According to the late Peter Drucker, Harry Truman and Jack Welch shared a trait that he called intellectual integrity.
Intellectual integrity is the ability to see the world as it is, not as you want it to be, said Drucker.
He explained that Welch and Truman understood they were not their own masters, but rather servants of their organizations.
This meant not doing what they WANTED to do, but rather what NEEDED to be done, serving the interests of their organization first.
A sales leadership team was recently struggling to adapt to market changes. The CEO pressed the team to create a stronger outbound sales strategy.
Over the years, the sales group had grown comfortable reacting and responding to inbound leads provided by the marketing group.
“It looks like we’ll have to hire an agency or a new person for this outbound work. We currently don’t have this expertise in-house”, said one of the sales leaders.
I challenged them and their assumptions, “You have the skills required for outbound sales success, what’s missing is your will to adapt to what your business needs now.”
A tipping point moment.
How do you and your leadership team walk the road to intellectual integrity?