Integrity

Quality of the month for August

The dictionaries indicate several meanings of integrity that shade into each other.

Perhaps central for us is this one: "an uncompromising adherence to a code of moral, artistic, or other values," but also important are "an unimpaired condition" and "the quality or state of being complete or undivided."

Here is what the PCC Resources Work Team said about people of integrity: They "maintain a high degree of consistency between what they say and what they do; they 'walk the talk.'"

When asked what it means to be a person of integrity, one PCC member stated:

"It means if I tell my kids not to use inappropriate language, I shouldn't. If I tell my kids not to steal, I shouldn't take hotel towels and robes." Another said: "To be a person of integrity means trying not to stray from the values I have been taught."

Two graduating seniors at Worthington high schools recently affirmed the importance of integrity for them personally. Said one:

"From a very young age, I have been taught by my parents to live the way I speak. I try each day to follow the advice of my parents, but from time to time I have strayed...Now that I'm a senior, I pride myself on living each day the best way I know how. I'm the role model now and gladly take on the responsibility that poses with commitment, courage and guidance from God."

Said another senior:

"Integrity is important to me because I have a strong belief that we all have a responsibility to stand up for what we believe in and to stand up for the rights of others. I apply this in my life by fighting things I think are wrong; by trying to change the world for the better...I sincerely try to be the best person that I can be, because the most important part of having integrity is holding the world to high standards while holding yourself to even higher ones."

Here is a sampling of the ways integrity has been viewed by others across the years:

	Lucan:		"As far as the stars are from the earth, and as different as fire is from water, so much do self-interest and integrity differ."
	Shakespeare (in Hamlet):		"This above all – to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou can not then be false to any."
	e. e. cummings:		"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting."
	John W. Gardner:		"I'm inclined to be down-to-earth in judging virtue. When a man says he loves mankind, I want to know how he gets along with his wife and his neighbors. When a man says he loves democracy and hates tyranny, I want to know how he treats his children and his subordinates. Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community."
	Stephen R. Covey:		"I define integrity as the value we place on ourselves. As we clearly identify our values and proactively organize and execute around our priorities on a daily basis, we develop self-awareness and self-value by making and keeping meaningful promises and commitments. If we can't make and keep commitments to ourselves as well as to others, our commitments become meaningless. We know it, and others know it. They sense our duplicity and become guarded."

What does it mean for you to be a person of integrity? What does it mean for your family to be a family of integrity? For your institution to be an institution of integrity? For your community?