Leadership Development, Personal Integrity and Two Car Accidents
By Larry Boyer, Career Coach & Personal Branding Strategist
As a follow up to Leadership Development: Integrity - Is Doing Right Really High Risk?, today I'd like to share with you two true stories of people who were involved in car accidents in the parking lots where they worked. There are a number of similarities in the circumstances, though the actions of both drivers after the accident and the consequences were strikingly different.
In both cases the driver hit a parked car, one while attempting to leave the lot and the other when entering the lot. Both drivers weren't sure what to do next and so found a place to park and when back in.
In the first accident "Bob" went about his work as usual. Entered the building, passed security and went to work. In the second case, "Tom", after parking when to get information about the car he hit because he didn't have a pen and paper at the time. However by the time he got there, the car was gone. He went in to the building and reported to security that he had hit a car and done some damage but was unsure of the details of the car. Tom left his name and number.
Bob's day started off ok until the police showed up. Someone had reported seeing Bob hit the car and drive away and was able to report his license plate number. When the police showed up to Bob's desk they asked "Did anything unusual happen this morning?" Bob replied with a simple "No". After asking a few more times, the police asked if Bob had any trouble parking that morning. Again, Bob replied "No." At that point Bob was arrested.
Tom went two days before he received a call from one of the senior vice presidents of the company he worked for, a division head, asking Tom to come to his office. Tom didn't know what it was about and went to the office. The SVP said, "I understand you hit a car in the parking lot a couple of days ago. Do you know what kind of car it was?" Tom described what he remembered and where the car was parked. The SVP said, "Yes, that was my car." Tom started to get nervous. The SVP then told Tom the damage was $500, and asked if he could pay it. Tom said, "Yes, of course I'll pay it."
Bob and Tom handled their similar situations very differently. In each case, how they responded spoke volumes about their leadership and their personal integrity. Bob was afraid of admitting his mistake, even when it became obvious that others knew about it. Tom could probably have gotten away with it, yet did what was right, and legally required, as best he could.
Within two days Bob was fired. The reason - the repeated ethical lapses could not be tolerated by someone in his position. The lies undermined the trust of the leaders in his area to trust him with sensitive information. It was too bad because they would have been understanding about a car accident. These things happen. Repeatedly lying to the police, as well as failing to report the accident to security and his supervisor showed a profound lack of judgment and leadership.
Tom, on-the-other-hand, gained the respect of the SVP and was called upon to take on roles of responsibility. The SVP tore up his check after receiving it. He wanted to see if Tom would keep his word. The SVP knew the payment was a bigger sacrifice for Tom than it would be for him. However he learned something valuable about someone on his staff. Someone he knew he could count on when the going got tough.
One of the key differences between Bob and Tom is the habit of personal integrity that each one developed through their lifetimes of experience. In Bob's case, he always chose the "easy" way out, avoiding conflict, covering things up. In Tom's case he made little decisions all the time and owned up to them when they didn't work. As a result, it was much easier for Tom to own up to what happened. And, in this case, we can see the bigger risk is in failing to maintain your integrity.