Integrity at work: how is it presented?

As the business sections of today’s newspapers and magazines look more and more like police blotters, “Integrity” is fast becoming a hot topic of conversation in business boardrooms around water dispensers and business best-sellers today. Integrity is defined as leading by example when it comes to living your true values, being authentic. Take this self-assessment and explore how you talk about integrity when you present yourself at work.

Integrity is a lot like being pregnant. In other words, either you are pregnant or you are not. There is no middle ground. I am the same with integrity.

At work, integrity is not a robe that you can put on and take off at your convenience. However, everyday behaviors in the workplace often seem to indicate that convenience plays an important role in whether or not people show integrity. Who people are at work and what people are like at work seems to change like the weather, the weather of convenience.

When asked, many people say they believe they do, in fact, always act with integrity. However, when we look at actual workplace behaviors on a day-by-day, minute-by-minute basis, this is clearly not the case. Why? One of the reasons is people’s basic need for recognition, control and security.

Because most people are driven by their egos and their needs for control, recognition, and security, they often stray from their true and authentic selves, from their deepest inner values, and behave in ways contrary to doing and being. . ing in integrity.

So do you think, feel and believe that you live your core values ​​at work, that you present yourself with integrity in your workplace? Take this self-assessment and explore who you are and how you perform at work when it comes to integrity.

1. On an integrity scale of 1 (low) to 10 (high), how would you rate yourself on the following workplace behaviors?

(a) gossip;

(b) bullying;

(c) view or download pornography;

(d) steal physical materials;

(e) steal intellectual capital;

(f) steal time;

(g) tell the truth;

(h) take responsibility for your part of your team’s projects;

(i) make an apology;

(j) be direct, open and honest in your communications;

(k) respect others;

2. Who or what usually takes away your integrity?

3. When you are not upright, what kind of internal dialogue do you engage in?

4. Do your needs for control, recognition and security take you out of integrity?

5. Do you relate to yourself about being in integrity? If so, why?

6. Do you care that you are out of integrity?

7. Do you use the same definition to define integrity for yourself and for others? If not, why not?

8. Do you respond if others act with integrity and their actions affect you directly?

9. Do you answer if others act with integrity and their actions affect your team, your unit, your department or your organization?

10. Do you ever excuse or rationalize your lack of integrity? If so, when and why?

At the end of the day, the workday, integrity is about telling the truth about ourselves, to ourselves. It is about living this truth.

Many of us are quick to judge and criticize others who act with integrity. But to tell the truth, and it’s about the truth, many of us are just as likely to stray from our core values ​​and act with integrity when it’s convenient in some way.

So how did your self-assessment go? Who and what are you like when it comes to presenting yourself at work with integrity?