To feed the discussion, an interesting read on integrity and good leadership as per Prem Watsa:
https://www.ivey.uwo.ca/news/blogs/2020/july/prem-watsa-explains-integrity-is-the-cornerstone-of-good-leadership/
My colleagues and I just had a good laugh at this paper. I'd argue it's worthless and totally predictable based off the current awareness in the business world.
This is a nice description of integrity, however, it doesn't really get at the heart of the matter of the power of integrity. When integrity degrades into a morality conversation it loses its power. Also having a set of guiding principles will NOT inherently ground a good culture.
The Jensen/Erhard course taught at Harvard as well as 44 other Universities actually gets to the heart of the matter of Integrity. I've done this work and it's nothing that you can get from reading about integrity.
They give the program away for free online which you can get here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=920625
On a side note, businesses that get integrity as a distinction experience increase of profits of 600% within 1 year. Businesses that get their "guiding principles" actually aligned with their culture, takes about 2 days to do and 6-24 months to be seen into action and you get a result on average of 3-5x.
It's my hope that this work gets taught in every business school in the country one day. It's a HUGE missing in our society.
Just read that abstract. It sounds like they are equating "integrity" with keeping your word and owning your shit. Roughly speaking. Not sure how that is teachable, I've always thought about integrity as something someone has or doesn't, but I'm interested enough that I think I'm going to read the whole paper.
Really good observation. Nobody "has" or "doesn't have" integrity. And it's taught through making distinctions. The distinction integrity is what creates the performance increases. The explaining of it does not and just makes for interesting dialogue at best.
Distinctions are made from abstractions. Principles get derived from distinction. Most people if they're lucky start with principles and most people don't even go that deep.
Integrity is often thought of conceptually as moral uprightness and steadfastness, or as you would say "having it"—making the “good” choices, doing the “right thing.” In fact, it is far more than that. Integrity is actually a experiential phenomenon in and of itself. It has to do with authenticity—being true to ourselves—and it is the foundation for power and effectiveness. It is a home, an anchor, a continuing commitment—a way of being and acting that shapes who we are.
When one distiguishes integrity as distinction, it opens up a completely new world. Kind of like if you've ever seen the movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy"...when the coke bottle drops from the sky...there is no distinction coke bottle for them so they interact with it differently. On the contrary, you and I have no access to the distinction called "not a coke bottle" so we actually are unable to have access to THEIR experience of the coke bottle. Same thing with trying to explain the color purple to a blind man..they have no distinction called purple or color. Also, if you show someone from an uncontested tribe a photograph, they will see a blob. They don't actually experience a picture.
So distinction is the access to the breakthrough performance.....and the business world is still in the stone ages by teaching these as concepts, it's actually pretty amateur hour...say unlike management techniques which business school has gotten masterful over the past 50 years. Probably because they are taught as techniques and you don't have to distuigish much..just teach someone a tool.
However, the natural space people get to through discovering this experience is integrity resides in the ability to constitute yourself as your word, to be true to your principles, and ultimately, be true to yourself. Seeing authenticity as the access to being authentic around where one is being inauthentic as nobody "is" authentic.
Integrity is not constrained by, nor does it reside in, rules, prescriptions, or imposed demands. Integrity creates an environment of freedom, power, and joy.
Of course the constraint here is that you can't explain a distinction just like I can't explain purple to a blind man. So explaining the distinction integrity will just land as a concept at best.
Cheers!
