't want them to get mad at you and fire you because you need the income here are three things you can do are you guys you know are you with me on how I'm setting this up yeah this is useful for so many people. yeah so when somebody is out of integrity around a commitment when when it's discovered when it comes up in the leadership conversation that somebody says no I did not do what I said I was going to do the first thing you want to do is get them to own it that's first thing you do is that's the objective own it they have to own it so you would ask a question like "well, why didn't you do that?" right now what you have to be ready for and this is why you need love in your heart because you need patience and you need compassion because here's what you're going to get you're going to get something short of 100% responsibility well I was going to but or well I meant to but oh well I decided I was going to do something else or whatever it is you follow but it might be something short of 100% responsibility maybe they do take 100% responsibility and they say well I know I committed to that in our last session but um three things happened and then I decided I was just going to do this instead and so what I did was actually better because and you know what they're doing is they're putting up all the smoke in the mirrors does that do you hear that right and this sounds familiar yeah absolutely so you got to come back and say hang on hang on a second who's responsible who made the commitment? when did you know that you weren't going to do this anymore? who is responsible for this? so there's all kinds of follow-up questions to you have to get them to sit in. This is a hard thing to do in admission they have to acknowledge instead of excusing, instead of shuffling, or oh I was going to but the cats spilled the milk and then it made me 15 minutes late and then traffic and by that point I just decided what the you know whatever right. They can't they can't be in a state of mind or they can't be communicating excuse or anything other than taking responsibility right? It may not be a big deal right but they still it's a it's less of a deal as soon as they take responsibility. Like hey I said I was going to do that and I didn't do that is there anybody else responsible for this no no it's me. I failed on this one this is I wasn't my word I didn't do what I said I forgot I didn't remind myself I wasn't powerful I whatever they need to say it's got to have an I statement and then that accepting of the responsibility for the thing being done and what their word was right. I love that there's a duality in both motivation and accountability yes and I know that one of the things that you'd like to say again again is that motivation and accountability equals results that's right and so there's a duality and motivation internal external there's duality and accountability internal external. correct yeah and and and I can break it down other ways too this comes from you you understand when people are in public speaking when they're deciding on their topic topics vast right so what we have to do is help them break that topic down into main points and then the sub points can't talk about there's no speech in the world that is enough time to talk about every topic so guys like you and I we have a lot of experience with categorical thinking is this topical is it chronological is it spatial geographical we've got partitions in our mind to help break large subjects down right so there's a lot of different ways we could do it but internal external is a very easy frame and and so back to the three steps right that one is get them to own it okay once they own it then you can go into step two which is you know you could call it if I'm training someone you call it leverage right you know somebody like Tony Robbins might call it leverage where you have leverage on your subject right which gives you more power than you would have had without it's like a communication tool and leverage is getting people associated to the consequences of being or not being our word or doing or not doing so there's a duality here as well there's other consequences the two rewards same two categories two sides the same coin of when we are our word number one right our sense of self strength is right our own internal sense of integrity like I did what I said I was going to do so that makes me stronger mindset wise my chest is out a little higher I'm standing a little taller because I am a person of my word every time I do what I said I was going to do so that's one benefit and then the other benefit is I'm closer to some goal you know whatever when I take action right I'm going to learn something or I'm going to advance somewhere if so when I do what I say I'm going to do I always get those two benefits progress towards a goal and a sense of self when I fail to be my word those are the two categories as well those are the two consequences my sense of self diminishes or disintegrates a little bit and then if I don't do what I said I was going to do then I'm no closer to getting what I wanted to get so there's a duality there so we want to help people as leaders feel and acknowledge the consequences of having not done what they said they were going to do and then once they own it once they feel the consequences now we're ready to do step three which is get a de-commitment or a re-commitment so we can't leave that program running in the background we're either gonna close that and decommit to it or we're gonna recommit to it and turn the screw of accountability a little bit and make sure that we do a better job as leaders helping them keep their word this time right so a lot of times it's the leader and the coach that has to work hard at not letting somebody commit to something that has a high probability that they won't do it but wait a minute I want to move to leadership so I don't have to do as much I'm sorry so I want to move to leadership so I don't have to do as much yeah yeah well I that I would agree with that there's a dot hanging there that is a thought process people have it is a process well guess what you're just treating you know you'll you'll always have to do more than what what you're doing what there's nothing wrong with that statement if you just finish it right because it sounds incomplete ready here's how it sounds in my head I want to move to leadership so I won't have to do as much technician work. Okay yeah but now you're still going to have to do a lot of managing technician work and the mindset and the egos and the politics and different levels of responsibilities of advance that's why I believe as I do I love thank you by the way for quoting motivation plus accountability equals results that's the subtext of the integrity game but I also believe soft skills make strong leaders soft skills make strong teams soft skills make strong organizations so you're going to be working hard at the soft skills and when you move into leadership I say that in talking in chief because it's very interesting when sometimes there can be a thought process like I've worked my butt off on as a contributor I've coded I've done the tech work I've shown up I've done the deliveries and now I get the chair and now I get to to lead and just read and just whatever it is that people have this view of but really even as you're talking about this accountability aspect there's a lot of work that now it's not so much that you're doing for yourself the tech work but you're doing for others and yeah yeah there's a higher level of responsibility Well it's a different level of responsibility I think that everybody should see what their responsibilities are as the most important thing right yeah you know everybody's everything's only strong is the weakest link so if everybody sees their link is the most important link in the chain every change every link is going to thrive um so I would say different not more not that you know what I mean I wouldn't go hierarchical even though there is in corporations but the thing about it is the misnomer the mindset piece that people need to let me push back I actually think there is more not because of the hierarchy but because now you're there's more than just you on at stake yeah yeah or me I mean as a single guy my the responsibility was to feed myself hey I can feed myself and if I don't feed myself then the only person that's paying for that is is me then you have a family of kids you have people who are responsible for and I do think there's a higher level there's a more responsibility and a higher level hierarchical sense said that with other people said That way I hear you I still would say it's more challenging or more expansive like like the point the only point that I want to make not better or worse right is different level different skill set right so it's the speaking of the mindsets like hey congratulations you've done your time you've paid your dues and you get to go from on your feet to in the chair well now there's all sets of dues to be paid in the chair now you're like you haven't graduated you've just started something new and so all that you know like like let's say there's 12 dues to pay you hit on your feet in the factory floor right well how many dues are there to pay in the chair or is this the only level you want so we still can't constantly need to condition people to declare what what's their north star you know if your north star used to be to get in the chair now that you're in the chair what's the north star and when and when they say well from here I want to go there all right so now what do you need to learn master what do you need to pay in order to get there and take 100% and it is if they're focused on what their dues are what they're do you know then those and they're serious about that then the responsibilities for caring for others will come with it I think but I hear what you're saying man when you back to teaching classes uh as as as a professor I'll give you a story from the classroom that validates what you're saying because I hear you once you restate it uh more clearly thank you is that I'm just pushing the buttons I just when you got to group communication modules I would say everybody needs to do their persuasive speeches as groups and and at first I didn't want to assign I didn't want to feel them that they were pressed upon and I assign their groups and say hey you guys figure out what groups you want to be in groups of three or four not two not five three or four and come up with a topic and you hold the whole thing submit a topic that's not you need teach group communication how to have effective meetings how to delegate the tasks how to come together quality assign roles all of that stuff anyway um after the first semester of doing it I'll never forget the a students the best students in the class would come up to me like chad you know professor I got a bad group the guy's not doing his work and they didn't show up for the meeting and I had to do it all and I want an and they don't care and I got that I'm like oh no I just punished this poor person who's doing great work all semester long now all of a sudden somebody said hey can I be in your group and now they're doing all of the work that wasn't cool of me so I created a student evaluation form like and I would say hey guess what you're going to be in groups you decide your groups but you could do peer review anonymous and turn it in if any of your group members aren't performing you rate them in these categories turn that in that'll affect their grade and then that has more work for me and nobody would do it it felt awkward so what I have you know I mean so here's what I ended up doing mike I ended up saying all right here's the deal you're going to do a group speech at the end you're going to be in groups of three and the number one point earner in class was automatically going to be in a group with number two and number three and then four five six would be in a group and seven eight nine would be in a group and and then as I'm saying this I'm looking around like that's right 27, 28 and 29. you guys are all going to be together they all started looking over their shoulders okay so what would happen was then we'd get to the end of the semester and of course that's how the groups were assigned and these people that to your point mike left to their own devices only having to worry about themselves all semester long were failing or getting d's and now they were in a group situation and they didn't want to be the weak link so there's these people that were by themselves as individuals failing my class failing their class well my class it's their class right they were failing their class and then on the last speech the big speech the big persuasive speech they would come and get b's and a's and their personalities would come out and they cared it was amazing to see what people were willing to do when they knew they were responsible for others that they weren't willing to do for themselves Yeah that's fascinating yeah so so motivation yeah accountability you get this in a lot of what you're saying can really revolve around an idea that you are just obsessed with and so I think this would be a great way for us to to take the conversation here and it really has to do with ethical leadership what does it mean to be an ethical leader what does it mean to inspire what does it mean to motivate your team and ultimately comes down to it and it's the name of your book integrity so yeah what does it mean to be a person who's playing a game the game of work the game of life with integrity and what are some ways that we can do that as leaders of ourself and leaders of others? Yeah it's a great question first of all broadly um ethical leadership means I mean I didn't write the book on ethical leadership you know there's other sources you know if you want to break down that term okay but again what I'm going for there is integrity in that sense yeah yeah I wanna I'll give you guys integrity I wanna address this piece it's very simple right you know we can think about what we do want or we can think about what we don't want right and so most people are motivated you know human beings are motivated by one of two forces either away from pain or towards pleasure so to me an ethical leader tries to motivate people towards pleasure instead of away from pain right and then it has to go a little bit further than that because we got to get the sadists out and the you know people that think that pleasure is winning at all costs no that's not what I'm at you follow like in other words so it's almost like to be you know I watched obi-wan the other you know you got to be a jedi instead of a sith right like you know like the desire to accumulate power so that you can help other people is good the desire to accumulate power at other people's expense and just is not so good right so I don't care what your theology is what anybody's theology is don't lie don't cheat don't steal right and call the rest whatever you want but if you can lead people towards pleasure without lying cheating or stealing or encouraging them to lie cheat or steal you're probably closer to an ethical leader than a boss a manager a director a supervisor direct you know whatever you know you can lead people to do stuff by coercion, manipulation misinformation. You can um whatever you know like the the powers of persuasion and influence are you know they start neutral you know you know aristotle logos ethos pathos right now we're going to use logos pathos for good. Are we going to use it for not so good yeah Robert Cialdini's the seven elements of influence I mean fantastic that's right and you originally created it so that you could be careful of being wrongly influenced now of course lots of people have used it to wrongly influence others. Yeah I mean you just it's it's unfortunate it's unfortunate that powers of persuasion and influence leaders they're all forms of leadership right um and you know you hesitate to refer to you know certain examples you know like it's very sensitive you know country right now uh and I guess that's always true the more I study history people have been saying that for years you want to you don't want to I don't want to be divisive I don't I think red and blue two wings are the same bird right but the idea is that there are very very I'm interested in the communication aspect the the rhetorical criticism the logos the ethos the pathos the messaging the the the play right which either side would accuse the other of prey on emotions and what we know about we you know we human motivation has been studied right we know what people want right so it seems to me that to lead people I either got to tell them what they want is in jeopardy and then they'll go do what I want them to do if I can be credible and right or I'll tell them what they want is a couple steps away they just go do what I tell them to do you know we know what people want health they want relationships they want you know to earn a good living they want entertainment they want to give back they want excitement variety so if I can tell you all of those things are going away unless you do what I say I might be effective and I can tell you those things are within your grasp if you do what I say I might be effective but what people want is known ethical leadership tries to help oneself and others get what they want without force manipulation, dishonesty, lying, cheating, stealing, misinformation, covering up cya cover your butt right ethical leadership they're accountable ethical leaders they put the work in ethical leaders they take the time to get to know the people they're leading ethical leaders want what's best for their people whether it helps them individually or not ethical leader knows that if I lose person a because this other opportunity is right for person a then I'll be a good enough leader I'll hire the new person a and that'll be my fit instead of keeping somebody in their chair because it serves me and I can't afford to let somebody go and blah blah blah blah blah so it's a selflessness it's a vulnerability right love is the willingness to be vulnerable so an ethical leader is willing to be vulnerable and an unethical unethical leader is not. Yeah so where does integrity play into all that? Yeah well integrity is it gets us there it's close but it's it in my experience it hasn't done enough so when you you talked about it earlier you notice it but I'm giving you the word right you said the duality there's a duality well left alone they're two separate units but when we integrate internal and external now we're more empowered to talk about motivation when we look at it those two ways when we integrate motivation with accountability we're more empowered to get the results right when we bring things together so everybody here's my thing Mike integrity is one of these words like you mentioned being a like parenting or driving right where everybody thinks themselves to be really good at it but everybody else sucks I'm an amazing driver I'm a fantastic driver depending on what you mean by driving like you're constantly cutting across the street I'm really good at that really good at that. Right so like George Carlin had the great line like why is everybody driving fast to you a freaking idiot and everybody driving slower you a freaking [ __ ] right like anybody that's not doing so the autobiographical versus biographical perspective and on and on so so what I'm getting at is you know we as parents like why are they doing that we criticize parents who criticize drivers and what we usually do when it comes to the word of integrity is we only use it when we're accusing somebody else of not having any or there's the snake oil sales people out there that say oh you want to buy from me because I have integrity but we know that if we study their behavior if they were willing to be counted we'd find all kinds of out of integrities in their processes or their whatever okay so the the what I'm trying to do with the integrity game this is like it's a parable it's a made-up story it's set to baseball um because that's something that I'm integrating into the book is my like a memoir kind of legacy play for me there's characters in here that are named after my kids with some of their qualities and there's a character in here it's got a little bit of all of us in there and anyway there's like a season ticket holder and a rookie baseball player and a hot dog vendor and a 10-point model emerges through the story so I created a 10-point model for integrity to make it accessible to make it possible for people to up level their integrity to increase their integrity for self and others. Because like driving people don't really know how where they are on that is that the kind of the idea behind it because how good of a driver I am I'm either good or bad and integrity like I'm either good at integrity or bad and you're saying hey there's actually 10 different levels you got. well well 10 okay you're on to something first of all let's we do want to get rid of the either or thinking you're onto something beautiful here Mike so I do when I'm doing the public speaking version of this I'm available for keynotes and right when I'm doing the public speaking version of this I will start off and I'll ask how many of you have integrity by show of hands right by show hands or making noise or whatever how many of you believe you have integrity and you can imagine you could see it right now like 100% of the audience raises their hand so I say all right if you raised with your left please switch to your right and repeat after me I do do solemnly swear not to shoot the messenger in 45 minutes because we're going to discuss integrity and I hope to expand your understanding of it I'm going to bet you know my keynote rating you know the ratings that you'll give me I'll bet my ratings that your understanding of integrity can use a broadening. I'd love to be the guy and I bet all of you are not going to raise your hand so quickly when I ask at the end how many of you believe you have integrity some of you won't raise your hand at all some of you will contemplate and really look within and that's what I want to do. I want to make it easy and fun to look within but first what are we talking about? let's make sure that we're talking about the same thing right okay and you know this from a communication perspective what I the meaning that I attach to a word isn't necessarily the meaning that somebody else will attach to the same word so driving could be golf you got it it could be it could be driving me crazy if you're you know like if you have kids and if you're married everybody drives each other crazy and the house got a lot smaller during Covid and all that stuff driving driving driving or like crashing a class right if you're a student you know what that means if you're not a student you're like is everybody okay right so terminology you know anyway that's not the point that what I want to make the point is people have a limited understanding of integrity okay so when I ask what is it I'm always going to get two answers mike and you I'll see you nodding if this comes to mind like something you might say but you imagine the room right you've done public speaking you know that there's extroverts that want to raise their hand that they want to interact and as a speaker I want to get somebody on the left side of the room interacting I want to get somebody on the right side of the room interacting I want to you know find some anchors and some eye contact people throughout and I want to learn some names and I want to get that going on so hang on let's make sure we're talking about the same thing what is integrity and somebody you sir what's your name joe thank you joe what is it right so one of the answers I always get is be your word do what you say you're going to do I like and then people will not I'm like okay there's everybody we'll pin that on the board we'll use it do what you say you're going to do and somebody else when you say you're going to do it that's like you know the real stern you know ruler tapper you know the person with the ruler that'll tap your knuckles if you're a minute late but punctuality is a form of accountability isn't it if you say eight o'clock that means eight o'clock doesn't it not 801 802 803. right okay so do what you say you're going to do when you when you say you're going to do it that's all what that's what being your word right okay anybody else have an understanding of integrity and somebody else will say like sue over here joe and sue who will say do the right thing regardless of who's watching do the same thing behave the same way when nobody's watching as you would when somebody is watching so I see you nodding and that makes sense you've heard that before so those are the two answers I get and I like those because here's what we get to do I get to do in both of those cases there is an integration. In one there's the integration coming together of the word with the behavior and on the other there's the behavior with the value or the ethic or the moral so in both cases there's integration a coming together of one thing with another and in both cases it's behavior that is integrating with something else so now we get to I asked get to ask people to write this down behavior is the evidence of our integrity it's not what we say it's not what I thought I was gonna do what I hope to do like I didn't ask at the beginning how many of you think yourselves to be a good person I expect everybody to raise their hand I think everybody at core is a good person too right what I ask is how many of you believe you have integrity and it's a trick question and no I keep teasing a little bit my point is in both cases there's an integration of coming together with one thing with another in both cases behavior is involved right but if I asked a million people what's the definition of integrity not one of the million answers would use the word integration in their answer yet they start with the same six letters I n e g so I want people to focus on when we talk about integrity it's not just oh they're a bad person they're out of integrity or I'm a good person I have integrity right right not just I like myself I have integrity I don't like them they have no integrity no no no I want you to focus on integration what is coming together what are the things that are coming together and we say out of integrity when they're not together we say in integrity when they are together so what brings them together what keeps them together yeah okay now so I want to start there integration but now the other point is why 10 why 10 points on the model why not just behavior with word or behavior with value because mike if I said I was going to drink 18 I always use this example if I said I was going to drink 18 beers before the podcast today and then I drank 18 beers before the podcast I'd be very impressed well so would my liver but would I be able to claim integrity I did what I said I was going to do if I said I'm going to lay in bed for five days straight and then I laid in bed for five days straight would I be able to claim integrity you're a man of your word man of your word but that's not enough is what I'm getting at because all I have to do is commit to nothing the rest of my life and I'll be able to fool myself into thinking that's some sort of integrity we want to know the man with the word has a bigger plan for me you understand so what I'm getting at is people you can be smart alecky and say hey you're a man every word yeah you can say you have integrity but we all know that I can't claim integrity by being lazy we can't claim integrity by being destructive we can't claim integrity but not advancing myself towards there's other things not just word with behavior the other thing you know do the same thing when nobody's watching that you would when somebody's watching well quite honestly there's some things I want to do in private that I don't want to do in public and there are some that are good I want to do in public I don't want to do it in private you know what I mean like you're like I don't want to cheer for my favorite baseball team when I'm at pillow talk with my wife there are other things I'd like to do during pillow talk that I wouldn't do at a ball game and I it's important it's on it's incumbent on me to know which is which when is when right my point is the the thanks for laughing what I setting my audience up to understand is that it's it's a good start nobody would argue do the same thing regardless of who's watching or do the right thing regardless of who's watching and be your word nobody would argue with those things now how many of us actually do the right thing how many of us actually are our word just because nobody's confronting us on it because people don't know how to hold people accountable doesn't mean that we have integrity just because nobody's calling us out on it doesn't mean and so what I did and I get I build this curiosity I hope what are the I have a ten point model I have a 10-point model that I these are the 10 things that I want us to be bringing together in order to claim the most integrity so this is my contribution to the world of personal professional growth my big audacious brand promise is that I have made it tangible to improve one's integrity I made it accessible to understand expand and prove one's own or our teams or our culture in an organization I believe sitting here with you that this could be a one player game a multiplayer game or an institutional game and there's 10 points on the model and they're not rocket science to understand the hard part is treating the 10 points as question sets answering the questions and making sure the answers go together and then behaving as much in alignment with those answers as possible and it's a trick question because the choice I think this is absolutely fantastic because so much of the what you're talking about is that behavior aspect which goes back to how we started and even as we wrap up the way that we started going back to motivation and accountability there's there's behavior there how are you motivating yourself how are you motivating other people to behave and then accountability how are you holding yourself accountable that's right and are how do you hold others accountable for the behavior that they go and really all of that is part of that integrity and all of that is part of being the type of leader that is an ethical leader as well now this is absolutely fascinating Jeffrey there there's obviously so many more areas that you go and obviously you've written about it you talk about it and I think that at this point in time people are going man I want to I want to know more than just motivation more than just more than just accountability so where can people find you where can people find a book where can they get where can they hear more yeah the book the integrity game is available on amazon uh as a matter of fact I'm proud to say that when we released it it got to number one among best uh number one bestseller among new releases in its category uh and in in education and certification so we are going to be doing certified integrity game coaches certified integrity game speakers there's a curriculum behind the book so the book can be found at integritygame.com uh I'm sorry on amazon and then integritygame.com if you want to play and if you want to get two complimentary coaching sessions or learn about the 90-day challenge that's coming down later in the year or anything like that you can submit you get into our database but otherwise I'm just a guy my name is my name's jeff jeff my last name is klubeck k-l-u-b-e-c-k a simple search you'll find me connect with me send me a message and I welcome you with my open digital arms I love it and we'll of course put that all in our show notes on YouTube and our plan have shown awesome and people can find that but jeff it's been fun man fast and furious lots of content there for people to go back and re-watch or pause as they're going up if they're driving but to pause and think through and no really thank you so much for sharing this these these are some great things for us to grab a hold of for today thank you for having me mike and to all of our listeners thank you so much as well thank you for liking subscribing sharing commenting take a moment pass this on to somebody else look up Jeffrey check out his book it's all part of helping you advance in your leadership in your life until next time this has been Mike Acker with Jeffrey Klubeck from advance. 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