INTEGRITY IS EVERYTHING

Last Tuesday, I saw something I never thought I would see again in my life.?

No, it wasn’t a meteor. Nor an eclipse.?

It was something much rarer, indeed.?

What caught my eye, and me by surprise?

A severely-unpopular politician actually resigned !?

You see, by the time Liz Truss stepped to the podium at 10 Downing Street, after only 6 weeks on the job, I had lost hope that our leaders were bound by anything other than self-service and opportunism. But then something shocking happened.

Rather than belittle her constituents, attack the press, or ignore political reality at the expense of societal and political health, Truss did the seemingly impossible:

She took the blame. Accepted responsibility. Embraced the consequences.?

And while her arrival was sudden, and her time in office anything but smooth, it was her departure that holds the true lesson for us.?

A lesson in integrity.?

Liz Truss Accepted Responsibility and Acknowledged Political Gravity.

Credit: Simon Dawson / No10 Downing Street

WHY INTEGRITY MATTERS?

What does a failed Prime Minister have to teach us about honesty, moral clarity, and principle??

Quite a lot, actually. In the age of self-promotion, political expediency, and sociopathy, integrity matters more than ever. Character counts, as they say.?

Integrity is a Latin term – “integer” – meaning “whole” or “complete.”?

It refers to, in essence, complete moral character.?

“To live with integrity requires us to have a clear understanding of what we want to achieve, and what we hold as most important, and to maintain harmony between these objectives and values, and our decisions and actions,” states the UN International Organization for Migration.

Spectacular Magazine notes:?

“When it comes to core values, integrity is possibly the highest of all. Without integrity, there is no honesty, no truth, and no accountability. … if you don’t have these core values, then you will lose the trust of your internal and external stakeholders.”

Integrity provides moral consistency.

It establishes trustworthiness of reputation.

It creates a track record of positive achievement.

It’s hard-fought and hard-won. Having integrity forces us to avoid vice and other traps of ego.

And not everyone has it.

That’s become even more evident recently. Globally, we’re seeing leaders – from politics to business – abandon integrity for quick wins, easy gains, and fast riches …?

… at the expense of us all.??

A Global Ad Agency Advertises Its Integrity, circa 1960s.

Source: Young & Rubicam

A GLOBAL INTEGRITY CRISIS?

Lord Acton, a member of British Parliament, famously remarked over a century ago:

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority.”

Integrity has long been seen as a strong antidote to the corrupting influence of power.

Perhaps that’s why it’s so rare in the halls of leadership and authority these days.

@Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, a professor of business psychology at University College London and Columbia University, has remarked on this integrity drought, recently writing for Fast Company:

“While we love to say that integrity is a cornerstone of leadership potential, our order of preference, when we vote or appoint leaders, prioritizes other traits. In fact, many of the qualities that seduce us in leaders are diametrically opposed to integrity. [Many] are only interested in becoming leaders to acquire fame and status. They have no desire to make others better and are entirely focused on their own personal success.”

Sound familiar? Are you reminded of anyone?

Presidents? Prime ministers? Chief Twits?

To see this “diametric opposition” to integrity, look no further than another social platform: Twitter. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, spent $44 billion buying the world’s largest influence platform. (And his influence on it has already been profoundly concerning .)

And now he wants you to spend for influence, too.?

His latest scheme, to charge for the authentic blue check , upends our notions of credibility, authority, trust, and legitimacy.

Buying verification – conferring authority for a dollar amount – goes contrary to the mark’s original intent, granting achieved recognition of a well-followed, well-grounded, authentic voice.?

Imagine a hospital buying certification rather than earning it.?

Imagine the doctor purchasing a degree rather than studying for it.?

Imagine where our health would be.?

So what happens when it comes to our information and sources of knowledge?

We must wait and see.?

TRICKLE-DOWN INTEGRITY?

Musk is just one of many integrity-poor leaders of today.?

U.S. President Harry Truman famously declared, “The Buck Stops Here.”

It was his clever way to say emphatically: no excuses will be made. I take direct responsibility.

And it demonstrated a fundamental leadership principle: We, as leaders, must be beacons of integrity by setting the standard and accepting responsibility.?

A decade ago, Harvard Business Review set out to empirically measure integrity and honesty in some of the largest firms in the world.?

They found:

“Top managers in an organization create a ceiling … levels of honesty are set at the top and can only go downhill from there.”

Integrity Starts at the Top.

Source: Harvard Business Review

Harvard proved what Truman knew.?

As Dr. Chamarro-Premuzic notes, “The effects of leadership always cascade down.”

I know this all too well as a medical leader. I have built a business on integrity.?

I saw it lacking in my own health journey, and I knew our team could deliver better.

Medix Global operates with integrity at the core:

??Unafraid to ask the hard questions.

??Steadfastly objective.

??Holding to the highest standards.

??Never self-seeking or self-serving.

I’m proud of our impeccable record of integrity, but it does not come easy.

It takes commitment and resolve.?

ENSURING INTEGRITY?

In medicine, we rely on oaths to commit to integrity.

Many medical students in the U.S. make an oath as part of their education .

That tradition is shared in many places around the world.

At Medix Global, we don’t merely abide by an oath.

We live by the Medix Code.

It keeps us grounded. It keeps us guided. It keeps us doing good.

Today, may I suggest we all “abide” by a shared oath of our own.?

To embrace these four simple mantras as a way to ensure integrity in all we do.?

??SET PERSONAL INTEREST ASIDE: If you’re in this just for you, you’re in the wrong business. Leaders today must be able to prioritize the well-being of all shareholders above the benefits of themselves.?

??ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY: There is more than being right, especially when you are wrong.

Leaders today must acknowledge and accept their own shortcomings without passing the buck.

??INVITE AND EMBRACE SCRUTINY: If your standing is sound, there is no fear of critique.

Leaders today must open themselves and their practices up to honest critique and dialogue if things are to improve.?

??STRIVE HIGHER: You can always be more honest, more direct, more principled.

Leaders today can never be complacent. We have fallen a ways and the ceiling must be raised.

As leaders, we must continually set the highest examples.?

Embrace integrity at every turn.

And no matter how hard a task or how heavy the responsibility, you must remember:

These positions aren’t given or owed;

Leadership with integrity is a humbling privilege.??