Stand up for truth under pressure. Give others the credit when due. Be real and genuine.
One of the principles of integrity is to defend your convictions in the face of great social pressure. Consider this true story about an abdominal surgery performed in a large, well-known hospital. It was the surgical nurse’s first day on the medical team. Responsible for ensuring that all instruments and materials were accounted for before completing the operation and sewing up the incision, she told the surgeon that he had removed only eleven sponges. “We used twelve and we need to find the last one,” she reported. “No, I removed them all,” the doctor declared emphatically. “We’ll close the incision now.” “No,” the rookie nurse objected, “we used twelve sponges.” “I’ll take the responsibility,” the surgeon said grimly. “Suture, please.” “You can’t do that, sir,” blazed the nurse. “Think of the patient!” The surgeon lifted his foot, revealing where he had hidden the twelfth sponge. “You’ll do just fine in this or any other hospital,” he said, smiling. Integrity principle one: Don’t back down when you know you’re right.
A second key integrity principle is always to give others the credit that’s rightfully theirs, never fearing anyone who has a better idea or is smarter than you. David Ogilvy, founder of Ogilvy and Mather, made this point to newly appointed office heads by sending each of them a matryoshka, the painted Russian doll with five progressively smaller dolls nestled inside. His message to his new executives was in the smallest doll: “If we hire people who are smaller than we are, we’ll become a company of dwarves. But if each of us hires people bigger than we are, we’ll become a company of giants.” And that is precisely what Ogilvy and Mather became, one of the world’s largest and most respected advertising firms.
Our third integrity principle is to be honest and open about who you really are. Be genuine. Don’t exaggerate your achievements. Don’t get trapped in a cover-up of past mistakes, even of personal traits that dissatisfy or displease you. When the going is tough, be tough by facing reality with adult responses. Use the good and the bad as material for personal growth. We must teach our children, and others who look to us for leadership, self-respect, and the supreme value of a clean conscience as early as possible. They are powerful components of integrity. Integrity that strengthens an inner value system is the real human bottom line. Commitment to a life of integrity in every situation demonstrates that your word is more valuable than a surety bond. It means you don’t base your decisions on being politically correct. You do what’s right, not what’s fashionable. You know that truth is absolute, not a device for manipulating others. And you win in the long run, when the stakes are highest.
I love discussing integrity with high school students. I throw a wallet into the center of the room where we—members of a small seminar—are sitting in a circle. The wallet contains a driver’s license, credit cards, photos, and eight $100 bills. I ask the students one by one what they would do if they found the wallet on a deserted street. The answers are uncomfortably revealing. “Wow, that would be awesome!” goes the most typical. “I’d keep the money as my reward and mail back the wallet with the credit cards.” Other students invariably suggest not putting a return address on the envelope so the owner couldn’t call and ask if there was money in the wallet when it was found. I usually ask how the $800 windfall would be explained to parents and friends. And if word got around—and ultimately back to the owner—would they say, “Losers weepers, finders keepers”?
Then I place the wallet in special situational contexts. What if the driver’s license showed that the wallet belonged to your best friend? Or to your mother? What if you recognized the driver’s license photograph as that of an elderly neighbor who lived on Social Security and who probably dropped the wallet on her way to the hospital for kidney dialysis, which she needed every week? Most students somberly agree that in those specific situations, it would be best to return the money, too. (One once ventured a slight exception if the wallet belonged to his mother: She’d understand, he assured us, if a few hundred dollars were missing.)
Finally, I ask an even more sensitive—and defining—question: “What if you were at an airport ready to fly off on a student summer tour of Hawaii or Australia. You use the rest room and leave your wallet—containing eight $100 bills—on the sink when you wash your hands. Realizing what you’re missing as you board the plane, you run back, explain your emergency to the gate agent and race to the rest room, heart pounding. If you were in that situation, what would you hope?”
“That the wallet’s on the sink where I left it,” most call out in unison. “And what do you hope is in the wallet?” I continue. “Eight $100 bills and my credit cards and my driver’s license,” they chorus. “And if a good Samaritan like you has picked up your wallet, what do you hope he or she does?” “Turns it into lost and found or airport security or a gate agent,” they say—with all the money intact. From there, we return to the wallet found on the deserted street. Now the students, many with wisdom-widened eyes, are clear about treating it as they’d want others to behave if the wallet belonged to them. The point has been made. Honesty and integrity are non-situational—and inner standards for your performance and behavior are the foundation of true self-respect.
Question: Would you say that others consider you “sincere” and trustworthy?
Action: When you disagree with someone important to you, be able to say, “I understand why you take the position you do; however, I would like to share with you why I feel differently!”