A professor talks about the importance of integrity, compassion, and empathy in leadership, and on educating people to be good citizens.
Jean Lipman-Blumen
Featured Leadership Topics
Lead Authentically
“[A]uthentic to me means that the leader is committed not to him or herself, or his or her personal goals, but to the group, to the mission, to what they’re trying to accomplish.”
Description of the video:
Scarpino: You said your parents taught you about integrity.
Lipman-Blumen: Yes.
Scarpino: What role has integrity played in your life as you’ve gone through your career?
Lipman-Blumen: Well, integrity is important to me, both in terms of my own behavior and in terms of other people’s behavior. There is nothing, nothing that riles me more than seeing people do things that are dishonest, that are corrupt. It just – I don’t know how to deal with it, other than to call it out and say, “That isn’t appropriate.” When I had people working for me, Amy, Kristi, the first thing I’d say to them, “Please never lie about anything, to me or for me, not a big thing, not a small thing. Please, it doesn’t matter what it is, the truth is always what I want to be told to me and about me. Don’t cover up anything about me.”
Scarpino: Do you think that integrity is an important quality for a leader?
Lipman-Blumen: Oh, I think it’s bedrock. I think if you don’t have integrity, forget it. That’s why I always say to my students, “I’m up to here with charisma. Do not talk to me about charisma unless you have integrity and you have courage and you have all the other qualities. Then, as we would say in Boston, it’s the cherry on the hot fudge sundae to have charisma.” But without integrity I think you cannot be a leader. You can be a toxic leader, and I’ve written about that…
Scarpino: …I’ve got some questions about that, too…
Lipman-Blumen: …yeah, but you cannot be a leader.
Scarpino: In addition to integrity and courage, what other qualities does a leader need?
Lipman-Blumen: I think compassion and empathy for people, to understand how other people are experiencing things and feeling things and living things. I think that’s really important. I don’t think leaders can be off in an ivory tower somewhere, you know, having great thoughts about how they’re going to change the world. I don’t think that’s enough. I think you really have to have passion and compassion for people and the way they have to live their lives, the problems with which they’re confronted.
Promote Values and Ethics
“[W]ithout integrity I think you cannot be a leader.”
Description of the video:
Scarpino: You said your parents taught you about integrity.
Lipman-Blumen: Yes.
Scarpino: What role has integrity played in your life as you’ve gone through your career?
Lipman-Blumen: Well, integrity is important to me, both in terms of my own behavior and in terms of other people’s behavior. There is nothing, nothing that riles me more than seeing people do things that are dishonest, that are corrupt. It just – I don’t know how to deal with it, other than to call it out and say, “That isn’t appropriate.” When I had people working for me, Amy, Kristi, the first thing I’d say to them, “Please never lie about anything, to me or for me, not a big thing, not a small thing. Please, it doesn’t matter what it is, the truth is always what I want to be told to me and about me. Don’t cover up anything about me.”
Scarpino: Do you think that integrity is an important quality for a leader?
Lipman-Blumen: Oh, I think it’s bedrock. I think if you don’t have integrity, forget it. That’s why I always say to my students, “I’m up to here with charisma. Do not talk to me about charisma unless you have integrity and you have courage and you have all the other qualities. Then, as we would say in Boston, it’s the cherry on the hot fudge sundae to have charisma.” But without integrity I think you cannot be a leader. You can be a toxic leader, and I’ve written about that…
Scarpino: …I’ve got some questions about that, too…
Lipman-Blumen: …yeah, but you cannot be a leader.
Scarpino: In addition to integrity and courage, what other qualities does a leader need?
Lipman-Blumen: I think compassion and empathy for people, to understand how other people are experiencing things and feeling things and living things. I think that’s really important. I don’t think leaders can be off in an ivory tower somewhere, you know, having great thoughts about how they’re going to change the world. I don’t think that’s enough. I think you really have to have passion and compassion for people and the way they have to live their lives, the problems with which they’re confronted.
About Jean Lipman-Blumen
Jean Lipman-Blumen has had a long and distinguished career as a scholar, teacher, mentor, and practitioner of leadership. She earned her Ph.D. from Harvard in 1970. She served as assistant director of the National Institute of Education in the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (1973–78). During 1978, she held an appointment as special advisor to the Carter White House domestic policy staff. Since 1983, she has been president of the Connective Leadership Institute in Pasadena, California, and Thornton F. Bradshaw Professor of Public Policy and professor of organizational behavior in the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University. She was also co-founding director of the Institute for Advanced Leadership Studies.
Lipman-Blumen has published several books and dozens of articles on a range of interrelated subjects: leadership, gender, crisis management, public policy, and organizational behavior. The Connective Edge: Leading in an Interdependent World (1996) was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Lipman-Blumen is a recipient of the International Leadership Association Lifetime Achievement Award.
Explore the complete oral history of Jean Lipman-BlumenLeaders Are Readers
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- The Hero in History
—by Sidney Hook
Non-Fiction, Philosophy - Humbuggery and Manipulation: The Art of Leadership
—by F.G. Bailey
Non-Fiction; Leadership
