Leslie Pratch on Assessing and Developing Leaders

By Leslie Pratch

I believe most organizations want integrity in senior management. Over the longer period, integrity is demanded by the organization’s shareholders. They may say they like earnings growth, but what they really want is high integrity management teams, and companies that do what they say they will do.

You can count on high integrity management teams but you don’t just pick 20 executives and presto, you have a high integrity team. The only way to get a high integrity team is to test for it, and the way to test for it is when there is a critical situation and the individual has to make a black and white choice: “Yes I am going to go along with this or no I am not.”

Too often, executives adapt their integrity to the situation to accommodate it. That’s not the right answer. The public, the SEC, and the accounting profession are all trying to force executives not to adapt. It’s either right or it’s wrong.

The reason for having a high integrity CEO is that what he or she represents is emulated throughout the organization. If there is integrity in the CEO, employees will tend to trust the management team.

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Leslie Pratch, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist with an M.B.A. in Strategy and Finance and a B.A. in Religion from Williams College. She works with boards of directors and private equity investors to select and develop executives. She can be reached at (312) 464-7919 or email her at leslie@pratchco.com or visit www.pratchco.com.