“Letters from Leaders:” Your Reputation and Integrity are Everything

Below is an excerpt from Maria Razumich-Zec’s letter published in Letters from Leaders: Personal Advice for Tomorrow’s Leaders from the World’s Most Influential People.  Razumich-Zec’s words eloquently address the importance of reputation and integrity in business and the role of leadership.  At the time of this writing, she served as general managing director of the New York Palace Hotel.


I offer these thoughts as a welcome to my fall quarter students. Exploring the theory and practice of successful leadership with you will be my privilege and my pleasure. I’m looking forward to an engaging semester!

Charlene Blockinger, Ed.D.

Throughout my life I have been inspired by my family, friends and colleagues.  The following are some of the principles that have guided me in my career and life.

1. Your reputation and integrity are everything. Follow through on what you say you’re going to do.  Your credibility can only be built over time, and it is built from the history of your words and actions.

2. Respond to people in a timely manner; this shows respect and responsibility.

3. Be nice and treat all individuals with respect, no matter what place or position they hold.

4. Take on additional responsibility wherever and whenever possible.

5. Dress and act for the position you aspire to have; soon others will see you in that role and the promotion will follow.

6. Approach situations with an open mind. Have no expectations, but rather abundant expectancy.

7. Listen to your gut. If something internally feels right or feels wrong to you, it probably is, so listen to your inner voice. Ask questions of yourself and be true to yourself. Know who you are and what you want, and let this mantra guide you through your life.

8. Have empathy for others. To have compassion is human and humbling.

9. It’s important to give back to the community in which you live and work.

10. Attitude is EVERYTHING. Be positive, optimistic, engaging, spirited. You’ll reap the rewards tenfold.

Letters from Leaders highlights excerpts from Letters from Leaders: Personal Advice for Tomorrow’s Leaders from the World’s Most Influential People, compiled by Henry O. Dormann, who says of leaders: “Some leave money, others leave inspiration. Many leave both. But all are anxious for young people to learn from their successes and even their failures.”

Announced through LinkedIn 9/30/2016

Letters from Leaders: The Importance of Integrity in Business and Leadership

Below is an excerpt from Stephen Joel Trachtenberg’s letter published in Letters from Leaders: Personal Advice for Tomorrow’s Leaders from the World’s Most Influential People.  Trachtenberg’s words eloquently address the importance of integrity in business and the role of leadership. 

I offer these thoughts as a parting gift along with my congratulations and best wishes to my graduating students. Exploring the theory and practice of successful leadership with you has been truly a privilege and a pleasure.

Business needs expansive leaders.  But business also needs leaders who appear trustworthy because they are trustworthy—leaders who will keep their promises to their employees, stockholders, and customers.  To put it simply—and as optimistically as I can—I would say that business needs leaders for whom integrity is built in or second nature.  If you will, Integrity is not a product or the result of a course on the way to earning an MBA.  It is not a veneer or public stance.  To the contrary, it should be bred in the bone and be as important in one’s life as one’s public life; always on and functions, 24/7.

Leaders with such a deep-seated sense of integrity would, I believe, profoundly and rather quickly help restore a great deal of the public’s confidence in American business.  Good leaders would also choose to work with others who have the same sense of integrity or, failing such perfect recruits, do everything they can to instill the same belief in the irrevocable importance of integrity.

This last point is important. Part of leadership is the ability to teach formally and by example.  Are there such young people available today?  Are they on the campuses of America’s colleges and universities?  And are they thinking of careers in business and especially hoping for positions of leadership?  Yes to all questions.  Are there enough of them?  I don’t know the answer to that.  I think it has to be part of any university’s mission to look at the character of its students and to encourage them to do the right thing.  In other words, to increase the number of young men and women for whom integrity is the norm.

This is no easy job, but neither is teaching quantum physics or neurosurgery, both of which we do extremely well.  The questions “leaders” have raised are difficult—and of course that is why they have raised them.  But if difficulty were an insurmountable obstacle, there would be no universities—and few if any men and women of any age would be willing to take on the burdens of leadership, no matter how great the rewards.  But leading a life of integrity and honesty is not an obstacle but an outlook.  And I am, finally, optimistic enough to believe that many young people share that outlook and that many more, seeing their success, will emulate them.  Integrity, I would tell them, does pay.

Stephen Joel Trachtenberg
President Emeritus and Professor of Public Service,
The George Washington University

Letters from Leaders highlights excerpts from Letters from Leaders: Personal Advice for Tomorrow’s Leaders from the World’s Most Influential People, compiled by Henry O. Dormann, who says of leaders: “Some leave money, others leave inspiration.  Many leave both.  But all are anxious for young people to learn from their successes and even their failures.”

Published through LinkedIn 6/1/16