Leadership Thought: Watch Out for Those Cracks in Your Character.

Dear Friends,

“Real success does not compromise personal integrity. If you are not a success by God’s standards, you have not achieved true success.”  These words from the Life Application Bible are commentary on Proverbs 11:3,5 where the writer states “The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity. The righteousness of the blameless makes a straight way for them, but the wicked are brought down by their own wickedness.”

These verses and commentary remind me of a story that took place in 1958 in a little mining community in northeastern Pennsylvania.

A small red brick building was built that was to be a combination building, housing both the police and the fire departments, as well as serving as a community town hall.

The town was proud of that building; it was the result of great sacrificial  giving and much careful planning. When the building was completed, they held a ribbon cutting ceremony, and most of the town was present. It was the biggest event of the year for that small community.

However, within two months, they began noticing some ominous cracks on the side of the red brick building. Sometime later, it was noticed that the windows wouldn’t close correctly. Eventually, the floor shifted and left some ugly gaps in the corners of the building. The roof began to leak, and within a few more months, the building had to be evacuated, much to the embarrassment of the builder and the disgust of the taxpayers.

A firm did an analysis shortly thereafter and discovered that the blasts from a nearby mining area were slowly but effectively destroying the building.

Unseen down beneath the building, there were small shifts and changes taking place that caused the whole foundation to crack.

You couldn’t feel it or even see it from the surface, but quietly and deep within there was a weakening of the structure.

A city official finally had to write across the door of that building, ‘Condemned. Not fit for public use.’ Ultimately the building was demolished.

A lack of integrity in little things will grow like those cracks left by those blasts from the nearby mining area. And little by little, the cracks will grow until that lack of integrity will ultimately bring down the foundation of our character.

It may not be noticeable on the outside. Only we may be aware of those little cracks in our character that we chose to ignore, but sooner or later, when the building falls, our lack of integrity will be revealed for the whole world to see.

Abraham Lincoln was one of the greatest examples of integrity who ever lived. He wrote, “I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.”

Good words for us to remember in an era where persons of integrity seem harder to find than a two-dollar bill.

I challenge you today to ask yourself if there are little cracks in your life that need some attention. Are there any little crevices that are forming in the foundation of your moral character which, if left untreated, will destroy your reputation? Is there something that you need to return that you borrowed?  Is there something you said you would do, but yet haven’t done?  

Yes, I know these may seem like little issues, but don’t forget the story.

No one may ever know those little cracks that are forming in your character, but they are present. They may be hidden to the eyes of the outside world, but they are known to you.

Do something about them and do it today. You will be glad you did. Who knows,  you might  avoid the collapse of your character.

Yes, it is true: “The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity, and in the words of Scripture, “great will be their fall.”

May we always remember that “the only thing that walks back from the grave with the mourners and refuses to be buried is the character of a man. What a man is survives him. It can never be buried” (21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, John Maxwell, p 62).

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom