The Importance of Integrity in Personal and Professional Life

What’s the trait you value most about yourself?

Integrity is the most valued personality trait for me. I am strongly commited to a consistent set of ethical and moral principles, reflecting wholeness and honesty in all my actions, be it personal or professional life. The credit goes to my father for imbibing such strong foundation of ethical practices in me.

Integrity has alwayds served as an internal compass to me, guiding to do the right things even if nobody is watching. This core virtue is foundational to building trust, credibility and long-term success in both personal and professional life.

There are various incidents, when I exhibited Honesty and accepted accountability for my actions. Today’s corporate world is cruel and does not recognise the efforts or such traits. I made moderate progress in my professional life, could not reach the highest position in the plant because I did not show the fake or manipulated results. I was honest to even present failures to the bosses. But this was not liked by all. May be that is the reason of my slow progress.

Integrity was my asset and this core foundation of the moral values gave me peaceful sleep and provided courage to face any situation. I gained immense respect due to this personal trait. It has created positive environment in my team and the trust was built easily with individauls. As a result, people approached me fearlessly with the issues, at the same time the manipulators kept distance from me.

However, I can’t forgeth the difficulties I faced due to my honest behaviour. I broke fights with people who were trying to hide the facts or forcing me to do so. I still remeber the fight with the highest authority in the organisation. This was for the project results presentatoin to the Directors. I made the slides with facts and figures. Looking at the slides, it was clear that we have to listen to the harsh words from the Director. My boss instructed to change the slide and said that please show something positive. I declined politely and said let us face the situation. My boss was surely angry and never helped me out in my career.

Another incidence is of an audit I was carrying out with my co-auditor. This was taking place in South Korean plant. For a question my co-auditor gave 4 marks out of 4 and I forced him to change it to zero. Complete team jumped on me including the plant manager. I boldly explained them that you don’t fulfil the requirement of question and you will get only zero marks. Then the plant manager requested me to explain how to get 4 out of 4. I explained them the requirement and what they need to do. And the audit finished and I came back to India. Alomost after one year the Korean plant manager came searching for me in the plant. Thanked me personally for my advice and said because of you we have improved a lot. Took a selfie with me and went away. This was satisfying and fulfiling moment for me.

Honesty is the Best Policy.

Thank you dear readers for stopping by

Stay Happy and keep smiling 😊