Many people often think of integrity as this grand gesture, envisioning a moment where they must call upon their inner superhero and summon the moral courage needed to confront a nefarious wrongdoer – like Edward Snowden exposing mass surveillance programs conducted by the NSA or Sherron Watkins exposing the unethical accounting practices at Enron.
But in reality, integrity is far more elemental in our everyday interactions, impacting not only our professional effectiveness, but our personal relationships as well.
So if integrity isn’t just about doing what’s right, moral, and ethical in these dramatic and heroic moments, then what is it?
Simple. Having integrity means that you say what you mean and mean what you say.
Sounds like a line out of a children’s book, doesn’t it? But this “say what you mean and mean what you say” mantra is incredibly simple and powerful. And it’s glaringly absent in our workplaces and our lives, undermining our impact, credibility, and leadership opportunities.
When we behave in these ways, we create stress (for ourselves and others), erode trust and credibility, impact performance, miss out on opportunities, ruin morale, compromise quality, increase costs, and cause harm.
The definition of integrity of “say what you mean and mean what you say” carries within it a simple, 4-step framework that can strengthen your leadership, maximize your impact, improve employee engagement, drive results, and elevate your life. Here it is, broken down:
In our fast-paced, hair-on-fire, ever-changing work environments it’s easy to say yes before fully considering the implications. And as leaders, we’re tackling multiple issues at once. We’re managing a team and we’re managing up. We’re accountable to many stakeholders and have a strong desire to be seen as team players.
So when someone asks for a report to be done by a certain date, you may agree because you want to demonstrate your reliability. Or perhaps you assumed it could be done, but didn’t realize all the work that needed to go into it. Whatever the reason, you end up committing to something that you may not be able to deliver on.
That’s why the first step in practicing integrity is to think before you commit. Ask yourself:
If you need time to consider what it would take to deliver, simply communicate it - with a timestamp, “Yeah, let me get back to you by the end of day on that and I’ll let you know.” Or if you know that you’ll need more time because your team is swamped with another priority, again, communicate it with a proposed solution, “I understand you need that by Tuesday and my team is stretched really thin now because of project X. We could have it for you by Friday - would that work?”
Once you’ve committed to something, it’s time to follow through on it. Did you say you were going to have the performance reviews done by the end of the week? Do it. Did you tell your team that you were going to provide them with growth opportunities within the company? Do it. Did you promise to have recurring 1:1’s with your team? Do it. Did you tell the product team that you’d have a GTM strategy by a certain date? Do it. Whatever it is you said you were going to do, do it.
Now here’s where it usually gets murky.
Most folks really WANT to follow through on what they said. But when they don’t, it’s usually because of one of two things – either they didn’t think things through before they committed and they realize they won’t be able to deliver or they forgot. Sometimes it’s because something else came up that needed your attention. Regardless of the reason, most people hesitate to then update the person(s) they committed to. And that leads to breakdowns.
I like to use the phrase “honor your word” and not “keep your word” because life happens and sometimes, we can’t follow-through - we can’t “keep” our word. “Honoring” our word implies that we respect it and hold it dear; it’s important. So if we can’t keep it, we have to do something else: reset expectations.
Life happens. So you didn’t think things through or something else came up or you forgot. No big deal. That’s ok. But since you gave your word, since you committed to something, you must honor it. All you need to do to honor it is either deliver what you promised or reset expectations.
This is where you need to communicate with the other party. You give them a heads-up of your new situation, own your part in it, and you let them know what to expect as a result of it all. As far as they’re concerned, they’re expecting you to deliver that report by the end of the week. If something changes, to maintain your integrity, you must communicate the changes and work with them to reset their expectation, “Hey, I thought we’d be able to get to your report by Wednesday but it looks like we need more time, can we get it to you by next Thursday?”
Ask yourself:
One of the worst things you can do is to stay quiet about you not being able to deliver on your promise – hoping they won’t notice or not caring about the impact. The delay usually comes as a surprise to others, causing frustration and lots of last-minute shuffling, which can hurt projects, customers, bottom-line, and team morale.
As you can see by this point, integrity = your word.
Words are the building blocks of communication. Throughout this entire process of saying what you mean and meaning what you say, it’s critical to always be communicating. Setting and resetting expectations. Asking questions, gathering data points, letting others know where you stand, what’s needed, what you see, and how it will impact others. Communicate, communicate, communicate. As leaders we want to keep our teams informed, reset expectations when needed, and model this behavior for others to emulate.
Imagine a workplace where everyone operates with this level of integrity? We’d see more trust, achieve better results, and improve well-being. By embodying the “say what you mean and mean what you say” principle and its four key practices, you can significantly elevate your personal and professional life, as well as contribute to a more productive and healthy environment.
By focusing on these simple, everyday actions, we can turn the ambiguous concept of integrity into a tangible skill set that strengthens our leadership and impacts those around us for the better. Try them. It might be hard or uncomfortable at first, and that’s ok. It’s part of the growth process.