Self-honesty is the ability to step back from the canvas of life and take a good look at yourself as you relate to your environmental, physical, mental, and spiritual world. Self-honesty is the ability to accept yourself as a unique, imperfect, changing, and growing individual and to recognize your own vast potential as well as your limitations. Self-honesty is the ability to separate prejudice from truth, which is so challenging because each of us looks at life through a filter of past experience and ingrained beliefs.
A simple motto hung on the living room wall of my grandparents’ small frame house, where many seeds for my development were planted. My grandmother and grandfather didn’t talk about the lines; they lived them. “Life is like a field of newly fallen snow; where I choose to walk, every step will show.” They believed you were either honest or you weren’t. There was nothing in between, no such thing as partial honesty. Integrity, a standard of personal morality and ethics, is not relative to the situation you happen to find yourself in and doesn’t sell out to expediency. Its short supply is getting even shorter—but without it, leadership is a facade. People unconcerned with self-respect and able to see little value in themselves will not guide their lives with such an internal compass. Unfortunately, their own inner value system is thoroughly mixed up, even inverted. I find real confusion about self-respect among the current and younger generations, whose comments seem to indicate that they take braggarts, clowns, and celebrities as role models—people who appear successful but are often submerged in show. “Can you believe he/she actually spoke to me?” I often hear students saying about stars. That’s not entirely their fault; our society puts a huge premium on celebrity for celebrity’s sake. Even politicians running for the highest offices in the nation are elected more on star status than leadership qualities, much as high school students might select the king and queen of the senior prom.
Learning to see through exteriors is a critical development in the transition from adolescence to adulthood. Sadly, most people continue to be taken in by big talk and media popularity, flashy or bizarre looks, and expensive possessions. They move through most of their years convinced that the externals are what count and are thus doomed to live shallow lives. Those who rely on their looks or status to feel good about themselves inevitably do everything they can to enhance the impression they make—and do correspondingly little to develop their inner value and personal growth. The paradox is that the people who try hardest to impress are often the least impressive. Devotion to image is often for the money and influence it can reap. Puffing to appear powerful is an attempt to hide insecurity. If only we could see many of our celebrities when their guard and pretenses were down!
An essay in Time magazine tackled one of our culture’s great problems: the tabloid celebration of the famous and the infamous. Any moral crusade will run smack into the messages conveyed by our growing celebrity-obsessed culture. A few moments in the limelight can mean big bucks: a book contract, a speaking tour, a TV docudrama, or a reality show. Ethical distinctions are quickly lost as talk show appearances and gala opening night parties become schools for scandal. The myth that all that counts is bottom-line success often leads to fleeting stardom and ultimate defeat. Ask a thousand has-beens.
In the Roman Empire’s final corrupt years, status was conveyed by the number of carved statues of the gods displayed in people’s courtyards. As in every business, the Roman statue industry had good and bad sculptors and merchants. As the empire became ever more greedy and narcissistic, the bad got away with as much as they could. Sculptors became so adept at using wax to hide cracks and chips in marble that most people couldn’t discern the difference in quality. Statues began to weep or melt under the scrutiny of sunlight or heat in foyers. For statues of authentic fine quality, carved by reputable artists, people had to go to the artisan marketplace in the Roman Quad and look for booths with signs declaring sine cera (without wax). We too look for the real thing in friends, products, and services. In people, we value sincerity—from sine cera—more than almost any other virtue. We should expect it from our leaders. We must demand it of ourselves.
Self-honesty is the foundation of self-knowledge. In order to improve yourself, it is important to be able to see yourself accurately, without being too harsh or too generous. Ask yourself, “Am I seeing myself as I really am? Am I overconfident, or am I selling myself short?”
Self-honesty requires effort. It involves telling the truth about yourself, both to yourself and to others. Telling the truth about yourself means admitting that you are human and therefore imperfect. Being honest can be challenging, because it involves revealing thoughts and feelings that we might dislike and that might not fit in with our self-image. Self-honesty entails confronting aspects of your past and present that are unpleasant or even painful. It might even involve confronting painful feelings such as sadness, grief, anger, fear, shame, or guilt.
The benefits of self-honesty far outweigh the effort it requires. With self-honesty, you can see both what you have to offer and what you need to do to become the person you want to be. When you are honest with yourself, you are able to take pride in your progress because you know that you have set meaningful goals and invested the effort necessary to reach them. Who you are, what you think, and how you feel are all in harmony.
To become more self-honest, try to look at yourself like an archaeologist at the site of an exciting, newly discovered city. An archaeologist doesn’t judge what he or she finds but tries to understand it. In the same way, don’t look for what “should” be—look for what “is.” Take inventory of everything you find—the precious treasures of current and future potential and joy, and the learning experiences from the past.
What can we do to increase the dwindling integrity in our society today? Like charity, integrity begins at home. One of the greatest gifts you can give your children is a strong sense of ethical and moral values. Let them accept responsibility for their own actions as early as possible. The more sense of responsibility they develop, the better they will feel about themselves. Above all, for integrity’s sake, teach them graciousness and gratitude and how to care about the rights and welfare of others. Teach your children (and business associates who look to you for leadership) that their true rewards in life will depend on the quality and amount of service they render. Show them, by example, how to treat others as they would have others treat them. As the grandfather of 11 grandchildren, I know from experience that the greatest gifts parents can give their children—and that business and other leaders can give their team members—are roots and wings. Roots lie in core values and feelings of self-worth. Wings grow from acceptance of responsibility, which enables our children to fly freely as independent adults. The loss of roots and wings too often leads to pursuit of “loot and things” and other tragic results.
Being honest with yourself and others is one of the key ingredients in authentic success over a lifetime. Mutual trust is the glue that binds all relationships. Self-honesty is the ability to separate prejudice from truth, which is so challenging because each of us looks at life through a filter of past experience and ingrained beliefs. Integrity is easier preached than practiced. We go along for a while setting a good example, but sometimes we tell ourselves we need a break. Our children and team members get confused. First they think we are being ourselves by modeling healthy behavior. When they see unhealthy behavior coming from their leaders, they are puzzled and hurt at first, but then they catch on. They learn to play the game of “say one thing” and do “something different.” The old cliché holds true: What you are speaks so loudly, no one can really hear what you say. But it is even more true that if what you think, say, and do are consistent, your life will speak forcefully indeed.
Your children—and those you work with who look to you for leadership—will do what they see you do. Your challenge as a leader is enormous, but so are the rewards. A life of principle—of not succumbing to the temptations of easy morality—will always win in the end, leading you to the real wealth of a clear conscience and not having to constantly check the rear-view mirror as you move forward.