The heart of leadership is integrity.
Let that simmer in your mind for a moment.
Dishonesty may hide behind talent and skill for a while, but the rotten fibers will eventually corrupt the whole cloth, and what lies beneath will be exposed. It is simply a matter of time.
God pointed this out when He mediated a dispute within the very first human family. Cain was mad at his brother. The Lord tried to reason with him, but Cain refused to listen. God’s short statement to him remains a warning to us. If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door (Genesis 4:7).
Purposely choose to do something other than right and sin will ultimately be your ruin. It is only a matter of time. Cain’s lack of integrity - his refusal to be honest with himself - drove a wedge between him and his brother, his parents, and his God.
No integrity? No leader.
An old banker told me that being honest is like being pregnant. You either are or you ain’t.
It is big news when a Christian leader is caught in sin. Bigger yet if his sin involves sex or money. Watch out if it includes both sex and money. The media will dance with glee for months. Another hypocrite exposed! One more shyster revealed!
If it were possible to rewind the years and review choices made by those who have fallen, we would find that most of them did not have a sex or money problem. Yes, those two were ultimately their downfall, but the real issue, the silent killer, was a lack of integrity. Adultery and greed get all the headlines, but the fellow who determines whether you succeed or fail is always integrity. Somewhere in the history of the fallen they willingly made a decision that compromised their integrity. It may have seemed to be a small matter at the time, but corruption is like a cat. It will slip through the smallest of openings. Give it no chance.
Work to improve your talents, strive to increase your knowledge, but let integrity always be your first, and highest, priority.
©2007 Doug Ellingsworth
1 comment:
Like this one. Like the one about Mary, too, read it ten thousand times. Like the Matthew Henry observation, also.
Write more stuff.
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