Integrity: The Most Important Quality to Never Compromise

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Warren Buffet is credited with saying, “Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire somebody without [integrity], you really want them to be dumb and lazy.” Don’t allow yourself to be shortsighted when your integrity is concerned. Cutting corners, or allowing someone to put their deficiencies on your shoulders might seem like the path of least resistance and certainly can make for a more efficient day, but if you sell your integrity so cheaply you will find the long term ramification to be exponential.

It isn’t easy to do the right thing every time. It isn’t easy to fight against the odds when the person placing the blame is “respected and powerful.” It isn’t always appropriate to fight at all. Sometimes the right thing has more to do with knowing and not showing. As Oprah Winfrey stated “Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.” If you need credit for doing the right thing you are not displaying integrity, just vanity.

Early in my career working in an industry that has a flare for being unpredictable. Many contractors are good, honest people. But with an industry so unsupervised there is great opportunity for unscrupulous people to take advantage of customers and workers. I have had the misfortune of working around many of these persons in my career. I was also incredibly lucky to have towering beacons of integrity to guide me through the industry. People who would rather lose a deal, then tell an outright lie. These people are described best in Ayn Rand’s The Journals of Ayn Rand when she states, “Only a man of integrity can possess the virtue of honesty, since only the faking of one’s consciousness can permit the faking of existence.”

As my career progressed, I have continued to run into both types, regardless of the size and reputation of the companies I worked for. It can seem in the short term that people who lack the integrity to do the right thing can become very successful. I am in fact not saying that every successful person in this world is full of integrity, but it will more likely lead to eventual failure if you don’t place a high value on your own personal integrity. Marcus Aurelius is credited with saying, “Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.”

I have been forced with decisions to leave a job, or a company due to standing up for what is right. I have had to take a long drive and really consider whether the quick money was worth the cost to my own integrity. I have even witnessed the character assassination that commences once I have left a company. This is something that can’t be helped or completely controlled. This is a consequence of standing up for ones belief in doing things right. Sometimes, walking away from a situation is the right thing to do, in order to protect your own integrity. The people who know you will not believe the untruths and people who don’t might. You can’t be in every room defending yourself to every person. What you can do is go to another company and continue to be the best person you can be, and when you succeed again, you will outlast the rumors. I take solace in the words of Frederick Douglass “I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.”

I have found in my search for being a person whose integrity is unquestioned(not succeeded, but still searching for) that I can only control how I view myself and my decisions. I know what is truly motivating my actions. I know when I am telling the truth. I try to be the person who is able to show my good deeds, and be there for others, even when people questions my motivations. One particular manager over me, regularly questioned why I pointed out inefficiencies and mistakes in billing practices, constantly telling me that I was obviously trying to be a show off. I was the only person who knew the true reason for my actions, merely to help the company be more efficient and create a more profitable environment. Harper Lee wrote in To Kill a Mockingbird “They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions… but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

The one thing I have been able to control about every situation and business decision I have ever made, was how I felt about my actions in the situation. I have always attempted to bring value to my relationships. I have always attempted to be a beacon light for others to follow. I have not always been successful, but the knowledge that my intentions are positive have created the confidence to succeed, where others might fail. People will always doubt what is possible, if they don’t understand the way to be successful. They will always look for the “trick” you used, or the way you “bent the rule.” One of the hardest parts of personal integrity is the knowledge that you will be the only one who really knows. Integrity also means standing up for another right to speak freely and promote their business, even if you wouldn’t buy from them. As Candace Galek has been experiencing in her struggle for a free market society on LinkedIn.

“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”-Ralph Waldo Emerson