This article concludes my two-year writing experience exploring our integrity assets. As I put my fingers to the keyboard to craft this final article that will complete nearly 40,000 words about the message of integrity, I want to place The Capstone through which we can view integrity’s power point. Doing so, I’ll tell you why the capstone is important; how it’s being undermined in America; and what you and I can do about it.

The capstone: It is our choice where we place our attention.  We are not mindless robots. We are not the product of manipulation and circumstance. Daily, it is our privilege to choose where and how we shall focus our attention. Integrity’s choice making purposefully moves to focus an individual’s attention on maximizing good…at home, in the community and at work. Mastering the self-observation skill of the choice maker is the only prism through which integrity’s journey can be pursued.

What happens when we yield the firm ground of the choice maker? Life leads us in a different direction bringing troublesome consequences. We move to unstable, unsafe ground. That ground is victimhood.

The integrity mind is governed by thought; the victim mind is controlled by feelings. Be assured, feelings are not wrong. But, the victim mind lacks the self-observations skills to explore how feelings can lead to creative, useful thought and behavior. Instead, the victim mind is habitually overwhelmed by feelings.

How does the victim mind operate in our society today to undermine America’s integrity journey? Victimhood pays attention to one predominant feeling: I have been denied and I am owed. What I cannot provide for myself, I am entitled to receive. Entitlement is the consequence of victim awareness. Ultimately, it robs self-initiative and self-direction.

In today’s America, entitlement is increasingly blurring the collective psyche of our culture. Over the last forty-plus years we have been traveling a dramatically different road than the one we might call Integrity’s Choice Making Highway. Until the 1970′s, this purposeful road was paved with the timeless American message defined by the individual pursuit of life, liberty and happiness.

In contrast, America’s victimhood road has now been paved with a new message: Equality is the grand freebie on America’s entitlement Take-Care-of-Me Highway. More and more Americans now ride this new highway. Given two more generations of riders, this highway has the possibility of becoming the emotion-based Capstone that will forever alter the America envisioned by our Founders.

 Mission Integrity Action 

 What is the alternative? What is needed? What can individual Americans do? We need 21st century Leaders of Integrity… millions and millions of individuals…who are committed to a journey of thinking and acting attentively as choice makers for the pursuit, not handout, of life, liberty, and happiness in cooperation with others at home, in the community and at work.

I am optimistic that Americans will take on this grand Integrity Challenge.

Merry Christmas and a Joyous Welcoming of the new year! Our best is yet to be.

 Appreciating you on the ethical edge!

Russell Williams, Founder/President

Passkeys Foundation/Ethical Edge

www.ethicaledge.org

Worldwide HR consulting firm, Mercer, recently released a survey about employee loyalty. The analysis revealed that “workers worldwide say that being treated with respect is the most important factor.”

Citing the survey in a recent Huffington Post article, Jennifer Repo interviewed one of Southern California’s significant Ethical Edge Influencers, Susan Inouye, an executive coach, who is helping her clients experience off-the-chart successes in reframing employee motivation by something other than money…namely R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Susan cites one key tool in her work called, Sawubona Leadership. She comments, “Sawubona is a Zulu greeting that means… I see you… as in…I see your whole person. The nugget of Sawubona Leadership is for executives to start “seeing the gifts in their employees.” Digging deeper, Susan says, “A gift is what we’re born to naturally bring into this world. It’s who we are. Unlike a strength that takes energy and effort to be good at, a gift is natural to do and fills us with energy. The essence of Sawubona in Executive rethinking is not about knowing another’s gift but for who we become in the process when we see the gifts in others.”

What can happen as leaders re-consider how they view their employees? Feedback from two of Susan’s executive clients are inspiringly compelling in their application of Sawubona Leadership. One stated, “I stopped judging faults and started recognizing gifts.” Another senior manager in retail increased his monthly goals by 70% in five months, because he changed his command and control leadership style observing that employees now brought their full self to work. This Executive reflected on the dramatic goal achievement of employees saying, “they worked as a team looking out for the best interest of the company because for the first time they felt a part of something greater than themselves.”

Do workers need to know they are valued at work? Explore that question by evaluating two distinct paradigms of organizational leadership. The first is the old paradigm defined by leadership viewing labor as purely transactional…employees as units of productivity. In contrast, with the emerging paradigm, employees shape changing leadership awareness by saying: See my worth by uncovering and using my gifts. Don’t think of me as an organizational object of performance and profitability. Rather, see me energizing performance and profitability.

 Mission Integrity Action

 What’s the 21st century Leadership vision for Wallstreet and Mainstreet? Leaders, find your greatest achievements by valuing your people.

Appreciating you on the ethical edge!

Russell Williams, Founder/President

Passkeys Foundation/Ethical Edge

www.ethicaledge.org