When it comes to integrity, practice makes perfect

10/29/2002 - COLUMBUS AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. (AFPN) -- As most of us do, I often look at world events covered in the media from the perspective of "How does this affect me?" or "What lessons can I take away from these events?"

The continuing war on terrorism, the one-year anniversary of Sept. 11, and the threat of a new war in Iraq have overshadowed other recent events in the national media with important lessons for us as military members.

I'm referring to the failure of large, previously financially sound companies that resulted in significant hardships, and even financial ruin, for countless employees. Some of these corporate failures are the alleged result of gross mismanagement and even criminal activity.

I don't propose to know all the pressures or intricacies of high corporate finance, and I don't propose that all corporate failures are a result of corrupt managers, but the congressional, legal and media interest in the activities and decisions of some senior corporate managers suggests at least the possibility of failures in personal integrity at various levels of the affected companies.

Whether those allegations are true or false is a topic for a much more in-depth study.

The question for us is how we prevent it from happening in our organization. We are an Air Force that embodies a core value of advancing integrity. That is no small task and one that, once compromised, is twice as difficult to reestablish. It is a problem best prevented by the old adage, "practice makes perfect."

Throughout our lives, all of us are confronted with situations from time to time where a minor breach of personal integrity might easily make a problem go away, get us out of a little trouble, make us look a little better to our boss or save us from an additional hour of paperwork.

Most of the time no one will even know about our convenient little lapse of integrity and no one will be the worse for it. We may back date a document to meet a particular suspense, we may tell a co-worker our computer was down rather than admit we forgot about a specific task or we may fudge our leave dates to save ourselves an extra day.

All seemingly minor indiscretions, but each time we compromise our integrity even the smallest amount, it makes it that much easier to take the same approach the next time. Before long we will find ourselves justifying larger indiscretions despite more severe consequences and potentially far-reaching adverse affects to the organization and its members.

I think the same logic works in reverse. If we do not allow ourselves to compromise our integrity for the small, seemingly inconsequential issues, we build a pattern of behavior that helps us do the right thing and make the right decisions when the stakes become a little higher.

Can you imagine a corporate chief executive officer or senior military leader at the peak of his or her career after 25 years of honesty and integrity deciding that it was now time to start lying and being deceitful? I'm willing to bet that's not how it works. I would even venture to guess that the seemingly tough, complex decisions we eventually face in our careers will turn out to be surprisingly easier if tackled from a long-established pattern of behavior based on honesty and integrity.

In addition to personal actions, supervisors, NCOs and commanders have the responsibility to train and enforce high standards of integrity within our units if we want it to flourish in the Air Force. Help subordinates make the right decision when you see them struggling. Recognize their honesty when they come to you with mistakes you know they could have covered up. It will reinforce their decision, and it will make you a better-informed supervisor.

Hopefully, none of our decisions involving issues of personal integrity will be subject to the scrutiny of Congress or the national media. If they are, and if they are founded on a long-established pattern of personal integrity, we'll probably weather the storm nicely. (Courtesy of Air Education and Training Command News Service)