Integrity – Noun; Firm adherence to a strict moral or ethical code; the state of being intact; solvency; the quality or condition of being whole or undivided; I complete it.

The date is January 16, 2009. The day after US Airways Flight 1549 pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger from Danville, CA, maneuvered his crowded airliner over New York City and threw it into the Hudson River, successfully. All 155 passengers and crew are safe and miraculously escaped serious injuries, just bumps and bruises really. The national media is full of reports and first-hand interviews with the passengers, now all safe, warm and dry, along with their rescuers and safety experts describing the ordeal. NBC dubbed the accident the “Miracle on the Hudson.”

Pause now. Think of your values ​​as if you had to list and describe them. What are your core values? If you are like most people and organizations, integrity is on your list of values. But what does this word “integrity” (perhaps the ultimate virtue) mean? What does it mean to you? How is your value for integrity manifested to others on a daily basis? How did you develop your integrity? How could you develop this quality further? Why does that matter?

For most of us, integrity means something like “do what you say you will do” or “how you act when no one is looking.” These are good tests of integrity, but they don’t really explain how integrity is developed. The structural integrity of a building is defined as “absolute ability to safely withstand the required loads”. The structural integrity of a person could be defined as “absolute ability to adequately resist challenges to virtue.” How do we develop this firm adherence to a strict moral code, this “healthy” response to difficult circumstances?

Like most things we do well, integrity comes from practice. In fact, the proper way to refer to the quality of integrity as a human value would be ” practice integrity. “A person speaks and acts with integrity outside of practice. Integrity is the result of preparation and choice, when one has lived long enough to have recognized one’s innate ability to act on a whim, whim, or selfishness instead. of deeply ingrained principles Integrity comes from training and increases with the quality, duration and adherence to the intention of that training Integrity follows solid neural pathways, developed over time, that stimulate certain attitudes and habits, that produce correct, apparently instinctive actions based on in animal instinct, right actions are the result of human desire and practice.

My favorite definition of values-based leadership is “authentic self-expression that adds value through relationships.” This includes relationships with both people and events. When self-expression begins to consistently add value over time, through every human encounter, through every decision, and through every split-second reaction to events, then you have integrity.

Aspire to integrity: Practice discerning what is right, saying you will do the right thing, how and why you will do it, and doing it regardless of whether someone else is paying attention.

You can bet there are at least 154 people in this world who are grateful for the value that Chesley Sullenberger has added through their brief relationships. What do “Sully” Sullenberger and Flight 1549 have to do with integrity? Sullenberger is reportedly a graduate of the US Air Force Academy who flew F-4 fighter jets in the 1970s while in the Air Force. He started flying commercial jets in the 1980s. “It’s about running that plane with the exact precision that it’s made with,” says her hero-husband’s wife. In addition to working for US Airways, he runs a security consulting firm focused on the psychology of keeping airline crews running in the face of a crisis. He has been a researcher for the National Transportation Safety Board. I understand you are also certified to fly gliders, skills that surely helped land an Airbus A320 with both engines on fire in a controlled descent on a nearly frozen river rather than in the middle of a neighborhood in one of the most densely populated cities in the world. world.

Instinct did not take hold of Sullenberger as he steered his jet into the icy waters of the Hudson, the practice got underway: the practice of integrity. This is a man who decided earlier in life that safety and human lives were important enough to him to dedicate himself to preserving those ends. He trained, studied, learned day after day, year after year with those ends in mind. What once started out as a pilot’s first tenuous flight, over 40 years of practice evolved into unconscious competition – the right life-saving attitudes, habits, decisions, actions, and behavior to save lives in a crisis.

Reflections to inspire personal growth in Integrity (with your learning partner)

How would your life be different if you practiced integrity with greater intent and consistency? What can you do on a daily basis to increase your integrity? What is your personal code of ethics? What should you change to demonstrate them more fully? Find a responsible partner or hire a coach to help you practice integrity and take these actions:

• Integrity is the glue that binds your other virtues together. What are your other core values? Why these?
• How do these values, together, define who you are, how you think and act, and how others see you?
• What words and behaviors do other people observe about you on a daily basis that demonstrate your values?
• For what purpose would your life have that you are willing to practice day after day, year after year, to be prepared for the fortuitous event that may provide the ultimate test of your integrity?
• What specific attitudes, habits, and behaviors must you consistently practice to become the person of integrity you aspire to be?
• Describe an experience or event in which you were in your personal best and demonstrated integrity.
• Describe a current situation in your life that, in your heart, you could apply the same level of Integrity that you applied in your previous example.
• Make plans to contact your learning partner over the next month about how each of you is practicing integrity. Hold each other accountable.