I’m Wrong
Demonstrating Integrity and Accountability
Voluntarily admitting when you have made a mistake is one of the most powerful ways to demonstrate true integrity and personal accountability. When you openly own up to a misstep, you model a level of honesty that sets a clear, reassuring standard for everyone around you. This transparent approach instantly shifts the environment from one of blame or fear to a space where challenges are handled constructively. Ultimately, it reinforces a culture where taking responsibility is normalized rather than avoided, paving the way for real growth and deeper trust.
Try It: When something doesn’t go as planned or you realize you made a mistake, address it head-on in a team meeting, email, or other communication. Avoid passive phrasing like “mistakes were made” or pointing fingers at external delays, and instead use “I” to identify where you made a mistake, owning the error. Shift the focus immediately from defending the past choice to collaboratively building the fix. When you accidentally cut someone off in a meeting, misattribute credit, or react out of frustration, pull that person aside for a brief, direct check-in.
Clarity is Kindness
Demonstrating Integrity and Accountability
By choosing to communicate openly and directly, you drastically reduce ambiguity and set clear expectations from the outset. This transparent approach eliminates stressful guesswork, ensuring that everyone understands the vision and their specific role in it. Ultimately, providing this level of explicit direction removes operational barriers and directly enables others to succeed.
Try it:When assigning a task, resist the urge to leave everything open-ended in the name of autonomy. Instead, be explicit about what success looks like, the hard deadline, and the boundaries of their decision-making authority. Finally, instead of assuming alignment, ask them to summarize their takeaway. This simple closing step is where hidden misunderstandings can surface before they become costly errors.
Student Centric
Student-Centered Decision Making and Problem Solving
Adopting a student-focused decision tree framework brings simplicity and focus to decisions and problem-solving. By design, it firmly anchors decisions in what is best for students, rather than institutional convenience or historical precedent. Ultimately, it ensures that every operational change or policy shift directly serves the growth, well-being, and success of learners.
Try It:Next time you’re making a big decision, consider applying Russell Lowery-Hart’s decision tree: 1. Does this best help students? 2. Does this make us more effective? 3. Does this create greater alignment and role clarity? 4. Does this solve the problem or move us toward a better solution?
Hard Conversations
Demonstrating Integrity and Accountability
Stepping up to guide challenging and hard conversations requires the willingness to engage in honest, respectful conversations when stakes are high, rather than opting for comfortable silence when difficulties arise. By leaning into these difficult moments, leaders operationalize trust-building through clear boundaries, reliability, and accountability. Ultimately, this brave approach transforms potential workplace conflict into a foundation for deeper team alignment and growth.
Try it: When you notice tension or a pattern of avoidance around a specific issue, don’t wait for it to resolve on its own. Name it directly and early, in private, with the employee or employees involved. Come in with curiosity rather than conclusions, describe what you’ve observed, ask what is driving it, and be honest about why it matters to the team.
Acknowledge Defenses
Demonstrating Integrity and Accountability
In Dare to Lead, Brené Brown challenges leaders to recognize when they are armored up, using defensiveness, blame, perfectionism, or the need to be right to protect themselves from vulnerability. Choosing to inventory and acknowledge these defenses is a powerful demonstration of integrity and accountability that builds self-awareness and helps leaders recognize their triggers before they hijack critical conversations. By understanding the emotions driving their automatic reactions, leaders can respond with curiosity and authenticity rather than defensiveness, creating space for honest dialogue, meaningful feedback, stronger relationships built on trust, and a culture where vulnerability becomes a leadership strength.
Try It: During a meeting, a leader receives feedback that a recent decision created confusion for several teams. Their immediate instinct is to explain, justify, or point to external circumstances. Instead, they pause and recognize their defensiveness. Rather than reacting, they ask questions to better understand the concern, acknowledge their role in the outcome, ask for the team’s help, and explore what could be done differently moving forward. By recognizing and managing their defense mechanisms, the leader models accountability and creates a culture where feedback is viewed as an opportunity for learning rather than a threat.
Swim Buddy
Demonstrating Integrity and Accountability
A swim buddy is an accountability partner. This relationship relies on a trusted person who can give confidential and honest feedback, helping you see your blind spots without fear of judgment. By inviting someone to hold you to your word, you ensure your daily actions stay strictly aligned with your core values even when the pressure mounts. Ultimately, having a swim buddy proves you are serious about continuous growth, creating a safety net that keeps you grounded and reliable for your team.
Try It: Choose one trusted colleague, mentor, or peer leader who is willing to be your swim buddy for the next 30 days. Meet for 20–30 minutes every other week and begin each conversation with two questions: 1) Where did you see my actions align with the leader I want to be? 2) Where did you notice a gap between my intentions and my impact? End each meeting by identifying one specific leadership behavior you will intentionally practice before your next check-in. Invite your swim buddy to follow up and ask how it went.
Find Their Fit
Student-Centered Decision-Making and Problem-Solving
Supporting a team member by helping them find their joy here, or elsewhere when needed, is a profound expression of integrity and compassion. It takes immense courage for a leader to recognize when a role no longer aligns with an individual’s strengths, and to guide them empathetically toward their next step. This honest approach ensures that team effectiveness and student outcomes are not compromised while still honoring the individual. Ultimately, it protects the mission of the institution while treating the person with the utmost dignity and respect.
Try it: A leader recognizes when a team member is no longer energized by their current role and when their strengths are not being fully utilized. Instead of ignoring the issue, the leader initiates honest, supportive conversations to provide clear feedback and objective evaluation. By empowering the employee to navigate their own next steps, whether within the college or elsewhere, the leader honors the individual while ensuring students and the institution are best served.