Integrity in Leadership

"Leadership is the capacity and will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence." British Field Marshall Montgomery Integrity and leadership go hand in hand. Integrity is one of the positive traits for an effective and good leader. Personal integrity represents an honest, reliable and trustworthy person. If you are a leader; then you will bring along that good trait into your leadership style. It is a blessing for an organization to have such a leader in their organization. Having many integrity leaders will indirectly shape up the organization to be an integrity organization; be respected by employees and public. Why integrity is very important to leadership? Since integrity is a trait that exists from inner self; as a leader, you only can prove your integrity by the actions that you took and the decision that you choose. Integrity speaks by itself and it reflects on all your actions and decision. A leadership that built with integrity normally is part from an integrity organization; they can be confident that an individual with flawed character will not last long in their organizations ; as it goes to the good people, will not stay for long in bad organizations. As the result; only integrity people will be working in the integrity organization. DPS lacks this integrity combined with leadership. The most recent events concerning the superintendent accepting a pay raise in light of the current economic conditions makes this issue even more important. Employees have gone three years without a pay raise, several employees have lost their job, teachers lack adequate materials for their classrooms, yet the board offers the superintendent a raise for mediocre performance? Being paid over $50,000 more then the county superintendent with a district almost 25% smaller shows just how far out of touch the board is to the realities of the time. At least the county superintendent had the integrity to turn down any raise. That is one word that we will never hear describing the leadership in DPS—integrity. This lack of integrity carries over to the board. Have they been living under a rock for the past three years? Have they not observed the recent economic conditions in Danville? How totally out of touch can one board become? The proverbial handwriting is on the wall. This is not Wall Street. We should not reward bad, unethical behavior. The board needs to show some integrity themselves and resign and apologize to Danville on their way out.

April Fools and other School Board Employees

Well it appears the inmates are running the asylum. Word is out that the school board offered a new contract through 2014 to the worst leader DPS ever had. I can see Mr, Christopher turning over in his grave. What a shame that the board is so clueless as to what is happening to the district. I think it’s interesting that the salary for the new year was not revealed. Do you think the employees might just be a little perturbed that their concrete queen is getting a raise while they have been without one for three years? Is anyone really surprised at the lack of leadership on the part of the school board? Well readers it is time again for the DPS Darwin Awards! This award goes to the dumbest, most wasteful decision, project, or program in DPS. Yes I know there are so many to choose from but each year I try to narrow it down to one. This year, due to the tight budget, the award has more meaning then in other years. Send your nominations to savetheschools2@aol.com. Remember to include as much information as possible. As always, your identity will be protected. So write up those nominations and get them in by April 20. How much is that wall in front of Galileo? The wall along the street is being replaced with really nice landscape block. After several calls it was confirmed that the city is paying for the work and not the school board. I guess so since the city still owns the Galileo site even though the school board has invested almost $1 million in the building. I bet a lot of landlords would love to get a tenant invest that much money in their building!!!