Glenn Beck: who ARE you???

“You need to do what you say you’ll do. You need to be who you say you are.” This is what I heard Glenn Beck saying on the radio just before I stopped in to the “office” to get some work done.

Glenn was in the middle of a discussion on the G20 summit that took place in Washington this past weekend. Quite frankly, the summit scares me to death: does the idea of all the nations of the world searching to establish a Global Resereve Currency not send shivers up and down your spine? Glenn reminded his audience that part of what has made the dollar a reliable currency in the past was our word that we would not go off the gold standard (we did) and — later — that we would not devalue the dollar, which we are. As a result the world is now beginning to clamor for a reserve currency that is a known quantity. As Americans, we did not keep our word.

In the same way, Glenn continued, we each need to keep our word even when it costs us. In his transition from CNN to Fox (upcoming) there were two weeks during which Glenn was not allowed to speak to his staff. He couldn’t explain that CNN asked him to immediately leave the studios. He couldn’t discuss the future with his people. At the end of two weeks, however, he was able to meet with them. To his surprise, he found none of them doubting Glenn’s loyalty or his version of the truth. “We’ve worked with you for two years,” they said, “We knew we could believe you.” Glenn’s commitment to truth and integrity preserved his staff for him during a difficult time.

Now Glenn Beck’s television staff is a small issue, not really an issue that will affect us. But his principle could turn our lives upside down in leadership. Can your people, your community, your family, trust you even in the face of contrary “evidence” based on your track record of integrity in the past? If contrary accounts of events do not match, do the people who know you automatically trust you? Or do they look at a history of flip flops and wonder what to believe now? Leadership in any setting — community, nationwide or in a family — depends on your moral and social capital. And that capital is funded through integrity.

Why does it require a radio host to call us back to a bedrock of integrity?

Tagged as: CNN, community, Fox, G20, Glenn Beck, integrity, leadership