We have all heard that word before….
I will not take up your time listing all the favorite quotes or clichés that have ever been written about integrity; if you want those, you can easily find them on-line or at your local bookstore or library. No, I plan to utilize another approach.
Let’s take a moment and view integrity from a perspective of what it is not.
Integrity is not about getting things done. It is not about pleasing everyone. It is not about looking good in front of your peers or your boss. It is not about the perfect presentation. It is not about good news or bad news. It is not about easy, hard or complex. It is neither about the short term nor the long term. It is also not about how well you performed in the last calendar year. And it most certainly is not about the policies, regulations, or the people around you.
“Then what is it about,” you ask? Great question, glad you asked! “Integrity is simply about you.” That’s it. It is that easy and simple. Integrity is all about you!
When you look in the mirror, are you proud at who looks back at you? When you look deep within yourself, do you like what you see? After you have interacted with someone on the job can it be said that you were true to your character; true to what you have professed through verbal and nonverbal communication as to who you are as a person?
Are your actions consistent? Are your re-actions consistent? When others look at you, do they see the same person today as they saw 6 months ago? Do those around you at work trust you? How do you know they trust you? More importantly, do you care?
Integrity must be the whole person or the ‘holistic’ personal character trait that is unyielding. It is the underlying foundation of who we are as a person. If given the opportunity to make a decision and your decision is ‘no’, then you offer that no with evidence as to why and never change to ‘maybe’ just because of whom you might be speaking to. Most assuredly, if future options present a different picture, then the answer could be yes, but as for now, all facts pointing in one direction, no is the correct answer no matter who hears it. I suggested that integrity was not about good news or bad news, it is only about the news, good and bad. Likewise, it is about the mutual benefit which could be the short term, medium term or the long term. It is about the value you bring to the organization today, not what you might have accomplished over the years. If you have been and are consistent, that is what is most important. As far as policies, regulations and rules, they can and will change! Those changes stem from people with the integrity to say they need to change and then offer why and how to change them. Sadly, some have lost their integrity to greed, position, the need for status, and to be number one; to name a few. Many of those individuals now find themselves incarcerated, fired, demoted, ousted out of office, and wondering where they go from here. While others speculate where did those individuals go wrong and why? My guess, it happened over time because they did not ‘check’ themselves when they had the first inclination (gut feel) that what they were entering was not what their inner self knew to be the right thing to do.
My mom was the best teacher on integrity I know; and she offered many examples. No matter how old I became, no matter how many college degrees I earned, and no matter how high I rose in any organization, my mom would chastise me if I did not eat my vegetables. Conversely, she would always find the time to congratulate me when I was successful; it did not matter to her the enormity of the event, the congratulations were always the same; heartfelt. When it became hard at times, she would raise her head to see if I was still in the ‘fight’ and that I stood my ground no matter the outcome, she always told me to do my best and if someone else’s best was better than mine, then so be it; “learn from that” she would say, and enter the ‘fight’ again next time. This taught me that if the boss did not like the answer, go back and do more homework and if the answer was the same, give my boss the answer with more information/intelligence because that was my job; not to be a ‘yes man’ if that made it easier. One lasting lesson that personified her spirit, my mom was firm; but she was never cruel.
Sure, the dictionary has a stated the definition of integrity (taken from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary):
1 : firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : incorruptibility
2 : an unimpaired condition : soundness
3 : the quality or state of being complete or undivided : completeness
synonyms see honesty
When one reads the definition, more questions come in to play, what are morals and what is meant by quality? Those are discussions for another day.
For me and as I understand my interpretation of the word integrity and its synonym honesty, as I look in the mirror, I wonder, “would my mom be proud of who I see looking back.”
“Integrity” published in the 1st Quarter 2010 Resource Management Bulletin, PB48-10-1, Official professional Bulletin published quarterly and sponsored by the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Financial Management and Comptroller
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