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Integrity in the workplace has become a hot topic. Corporate America recognizes the cost when there is lack of integrity on the job, and they’re trying to figure out how they can put values and integrity back in our good ‘ole American system.
It will only happen as individuals put integrity back into their personal lives and make it a high priority. And that will only happen when we are motivated from within, not from without. All the training courses in the world cannot instill integrity into a person’s heart. That must come from a belief system that is committed to doing what’s right, regardless of the cost.
If we do what’s right only as a manipulative tool to get where we want to go, only because that’s the “in” thing to do nowadays, we’ll find ourselves waffling all over the place. Doing the right thing takes an internal value system and standard by which we operate. It takes absolutes.
If you don’t have an authority and a standard by which actions and attitudes are judged, you will never have integrity—personal or corporate. Relative truth doesn’t work; it’s another name for compromise.
If I asked you what was the best book on business ethics, good customer service, and dealing with people on the job, what book would you recommend? Not too many people would ever think of the Bible as relevant to those issues, but let me tell you, it’s the textbook we need.
God’s principles, when practiced, will benefit anyone. That’s because he’s the Creator, he knows how things should work and he knows how people are motivated better than anyone else. He wrote the owner’s manual. Whether a person or an organization recognizes God or his principles, when those principles are followed, they bring success.
Whoever pursues righteousness and love finds life, prosperity and honor (Proverbs 21:21).
Pursuing righteousness and love—there’s the secret to integrity. Righteousness simply means doing the right thing. If you and I are committed to do the right thing in every situation in our lives and to act out of love for other people, we will be people of integrity. Christians in the workplace should always have the highest standards of integrity—doing the right thing with love.
