“Integrity is the essence of everything successful.”    

Buckminster Fuller

How many times have we witnessed a firebrand executive at the top of his or her game plummeted into obscurity, or into jail, due to a fundamental absence of integrity in their business practices. Can someone rise to the heights of their profession without integrity? Oh sure they can, but it is highly doubtful that this person will retain that status absent this important behavioral trait.

Many may claw and climb their way up the corporate ladder using whatever methods he or she may perceive as essential in order to grab that next rung. Regardless of whether their motives are morally sound or ethically correct, they may succeed in gaining stature because they could play the game. But there is no way they will ever experience maximum workability, in any aspect of life, without integrity. Indeed, integrity matters.

What Integrity Looks Like

Integrity is a term often associated with the top desirable traits for individuals in leadership and top-tier executive positions. In fact, a survey conducted by Robert Half Management Resources showed that integrity was the number one desired leadership attribute among 75% of respondents.

Mission statements drip with claims about the value placed on integrity within the organization, but when the rubber meets the road, how many actually practice integrity? The word integrity has been hijacked as a buzzword that invokes the warm fuzzy feelings of trust, yet how many can actually describe what is meant by practicing integrity?

Too often, in an effort to appease or please, people will promise the world to someone. This often well-intentioned reflex to satisfy someone’s expectations is prevalent across personal, financial, educational, and business realms. Whether promising to deliver an order, an essay, fidelity in a relationship, or a pizza, these assurances are usually made and received in good faith.

But along the way to actually delivering said promise a glaring distinction can be illuminated by the presence or absence of one simple condition: honoring one’s word. According to the Michael Jensen framework, integrity involves the honoring of a promise made. Without that follow through, optimal success or better said- workability- in any aspect of life is not compromised.

The dictionary defines the word integrity as the state of being whole and undivided. As an analogy of how integrity impacts workability, let’s take a tennis racket. Initially, the tennis racket is in perfect condition but over time, its structure begins to breakdown and your racket head has several damaged strings. What happens? How does this impact your ability to play? The compromised condition of the tennis will directly hurt your ability to play, hence your overall performance will decrease. How does this translate to your work? Well, although not visible, what makes your relationships work is your word. If you say things often enough and don’t deliver on it, you will lose credibility, trust and ultimately workability. This will directly impact your life- where you miss a promotion, your partner builds resentment, and your friends lose trust. This demonstrates the effect of integrity, from start to finish, as a whole and undivided commitment to honoring one’s word.

What happens should there be a chink in the armor and an unforeseen complication prevents one from keeping their word, a condition all too common in business and life? By reaching out to inform your boss, customer, friend or partner of the delay or inability to deliver on your promise, and propose a workaround or solution, you have managed to keep your integrity intact. In fact, this type of action will often engender trust, as they can see that the setback was handled with utmost integrity. By being informed as soon as the problem was identified, they were not left hanging, were able to inform others impacted by the delay, and able to make subsequent adjustments.

How Practicing Integrity Will Positively Impact Workability on Every Level

Practicing integrity by honoring one’s word is an asset that permeates the entire organization, top to bottom. A leader who has demonstrated their commitment to being whole and undivided, by practicing integrity on an ongoing basis, sets the tone for a workplace that is built on trust and confidence. When integrity is truly integrated into the workplace culture, all team members, regardless of rank, will be coached and managed using this principle. When someone knows with certainty that their superiors mean what they say and honor their word, productivity cannot help but increase.

People are inherently wired toward a behavior and reward pattern. Being motivated, inspired, or incentivized by a leader or executive who has a history of keeping their promises will result in enhanced workability on all levels. Like a trickle-down effect, each layer of an enterprise that is grounded in an integrity-based model will benefit. Productivity is sparked not by routine demands or quotas, but by a belief that hard work will truly be rewarded as promised.

Commitments that are honored in all relationships relationship will result in enhanced workability. Whether that is a manager promising to keep a meeting to twenty minutes and does it, a CEO that promises an incentive vacation to the top three producers, and sends them, or an employee who promises to finish a report by the end of the day, runs into an issue, is in communication about not being able to meet the promised deadline and commits to delivering mid-next day and does, practicing integrity by keeping one’s word keeps all spokes in the wheel functioning. This, in turn, improves morale, builds trust, and delivers maximum workability.