This is an excerpt (internal citations omitted) taken with permission from the book Change Your Game: Empowering Young Leaders to Ditch Doubt, Find Their Voice, and Impact the World
In the famous novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, the main character, Huck, shares with us the battle raging inside him. Huck struggles to align what he feels inside with his choices. Here’s the backstory: Huck Finn has faked his death to escape his abusive father. He then meets and befriends a “runaway slave” named Jim, and the two build a raft to float down the Mississippi River. Jim is caught, and Huck Finn finds out where he is being held captive. Huck struggles with whether he should let the man who had enslaved Jim know where Jim was. At his core, Huck didn’t feel right about giving up Jim. After all, Huck “was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he’s got now,” Jim had told him. On the other hand, Huck believed he was “going to hell” unless he told the slaver where Jim was. In the passage below, Huck describes his efforts to pray that he could tell the slaver where Jim was:
I about made up my mind to pray and see if I couldn’t try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So, I kneeled down. But the words wouldn’t come. Why wouldn’t they? It warn’t no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from ME, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn’t come. It was because my heart warn’t right; it was because I warn’t square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting ON to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth SAY I would do the right thing and the clean thing . . . ; deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can’t pray a lie—I found that out.
Sticking to the principle of love for his fellow man, Huck decides not to tell the slaver where Jim is. Instead, he decides “to steal Jim out of slavery.”
I love this story. Huck Finn adheres to his inner compass. He can’t pray words that are inconsistent with his core beliefs. He is not willing to betray his convictions to try and live a lie. Read that paragraph above a few more times, and hopefully, that will pop out. It may help if you think about prayer as doing something, not just saying words.
What the story says to me is that life is better when what we tell others fits with how we feel on the inside. When our shoes look good (on the outside) and feel good (on the inside). In other words, life is better when we have integrity. When our actions, beliefs, and words are aligned. When we are NOT praying a lie.
Think back to Malala Yousafzai. When Malala was shot by a Taliban gunman due to her activism, she continued to advocate for the importance of education. Malala’s refusal to be silenced exemplifies having integrity in the face of adversity.
I can think of very few things that upset my kids more than when they catch me being hypocritical—meaning I say one thing and then do another. That will happen from time to time, even when we are doing our best. That’s a mistake I’ve made more than once, and I keep on learning from it. I also learn from other people’s examples, like Andy Reid.
Andy Reid appears to be one of the most popular coaches in the NFL. One of the main reasons is his integrity. “You can’t really listen to a coach or buy into a coach unless you trust everything he’s saying,” former linebacker Derrick Johnson said. “Andy is a straight shooter. He did everything he told us he would do. That’s what everybody loved.” Another player said this about Coach Reid: “The things he told us, he did for us.”
I believe having integrity is just as important to us as it is to the people we hope to lead. If we want to be true with others, then it is critical that we be true with ourselves. Just like our shoes should fit our feet, our lives should fit who we are.
Do you want to be more secure in yourself? More comfortable in your own skin? Then anchor your actions to what you believe and what is important to you—not what others think of you or their expectations for you. Define your own happiness and do the things that are aligned with your vision of happiness. And by the way, your happiness should look different from my happiness and your parents’ vision of happiness. They shouldn’t dictate your adult life because you are the one responsible for your own happiness and your own identity. So why do we struggle with integrity?
Lots of reasons, including that none of us is perfect. It can be very hard sometimes. Another reason might be that we don’t think we are enough. We don’t think we measure up. I have complete confidence in your ability to be a leader with integrity, JUST BY BEING YOURSELF. Some of the greatest leaders I know and have studied were not great leaders because they were popular, had it all together, or never made a mistake. These folks are great leaders because that is what they chose to be. They decided to work on, develop, and do things in a way that was aligned with what they wanted and where they came from. Like Malala Yousafzai, they chose to walk their own path.
Martin Luther King Jr.’s leadership path was rooted in principles of justice and equality. Born into a segregated America, he transformed personal struggles into a mission for change, dedicating himself to nonviolence even in the face of danger. King’s leadership drew strength from his identity and experiences as a Black man in America, allowing him to connect deeply with others and inspire collective action. His work—leading the Montgomery bus boycott, the March on Washington, and more—was driven by purpose, perseverance, and a commitment to principles. He taught, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” emphasizing the interconnectedness of equality.
King’s legacy reminds us that leadership is a choice to have integrity and lead with conviction. This kind of principle-based leadership keeps desires and goals in perspective and insecurities in check.
Can you remember a time when you were outside and lost without Google Maps? (Maybe you didn’t have your phone with you or didn’t have service.) In a situation like this, there are a couple of constants that you can use to get your direction. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. If you know where the sun is rising or setting, you can orient yourself. Or, at nighttime in the Northern Hemisphere, you can use the North Star to find direction north.
In the Southern Hemisphere, the Southern Cross can point the way south. The rising and setting sun, the North Star, and the Southern Cross are like principles; across time, oceans, and cultures, they are consistent sources of direction and truth. We can follow them to avoid getting lost or confused by loud, glowing voices with no principles, or principles that are inconsistent with our own.
People’s needs are the same across time (e.g., shelter and food). The same can be said about our problems. They are generally the same (e.g., greed, illness, and insecurity). The principles we talk about are not flashy new ideas. They have been tried, tested, and proven in various settings across centuries in the forge of people’s needs and problems.
Why do we need principles and direction in our lives? Huck Finn needed righteous principles to help him stand against the wickedness of slavery. Alice from the classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll gets this little lesson from the grinningest Cheshire Cat. While wandering through Wonderland, Alice comes to a fork in the road:
Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, “What road do I take?” The cat asked, “Where do you want to go?” “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it really doesn’t matter, does it?”
If we don’t use principles to guide our direction and actions, then what will guide us? Chance? Our emotions in the moment? Someone else’s principles as they whisper in our ear? All of the above? Great leaders don’t drift upon winds of emotion or the push and pull of the world. They know where they want to go and understand that principles (when followed) will make their destination more likely to be achieved.
When we operate on principle, we can be more confident and consistent in our actions and direction. We can use them to chart our own course and to be our North Star. We won’t ever be perfectly principled, but we can keep on trying. That alone will make a huge difference in how far we go.
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J. Chad Mitchell is a longtime coach, teacher, mentor, and father who has spent more than 30 years helping young people discover their leadership potential. He is the author of Change Your Game: Empowering Young Leaders to Ditch Doubt, Find Their Voice, and Impact the World, a practical guide that teaches youth how to lead with confidence, integrity, and purpose. Chad leads at Summit Law Group PLLC in Seattle, serves as President of his local Boys & Girls Club board, and coaches boys’ lacrosse at Richland High School. He and his wife, Bonnie, live in Richland, Washington, where they’ve raised six kids and enjoy being grandparents to five granddaughters. More at www.jchadmitchell.com.
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