What Is Integrity?

What does it mean to say a person has integrity? In the simplest terms, integrity is the practice of being consistent in your moral principles. Notices that it’s the practice of your moral principles. To have integrity, your practice has to match your stated principles. That is, you are an undivided person, whole and complete in your ethics and morals.

Why is integrity important? Think about the fact that integrity means one is undivided. “A house divided among itself cannot stand.” “United we stand, divided we fall.” One can view the individual person in the same way. Our stated principles are weak unless they are bundled with actions supporting those principles, showing we live by them.

The clearest proof of integrity is the simple act of always doing what you say you’re going to do. It is also a good example of how integrity works.

The person who does what they say and says what they’ll do is trustworthy.

If you are the kind of person who does not always do what you say, you likely live in constant anxiety. Not even you know what you may or may not do until the last minute. Consider these two scenarios.

If you have been invited someplace, and you told the person you would be there, and you are a person of integrity, life is actually pretty clear, predictable, and easy. You’re not worried about going, or whether or not you’re going. You’re going. Even if you would rather not, the fact that you know for a fact that you’re…