Honesty Important as Parents and Leaders

Honesty is a challenge, especially with regard to lying. Dishonesty is easily justified by claiming compassion or some other good intention when in fact, one merely wants to avoid an unpleasant confrontation. People's capacity for rationalization is remarkable: "Everyone does it," "I'll do it just this one time," "It's for his own good," "It's none of my business," and more. But to be effective as a parent and leader, it is essential that one establish a relationship of mutual reliability and trustworthiness with his or her children and followers. The best way to gain that relationship is to lead by example.

A key quality of a good leader is honesty. Of the top five leadership traits isolated in The Leadership Challenge, the people polled by Kouzes and Posner rated honesty as the most important. Honesty out-ranked being a visionary, competence, and the ability to inspire others. Honesty was even valued more as a leadership trait than was intelligence (25). People want a leader who is honest, trustworthy, and who has integrity. People will trust someone who actively displays honesty, not just as an honest individual, but also as someone who is worth following. Thus, a leader who displays honesty and integrity also acts as a powerful model for people to copy, building relationships, organizations, and societies with powerful and effective cultural values as a result.

Because personal ethics cannot be separated from professional ethics, the character of the leader is therefore, essential. Effective leaders are extolled and remembered for their honesty. George Washington, as a youth, when questioned about his exploits with a hatchet, "could not tell a lie" and copped to the caper of hewing the cherry tree. Abraham Lincoln is affectionately known as "Honest Abe" because he walked many miles to return a customer's change. Although the actual occurrence of either of these events is highly debatable, the two tales reveal the importance our society places on honesty as a virtue in its leaders.

Relationships, organizations, and societies run smoother with mutual trust. Spouses, children, and followers are less apt to question motives when requests of time and effort are placed upon them – they perform to maintain the trust that has been established. A leader is one who can be trusted to "walk the talk," in other words, the person is honest about what he or she will or will not do. Trust is the foundation of good leadership. Honesty in both personal and working relationships leads to long-term consequences such as trust and credibility. If one is not trustworthy, it matters little how grand the vision of the future is. When a person is unable to establish trust, that person loses his or her ability to get anything accomplished.

On rare occasions, it is acceptable for leaders to withhold certain information. National leaders have an obligation to protect U.S. citizens and soldiers from attack by countries or organizations that would do them harm. Lying by deception or withholding information would be acceptable under such circumstances. But a false dilemma is created when one assumes that the government leaders have no choices but to lie to U.S. citizens. At some point, our government officials also have an obligation to reveal the content, extent, and purpose of untruthful and deceptive information and give the citizens a right to judge if such deception was justifiable and without ulterior motivation.

Oftentimes the most influential leaders in a person's life are not famous or well known. They are ordinary people who do extraordinary things, no matter how small, and make an indelible impact in one's life. Most often the most influential leaders in a person's life, the people they look up to, are their parents. As future parents, you may well become the most influential leader in your child's life.

One of the many roles of a parent is to enable children to become decisive, caring, and disciplined leaders. As children face the excitement and challenges of adulthood, parents must instill confidence and courage through example, while nurturing the moral integrity and flawlessness of character required of future leaders. Unfortunately, many parents are so busy with their own lives that they look for quick solutions to everyday problems with little regard for the formation of good habits by example that children need for shaping good character.

According to leadership research and experts, 21st century leaders need traits such as honesty and integrity. Honesty and integrity are characteristics that must be cultivated. These are traits that cannot be acquired by full-grown adults. By adulthood, one's personality has already become firmly established and is therefore, difficult to change. The cultivation of good leaders needs to commence in the home. Parents should take the first attempt at leadership development by imparting in their children all the right values, the most important of which is honesty.

Future generations will label us as their mentors…they'll look up to us for wisdom on how to be successful in this world. But the definition of success is indeterminate. Given the heavy emphasis that many parents place on performance, one suspects that those parents are doing a disservice to their children by under-emphasizing the importance of important values such as honesty and integrity. Indeed, many parents place emphasis on winning rather than effort; they condone dishonest behavior to achieve a goal. In fact, Mundell reported that American students are telling, "bald-faced lies 70% of the time" as excuses for missing academic deadlines and according to Hardcastle, "71% of all high school students admit they cheated on an exam." According to the Josephson Institute of Ethics, "Students participating in varsity sports cheated on exams at a higher rate than students who did not (78% vs. 73%)" (2). The Josephson Institute of Ethics also reported that 43% of high school students surveyed in 2002 said, "A person has to lie or cheat sometimes in order to succeed" (9).

Unfortunately, many parents are not keenly aware of the roles they play as leadership models, either in the positive or negative sense. Children develop their implicit values by emulating the behavior of their adult role models. My own daughter reminded me of my status of role model when she was six years old. While purchasing tickets for a family outing, when the person at the ticket window inquired about my daughter's age, I replied, "Five," noticing that the price was half if I could pass my daughter off as being only five. "But daddy," my daughter announced loudly and proudly, "I'm six." I paid the full admission to the clerk, who was now snickering on the other side of the window. Unable to admit to an innocent youth that I attempted a lie, I simply thanked my daughter for being honest and vowed never to try that stunt again.

The most potent source of modeling is from within the home. There is a proverb that says, "What parents do in moderation, children do in excess." Many parents view the "white lies," "excuses," or "a promise not kept" as harmless. Children do not appreciate such nuances. When children hear parents telling a little white lie, it is confusing. When a parent tells the spouse to say they are not home, when a parent invents a dentist's or doctor's appointment, or when a parent assures someone the dinner was divine, that parent is grinding down his or her child's pillar of truth. Not returning excess change at the checkout counter tells the child it is acceptable behavior to take what does not belong to him or her and breaking traffic laws teaches the child that following rules is not important. Parents must realize that a child’s leadership development starts at home.

Honesty is not only an important moral value, honesty is also the basis of trust, the most essential of human needs. Young children learn to trust from family and friends. A child learns that he or she can trust adults to care for and protection. With a strong foundation of trust, children are able to enter into meaningful relationships with others. Honesty is not always easy, but it is always the right thing to do. Gayle Sugita's quote in the Honolulu Advertiser sums up sound reasoning for honesty the best. "Sometimes you don't always remember the winners," she said, "but you always remember those that faced adversity and the most arduous trial" (Roig). Be a role model of honesty and good character for a child and that child will learn an important value that will help him or her throughout their lives.

Works Cited

"2002 Report Card: The Ethics of American Youth: Press Release and Data Summary." 24 Mar. 2004. Josephson Institute of Ethics. Webpage. 10 Mar. 2007. <http://www.josephsoninstitute.org/Survey2002/survey2002-pressrelease.htm>.

Hardcastle, Mike. "Character Study: A Critical Look at the Ethics of the Modern Teen." 22 Feb. 2005. About.com Webpage. 10 Mar. 2007. <http://teenadvice.about.com/library/weekly/aa012501a.htm>.

Knozes, James M., and Barry Z. Posner. The Leadership Challenge. 3rd ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003.

Mundell, E.J. "Professors Beware: College Kids Lying 70 Percent of Time." 19 June 2003. Reuters Health. Filippo A. Salustri Webpage. Ryerson University. 10 Mar. 2007. <http://deed.megan.ryerson.ca/~fil/t/articles/cheaters03.html>.

Roig, Suzanne. "Math Team Counts Moral Victory: Kaiser Students Reveal Scoring Error That Drops Them from 1st Place to 3rd." Honolulu Advertiser. 8 May 2002, sec. A1.