By Daryl J. Delabbio
“Leading with integrity and empathy requires vision and a connection to your deepest self.” ~ Karla McLaren
I saw this graphic on LinkedIn recently and thought it worthy of passing along.
Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks (of The Hendricks Institute) put this construct together. I won’t attempt to elaborate on it because it is self-explanatory. However, I did want to share my view on integrity and ethics.
Often, we use the terms integrity and ethics interchangeably. While this association is understandable, integrity and ethics don’t always mean the same thing. Integrity, in my view, is doing what you say you are going to do. Ethics is a bit more complicated. It’s about the moral principles that govern or guide a person’s behavior. You can have integrity without being ethical. An example: You say you are going to murder someone … and you do; you said what you were going to do, and you did it. But in this example, the action wasn’t ethical. I also think that you can have ethics without integrity. For example, I want to murder someone, and you know where that person is. You say you don’t know. You lied, but in lying, you were ethical.
Ethics, integrity, morality. Simple words that are very complex in their meanings, interpretations, and application. I’ve tried to keep my own definition of ethics simple, using one word to describe it (and in the immortal words of Aretha Franklin): RESPECT. “Respect” also happens to be the one word I use to describe leadership.
Having both integrity and ethics is important. Equally important is having respect … for everyone.
Daryl J. Delabbio
Chair, Ethics Committee
Retired Municipal Manager
Daryl Delabbio spent 40 years in local government leadership. From September 1998 until his retirement in July 2017, he served as county administrator/controller for Kent County, Michigan. From September 1995 to September 1998 he was assistant county administrator. Prior to coming to Kent County, Daryl was city manager of Rockford, Michigan for 11 years, and held administrative positions with two other Michigan communities from 1977 to 1984. Throughout his career, Daryl also served as an adjunct faculty member in both graduate and undergraduate programs at Davenport University, Grand Valley State University, Western Michigan University, and Wayne State University. He holds a BA in political science and a Master of Management from Aquinas College, a Master of Public Administration from Wayne State University, and a Ph.D. from Western Michigan University. Daryl was active in numerous professional organizations, including the International City/County Management Association (executive board – midwest regional vice president, 2014-2017), the Michigan Municipal Executives (president, 2001), and the Michigan Association of County Administrative Officers (president, 2008-2010). Daryl can be reached at djdelabbio@gmail.com.