By Hal Alpiar, www.BusinessWorks.US
“Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching.”
- C.S. Lewis
A person of integrity. Everyone wants the label, but few ever earn it. What’s the roadblock? Human nature. It’s in our bones that when push comes to shove in times of trouble, and having integrity implies being generous — we tend instead to recoil and become selfish.
Integrity means keeping your promises. It means standing up for what you believe in no matter the cost. It suggests honorable behavior in the face of temptation to be dishonorable. What kinds of behavior constitute “dishonorable”? Surely, you can think of examples. Here are a few:
- A business owner who consistently sells used or outdated products or services as new
- An investor seeking 70% ownership in a business start-up venture for cash infusion that represents just a dollar-value fraction of the entrepreneur’s confirmed and already contributed sweat equity.
- A professional practice partner recruited under the guise of promised freedom to function in her area of specialization who is back-seated into generalist tasks through a contractual loophole.
- A business partner who accepts responsibility for operations, but then instead spends full-time efforts in sales which he knows nothing about.
- The boss who repeatedly gets in the face of irate customers, rather than simply satisfying customer requests –even unreasonable ones.
- The verbally-agreed-to partnership that’s thrown to the wind when one of the founders is introduced (by the discounted partner) to a money source . . . and the money source himself, who clearly places no value on the relationship or the investment opportunity.
- Successful business owner refusal to provide growth opportunities for entry-level employees because increasing their responsibilities will force increased compensation packages.
The Dash To Integrity
Being selfish, as in greedy and being unnecessarily protective, is not the same as being self-ish as in “oriented toward one’s self,” which is a positive direction for personal growth.
Being tuned in to what makes you tick is the most effective tool available on the planet for having a better sense of how to deal most productively and most happily with others.
In fact, being self-ish is a direct road to integrity.
Odd, isn’t it that a dash between “self” and “ish”
can make such a dramatic difference?
Truth is that when we can be more focused on HOW we choose certain behaviors, we can then be more focused on improving ourselves by improving our own behaviors, which better equips us as leaders to more positively impact other’s behaviors.
It may be worth the reminder, by the way, that all of these actions build character and integrity.
All these actions are also choices. So the place to start or re-start yourself on the path to higher integrity –for yourself and your business– is to recognize that you can take initiative at the drop of a hat, or iPad. Simply make more choices in favor of integrity, and know that you are free to make those choices beginning this second!
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