Integrity

How to Lead Your Business With Integrity

By Brandon W. Jones on December 27, 2013 2

Integrity is defined as, “the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles.” It’s a characteristic that’s getting harder and harder to find in today’s business climate, but that doesn’t mean it’s not something worth striving for in your own professional life. Particularly if you own your own company or are in a position of leadership, integrity should be something you actively consider every day.

So, what does leading your business with integrity mean today? Here are a few ways to be the boss without compromising your morals.

First, you’ve got to know what you stand for.
It’s impossible to expect something from other people you don’t even know to expect from yourself. Spend some time identifying the qualities you respect in other leaders and just in people in general. Odds are, things like honesty, dependability, and trustworthiness all stick out. Try to define the three characteristics you’d like to be described as and actively work towards those goals every single day. [Read more…] about How to Lead Your Business With Integrity

Lead With Integrity

By Brandon W. Jones on May 2, 2013 4

When you are a leader, it is very important to lead with integrity. If you lead with integrity people will trust you. If you don’t lead with integrity, people will distrust you. To lead with integrity, you must be honest, true to your word, and trustworthy.

A little while back I was on a quest to learn about how to lead with integrity. I picked up a book called Leading with Integrity: Character Based Leadership by Alan Kolp and Peter Rea. The authors mentioned many great points on how to lead with integrity.

The authors make three points that you may not think of when you think of leading with integrity. They were globalization and technology, servant leadership and competence, and teaching character. Each of these sections is very relevant to understanding what it means to lead with integrity.

Globalization and Technology

In today’s world the use of technology and globalization is growing faster than ever before. Innovation continues to increase technology is most countries throughout the world. Companies are outsourcing more work to countries with less expensive labor. They are also building offshore warehouses to produce their goods. With the technology, they use telecommunication systems to conference call from one location to another across the globe. As the book points out, the number of overseas phone calls has dramatically increased over the last decade.

[Read more…] about Lead With Integrity

Values Of Leadership Excellence

By Brandon W. Jones on April 25, 2013 1

Yesterday, I asked the question, “What do you think of when you hear the phrase ‘Leadership Excellence’?” I then explained three characteristics of leaders that have obtained leadership excellence. In this post, I will talk about the values of leaders that have obtained leadership excellence. The way I am dividing characteristics from values is that characteristics are the actions you take, whereas, values are beliefs you have that lead you to act a specific way. In this post I will talk about three key leadership values of those that have obtained leadership excellence. Those three values are honesty, accountability, and integrity. Any leader that does not possess these three characteristics will never be a great leader.

Values of Leadership Excellence

Honesty

Honesty is extremely important for leaders to obtain leadership excellence. When leaders have obtained leadership excellence, they are 100% truthful no matter the cost. When leaders bend the truth, even the slightest bit, to make themselves look good they may be successful for a time, however, their dishonesty will eventually catch up with them. Honesty is very easy when it is regarding things of little importance, but when something is on the line honesty can be more challenging. [Read more…] about Values Of Leadership Excellence

10 Lessons Learned From Leadership Examples

By Brandon W. Jones on March 4, 2013 6

Several great leaders in the form of teachers, athletic coaches, mentors, peers, youth group leaders, friends, and others have touched my life through their leadership examples. They’ve shaped me into the person I am today. They’ve told me when I was doing something wrong and encouraged me when I was going through a challenge. In addition, they’ve taught me correct principles to help me avoid mistakes. Of all the great leaders I’ve had, there have been two that have taught me more than anyone else.

My Leadership Examples

Those two great leadership examples are my parents. My dad and mom have been great leadership examples throughout my life. They’ve taught me many important leadership principles throughout my life. They both understand that they are leadership examples to me so they teach leadership principles whenever possible. Their leadership examples are very powerful. They’ve taught me the following ten lessons.

1. Lead By Example

My dad and mom taught me the importance of leading by example. As the leader, you can set the example for those you lead. When you lead a diverse group, you may not fully understand everything your employees work on, but you can still set an example when it comes to values.

2. Have Faith

As I mentioned in my previous post, my mom and dad have always taught me to have faith in God, other people, and myself. They taught me through words and by their leadership examples. As a leader, faith allows you to get things done that you never thought possible. [Read more…] about 10 Lessons Learned From Leadership Examples

What Would You Do As A New CEO?

By Brandon W. Jones on September 10, 2012 2

Over the last few months, I’ve followed Yahoo’s CEO situation. In January, Yahoo hired Scott Thompson. While he was the CEO, he made major spending cuts and laid of many people as an attempt to bring the company back from financial woes. His approach demotivated the company and created tension between him and the employees. It didn’t take long for his approach to get noticed by the board of directors. In May, Scott was terminated as the CEO as a result of his leadership style and some integrity issues that were brought to light.

Following Scott Thompson’s firing, Ross Levinsohn took over as the interim CEO. Ross Levinsohn continued some of the initiatives that Scott Thompson started. Since he was only the interim CEO, he was replaced by Marissa Mayer in the end of July. [Read more…] about What Would You Do As A New CEO?

Attention To Detail – Don’t Become The Prey!

By Brandon W. Jones on August 3, 2012 4

As a leader, it is essential that you are honest and have integrity. You must do all you can to be upfront and honest in your conduct, especially when dealing with your customers. Part of being honest means that when you make great claims, you must have the details and documentation to back them up.

Pay Attention To Detail

Whether or not your claims are true, if you don’t have details and documentation, people will be skeptical and may not believe you. You can’t just make great claims with nothing to back them up. Attention to detail and documentation are extremely important.

My Experience

Recently, I had a very interesting and potentially scary experience. Over the past several months my wife and I have been trying to refinance our home in Carson City, NV. We went to several different lenders and one after another denied us for one reason or another. All cases, however, were tied to the fact that we have excellent credit and a perfect payment history.

Loan Modification

About a month ago we received a phone call from a loan modification company, Direct Mortgage Counseling, directmortgagecounseling.org. They said that they could modify our loan and give us a new great loan (30 year fixed, 2% interest, reduced principal). We were somewhat skeptical because the loan modification seemed too good to be true. We did some research and found that they had the proper business licenses to do this type of work. That gave us enough confidence that we gave them a few of our documents, so they could give us additional information.

Once they received our few documents, they put together the loan modification paperwork. From there, they requested quite a bit more information (basically every financial document we had) so they could finalize our loan modification. Since I have experience writing legally binding contracts, I made sure I read through their contract completely before I signed it. I was especially careful because I was skeptical of them from the start.