‘Integrity Is A Personal Choice And Cannot Be Preached’
The more you feed your resolve, your integrity becomes stronger. The more you go against your inner voice, the weaker you become
I am at a loss to write on integrity, more so when asked to do so. Integrity is the vital force of the inner conscience, which is strengthened by daily practice. It is being true to your own self and consistent to the framework of a value system. The value system of a society is not a static concept. Value system must be understood in a space-time framework dynamically changing with space and time. Nobody can assert that his integrity is 100 per cent or that some other person is 100 per cent corrupt. The more you feed your resolve, your integrity becomes stronger. The more you go against your inner voice, the weaker you become. This is a continuing journey and through sincere efforts, one progresses forward on the integrity scale.
On the obverse, there is a lurking danger of becoming de-sensitised if conscious efforts are not made continually. The true test of a person’s integrity is the sunshine test. That is, one should not so act as to embarrass himself if his motives were subject to the sunshine test or made open. Sunshine is the true disinfectant of one’s actions and thoughts.
Ineffective honesty is not the same as integrity. Ineffective honesty is cowardly and is a passive form of corruption. Honesty must be effective. Integrity means that people in power, whether in household or government or corporate world, should act in trust for the benefit of the members of the house, citizens or shareholders, respectively. Corruption is the anti-thesis to integrity. Corruption perpetuates inequality, undermining equal opportunities. It is in essence the snatching of the rights of the silent majority by the few who occupy positions of power. The bribe giver breaks the queue, whereas the bribe taker abuses his position. Abuse of power violates the societal value system and perpetuates inequality to the detriment of the weak. Corruption degrades the value system, serving the interests of the strong at the cost of the silent weak. It is said the character of a person is put to test when in power. The strength of character lies in obedience to the value system and not in violating it. A leader is one who has the strength of character to move the society to a better and more progressive value system. He is not fixated by the present value system.
Integrity is important at the individual level as well as for an organisation, whether public or private. In the outer world, integrity is required to transact with ease and confidence with others and, therefore, from the commercial point of view, integrity begets trust, makes transactions easier, efficient and cost-effective.
The more the rules, the less optimal is the outcome. More rules denote a closed and a less trusting society and is necessitated when integrity levels are low. More rules lead to a spiralling complexity in transacting business, or, in other words, lesser ease of doing business. More the rules, the scope of corruption increases and counter intuitively, is beneficial to the smart as the smart have lesser chance of getting caught or are able to exploit loopholes to escape the dragnet of law. But, it is relatively more difficult to break established conventions, as the moral force of society acts to enforce the same. It is not easy to rationalise deviations from established conventions, but easy to find loopholes in rules and justify deviations from the rules. Integrity is a personal choice and cannot be preached.
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