Is “Integrity” Even an Issue?
Dan Brent / Citibank

Time was when integrity was not even an issue in business. It was a given – unnecessary even to mention. The used car salesman who lied about the mileage or history of the car was a joke of legend. Then along came Enron and a parade of other companies indicted for cooking the books. Now there is a super-consciousness about integrity issues.

We get messages from our CEO with some regularity reminding us that any stretch of ethics or rules is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. I expect this happens now in most organizations. If you don’t get similar messages from your president or boss, it’s because they consider it unnecessary. Breaches of integrity are considered unimaginable in your setting.

But . . .

I once worked as Director of Operations in a branch office of an insurance company. My boss, one day, asked me to send a note to everyone insisting that no circumstance justified forging a signature. Apparently, he’d become aware that, to save either a long trip or a delay, an agent had, with a client’s permission, signed his signature. “Tell them,” my boss explained, “that any breach of this rule will result in dismissal and loss of license.” I drafted the message, signed his name to it as I often did with internal memos, and made copies for everyone. Before I circulated it, the silliness of my behavior struck me. I had forged his signature under the “no forging” message!

I consider myself an ethical person. I’m the first to say “Tisk, tisk” when I hear or read about business shenanigans. But this humbling experience was a lesson to me. Even with good intentions, it is easy to be blind to the corner-cutting in one’s own behavior. It’s like the worm that creeps into your computer. All is well and then suddenly, silently, there is the problem.

Financial Aid people work in a glass house. Their decisions are pretty much public record. Students compare notes. The school, the guarantors, the banks – everyone is looking over your shoulder and keeping score. That’s probably a fairly effective deterrent to skipping steps or cutting corners. But then it’s useful to remember that the corporations have watchdogs too. Board members, stockholders, Wall Street gurus, outside auditors, inside whistle-blowers, government agencies, and customers all have an eye on what’s happening. Yet, at least for a while, some corporations were able to hoodwink all of them.

So, at the end of the day, it’s the integrity of the people on the spot that is the final defense for honesty.

Kouzes and Posner have written several books on business and leadership behaviors. In Credibility (1993), they make the point that leaders can’t do one thing and expect something different from their people. The reader nods his or her head knowingly and agrees, perhaps without reflecting that the principle applies with equal strength to one’s own behavior. If we want students to behave with integrity, for example, they must see integrity in our behavior. They may not appreciate the bottom line of a decision we make. But if it is made with integrity, there is a longer-range lesson that is more valuable than the immediate, disappointing effect. Integrity counts.

In his Seven Habits of Effective People book (1990), Stephen Covey suggests writing out what you’d like to have said at your funeral. The thought is a bit gauche but you can see the value of where he’s going. I think I’d like the word “integrity” to appear there somewhere. You?

Dan Brent is a Professional Development Officer with Citibank. He regularly presents seminars for Financial Aid people.