TipForTuesday – James Comey: Truth Exists, Measure Our Leaders By It

I have been attending the Arizona Speakers Series at Comerica Theatre.  The organizers have brought together some amazing speakers that to-date have included Sanjay Gupta and Vice President Joe Biden.
James Comey was on tap for last week.  And as expected, he did discuss the Mafia, emails and getting fired.  No need to rehash any of that here, you can easily find this information in other places
I read his book, A Higher Loyalty, a few months ago.  What struck me while I was reading the book and was evident during this talk, is his fierce sense of loyalty.  His loyalty to his wife and children, loyalty to his friends and colleagues, and his loyalty to the American people.
And it is that sense of loyalty, he believes, where you will always find the truth.  That truth is what we should measure our leaders by.  In his view, a good leader leads with four very important characteristics:

• Kindness and Toughness
• Confidence and Humility

He asked us to “look above” our anger or fear or embarrassment when we are making decisions – what we see should be a person who leads with just the right amount of kindness to encourage you, the toughness to expect the best from you, with confidence to believe in their actions and the humility to admit when they are mistaken.
And that is the kind of leader we should strive to be.