Honesty and Integrity Build a Foundation of Trust
"To be honest is to be real, genuine, authentic, and bona fide.
To be dishonest is to be partly feigned, forged, fake, or
fictitious. Honesty expresses both self-respect and respect for
others. Dishonesty fully respects neither oneself nor others.
Honesty imbues lives with openness, reliability, and candor; it
expresses a disposition to live in the light. Dishonesty seeks
shade, cover, or concealment. It is a disposition to live partly
in the dark." -- William J. Bennett, The Book of Virtues
Seven-year-old first baseman, Tanner Munsey, fielded a ground
ball and tried to tag a runner going from first to second base.
The umpire, Laura Benson, called the runner out, but young
Tanner immediately ran to her side and said, "Ma'am, I didn't
tag the runner." Umpire Benson reversed herself, sent the runner
to second base, and Tanner's coach gave him the game ball for
his honesty. Two weeks later, Laura Benson was again the umpire
and Tanner was playing shortstop when a similar play occurred.
This time Benson ruled that Tanner had missed the tag on a
runner going to third base, and she called the runner safe.
Tanner looked at Benson and, without saying a word, tossed the
ball to the catcher and returned to his position. Benson sensed
something was wrong. "Did you tag the runner?" she asked Tanner.
"Yes," he replied. Benson then called the runner out. The
opposing coaches protested until she explained what had happened
two weeks earlier. "If a kid is that honest," she said, "I have
to give it to him."
Honesty and integrity are key ingredients in developing trust.
Trust is a key element in establishing credibility. Our
credibility is at the center of our ability to influence others
and provide strong leadership. In our leadership development
work we often ask participants to list the qualities of the most
effective leaders they have experienced in their family, school,
community, social, or organizational lives. Words like sincere,
truthful, trustworthy, reliable, principled, and genuine are
usually on the list. These characteristics are the hallmarks of
strong leaders.
There's lots of evidence to support author Lance Secretan's
belief that "we are suffering from truth decay." In a financial
management column on taking a loan to invest more money in
mutual funds, a former politician advised, "if your real estate
falls in value to the point where the home-equity loan is
greater than the worth of your house, you can always take a
walk. Then it's the bank's problem." How's that for honesty and
integrity? Does he sound like someone you could trust and
believe? Little wonder his party was tossed out of office at the
next election amid scandals and crooked deals (they showed that
"political principles" really was an oxymoron). Every day we
hear about, or personally experience, broken promises, cheating,
"shaving the truth," cutting corners, or failing to follow
through. That's why Mark Twain declared that "truth is more of a
stranger than fiction." He felt that many people regard truth as
their most valuable possession and this explained why they were
most economical in its use. He advised us to "always do right.
This will gratify some people and astonish the rest." Winston
Churchill adds, "people occasionally stumble over the truth, but
most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened."
Honesty and integrity is a given in most conversations about
leadership values. But some people seem to feel it's something
you can slip on and off like clothing. They will speak of
personal, professional, or business behaviors as if different
suits of honesty are put on according to the situation. This
shows "doing honesty" rather than being honest. It's no more
than putting on an honest act. People quickly see through it and
reduce us to our lowest level of honesty and integrity -- our
dirtiest clothes. Even more importantly -- which is the real me?
How can changeable honesty ring true to me?
Our true character is often revealed by fear and greed. In times
of fear we often face great difficulty and disaster. Or we might
have huge opportunities for financial, career, power, or other
big gains. How we deal with both extremes when the stakes are
high reveals our true selves. The choices we make during those
intense moments of truth exposes the depth of our character. Do
we "do our honesty and integrity thing" when it's convenient or
just when we think others are watching? Or are we an honest
being who's eventually found out?
Parents and even managers will sometimes say, "don't let me
catch you doing that again." This often leads to lively games of
"catch me if you can." But honesty and integrity are developed
from the inside out. Abraham Lincoln explained it well in
reflecting on his approach, "I do the best I know how, the very
best I can; and I mean to keep on doing it to the end. If the
end brings me out all right, what is said against me will not
amount to anything. If the end brings me out all wrong, ten
angels swearing I was right would make no difference." Ringing
true to me means going beyond just what I say or do. It involves
listening to what my inner voice tells me about how I feel about
what I've said or done.
One way to explore our inner level of true honesty and integrity
is look at how much we trust others. Since we see the world as
we are, any feelings that people are basically dishonest and
can't be trusted may be revealing more about me than them. One
of the hazards of lying is not just that people wouldn't believe
us, it's also that we can't believe anyone else.