Five Facts about Integrity to Up Your Game
Integrity is one of those concepts that leaders don’t often stop to think about. But it’s an aspect of leadership character that can make or break our ability to achieve our goals. In an inspiring interview, Karen Christensen asked Michael Jensen, professor emeritus at the Harvard Business School, all about integrity. Jensen unpacked the concept of integrity in a way that helps leaders realize how important integrity is to success.
First, let’s define ‘integrity’. Integrity is the state of something being whole, complete, and unbroken. For a person to be in integrity is a matter of their ability to honor their word. It’s a neutral concept, just like gravity, Jensen explains. You either have integrity, or you don’t, depending if you’re operating in alignment with your word
Here are five of our favorite takeaways from the interview that we think leaders need to understand.
Integrity creates workability.
Without integrity, there is no workability in relationships. Respecting the law of integrity leads to enormous performance increases because workability increases. We can work with ourselves and others much more fluidly if actions are taken in accordance with what was intended, espoused, and promised.
Integrity is not a virtue.
Integrity is a necessary condition for performance, not a virtue that we aspire to. The parts of our lives and work that feel difficult and unworkable can very often be linked to our own out-of-integrity behavior. Rather than treating integrity as a nice-to-have, consider the workability that would develop if being in integrity was the consistent standard.
We are at risk of rationalizing our out-of-integrity behavior.
There are going to be times when we cannot keep our word. Many people barely notice because they're focused on the rationalization for not keeping their word. “Of course, I couldn’t send that report draft over to you on Thursday – we all heard the CEO’s announcement on Wednesday that everything was about to change.”
Sometimes, there are valid reasons that we cannot keep our word. When this happens, we must still honor our word by letting affected parties know A.S.A.P. and making up for it in a meaningful way. We can create trust more rapidly if, when we fail to keep our word, we honor it. This behavior is incredibly rare and surprising thus creating more trust in the long run.
We shouldn’t do a cost-benefit analysis for behaving with integrity.
Decision-making via cost-benefit analysis is a skill honed by leaders. And it’s important – except when it comes to honoring one's word. Because of its supreme importance, integrity transcends the benefit of such an analysis, and doing so inherently undermines the value of our word.
If the cost becomes too high, we can learn to be more careful before giving our word in the future.
Talk is cheap.
Well-intentioned people throw words around every day. For example, mentioning to a colleague in passing that you’ll send them the title of the great book you’re reading.
Being in integrity takes consistent vigilance in honoring one's word, no matter the cost. There is constant striving for more awareness of when we throw out a promise to ourselves or others without taking it seriously.
Leaders must understand and abide by the law of integrity to truly make a difference.
If you would like to read the full interview, you can download it here.
