Product Description

Integrity. It is more than simple honesty. It's the key to success. A person with integrity has the -- often rare -- ability to pull everything together, to make it all happen no matter how challenging the circumstances.

Drawing on experiences from his work with Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, and individual leaders, Dr. Henry Cloud, a clinical psychologist and nationally syndicated radio host, shows how our character can keep us from achieving all we want to (or could) be.

In Integrity, Dr. Cloud explores the six qualities of character that define integrity. He uses stories from well-known business leaders like Michael Dell and sports figures like Tiger Woods to illustrate each of these qualities. He shows us how people with integrity:

• Are able to connect with others and build trust
• Are oriented toward reality
• Finish well
• Embrace the negative
• Are oriented toward increase
• Have an understanding of the transcendent

Success is not related to only talent or brains. There are a lot of bright, talented people who are never successful. And the most successful are not only the ones with the most talent. The real factor, Cloud demonstrates, is the makeup of the person. All of us can grow in the kinds of real character that bring about fruitful relationships and achievement of purpose, mission, and goals. Integrity is not something that you either have or don't, but instead is an exciting growth path that all of us can engage in and enjoy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19690 in Books
• Published on: 2006-02-01
• Released on: 2006-02-07
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 292 pages

From Publishers Weekly
For Cloud, an author, clinical psychologist and corporate consultant, integrity is more than just a person's ethics and morals. The French and Latin meanings of the word hint at its origins, "that the whole thing is working well, undivided, integrated, intact and uncorrupted." Achieving this "wholeness" requires the development of six character traits (creates trust, unafraid of reality, results-oriented, solves "negative realities," causes growth and finds meaning in life) which Cloud examines in great detail, using business stories like Proctor and Gamble's success in China and the experiences of his CEO friends and clients. What each of his stories has in common is how success, often wild success across multiple fields, is fueled by openness, honesty to one's self and to others and "true trust," which is borne out of someone's goodness not being "dependent on anything." Cloud's conversational writing style makes for an easy read, and much of his advice is sound if not groundbreaking, but some aphorisms come off as hokey. ("Things never work. When they don't, that is the time to make them work. Then, if you do, they work," or "Character = the ability to meet the demands of reality," which is not to be confused with integrity, the courage to meet those same demands.) This book is not for the person seeking a quick-fix; Cloud's breed of integrity is a lifestyle choice.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Denis Beausejour, Consultant and former Global Vice President of Marketing, The Procter & Gamble Company
"Dr. Henry Cloud is an expert in helping leaders see hos their character development is essential to their effectiveness."

Ken Blanchard, Co-Author, The One-Minute Manager
"Let Henry Cloud teach you how to live an authentic life. This is a must-read!"

Customer Reviews

Integrity: the courage to meet the demands of reality
In answer to the age old question, "Read any good books lately?" "Integrity" is at the top of my list. Three of us spent early Friday mornings for months to walk thru the book considering how it correlated to our lives and the implications to how we would live out the principles. I've recommended it to a wide range of people including a mom who asked what book she should buy for her son who was graduating with a degree in Sports Management. This is a must read for every leader.

Practical Wisdom!
I read lots of business books. And this is perhaps the first time that someone else's book has helped me come to a deeper understanding of one of my own, a book first published in 1997 and entitled, "If Aristotle Ran General Motors: The New Soul of Business." My concern in that project was that top business people for many years had been talking about product quality and process efficiency, but hardly anyone at the time was talking about the spirit of the people who do the work. And that's still a relatively neglected side of business, which is ironic, since the people involved are ultimately responsible for how well any business does.

My book was all about the intellectual, aesthetic, moral, and spiritual dimensions of our experience every day, and how great business, as well as greatness in any part of life involving relationships, requires respecting and nurturing four foundations of excellence that are connected with those dimensions, respectively: Truth, Beauty, Goodness, and Unity. This new book by Henry Cloud, "Integrity," has helped me to understand in new ways the operation of that fourth foundation - the sort of unity or connectedness that is required for sustainable greatness in almost anything. This is an application of spirituality in the workplace that has nothing intrinsically to do with religious institutions, creeds, or dogmas - and so is utterly universal. And it's important.

Henry Cloud's book is full of sparkling insight and great stories. I can't imagine any of my executive friends, or front line workers, not benefitting from its lessons.

Please do yourself a favor, if you're reading these reviews to try to help you decide whether to get this book, and click on the purchase icon. The sooner you start reading Cloud's book, the better!

Tom Morris

A Favorite Business Book
This is one of m new favorite business book & Have enjoyed giving it to several clients. Reading it challenged me in what kind of wake my leadership leaves behind. It also validated why I was frustrated in the past with certain leaders. Cloud takes the meaning of Integrity to a new level. Sadly, I can see many thinking that Integrity is not something that they need to be challenged on, yet his approach challenges men & women who practice integrity in business and in private.