No Pain, No Gain

"A 'No' uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble."
                                   -Mahatma Ghandi

As we advance in our roles as leaders, we are often faced with difficult decisions pertaining to the future of our organizations. These decisions force us to weigh pros and cons, and often have no obvious answers. When confronted with a decision of this nature, we must remember to keep the long-term goals and the overall integrity of our organization at the forefront- even though this sometimes means suffering through the short-term fallout of our decision.

We talk a lot about "integrity", so perhaps it's time to offer a definition. Merriam-Webster gives three definitions for the word, all of which are relevant to our discussion:

1. firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values. (incorruptibility)
2. an unimpaired condition. (soundness)
3. the quality or state of being complete or undivided. (completeness)

From these definitions, we can recognize the importance of maintaining personal integrity. In this post, however, we'd like to examine how organizations build (or lose) trust through organizational integrity.

The thing about integrity is that it requires discipline and sacrifice. It often involves saying "no" to a scenario that presents short-term gains (whether in personnel, funding, or venues). Sometimes unpopular decisions need to be made, with long-term growth and stability in mind. It takes strong leadership to follow through on these kinds of tough decisions, and even to identify when a decision of this nature needs to be made.

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KIRSTEN: When directing a high school choir that rehearsed after school, I had to create an attendance policy for the students to ensure that they recognized the importance of prioritizing rehearsals for the well-being of the group. Naturally, I had several students who needed to miss rehearsal for this, that, or the other thing, and I attempted to enforce the rule with a heavy hand. I wanted students to understand the importance of their commitment.

In my choir, I had a very small tenor section of 4 members. One particular tenor was a fantastic young man - smart, intelligent, social, fun, and loved by everyone. He had piano skills and could rehearse the tenors and basses for sectionals, and could sight-read new music very well. This young man was multi-talented, and very active in extra curricular activities that very often conflicted with rehearsal. While I did verbally reprimand him for his many absences from the group, I never actually penalized him according to the attendance policy I had created. Losing him from the choir would have meant moving from SATB or SSATB music to SAB.

Inadvertently, I sent the message that I not only lacked personal integrity, but that my vision and values for the group were also compromised. While I often gave grandiose speeches on the importance of personal responsibility in attendance and timeliness, I never accepted the short-term suffering of following through with consequences for my student. This resulted in a long-term problem, as other students heard words with no actions, and began to skip rehearsal more often themselves.

While this young man was truly an asset to the ensemble, I now believe that following through and biting the bullet would have created a completely different group dynamic for my choir.


KRISHAN: When Kirsten and I began dating in 2013, she was a new singer in SACRA/PROFANA and I was the leader of the ensemble (then beginning its 5th season). Although we were both single at the time, and had natural rapport, when we started dating I began to sense a change in the group dynamic of the ensemble. In retrospect, I can see how my decision to date one of my singers caused other members of the ensemble to question my integrity. Was I simply taking advantage of my position? What would happen if the relationship crashed and burned? Was I thinking about the implications of my actions, or just behaving irresponsibly? These concerns, and others, naturally began circulating among the singers, and the result was that I lost some of the credibility that I had built up during the previous 4 seasons. In their eyes, my personal integrity had been compromised- and it took a significant amount of time to restore it. Over time, Kirsten and I demonstrated that we were more than just a fling-  through our ongoing relationship, as well as our joint development of several major education initiatives in San Diego. After about a year and a half, we felt that people were ready to accept us as a couple.

Contrary to what some people may have thought initially, my decision to date Kirsten was one that I considered thoroughly. But even though I felt I was doing the right thing in beginning a relationship with her, I also had to accept that not everyone would see it that way- and that they had every right to question my intentions, until time had proven otherwise.

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Personnel decisions, artistic programming, as well as board recruitment and donor relations can all be guided by your organization's values. We believe that organizational integrity is achieved by keeping your primary values front and center- and being willing to take the heat when these values come under pressure.