34. Integrity is nurtured by the environment
The environment can also have a positive influence on the integrity of SPs. Pressure from the environment offers opportunities to display and grow integrity. The environment is more than just a source of pressure. Rules, role models, and other people around the SP can also be sources of integrity. A transparent environment encourages integrity. Since SPs form part of the environment for others, they can also feed the integrity of others.
The effect of the environment on SPs’ behavior and character is often seen as negative. As the previous chapter points out, it can put integrity under pressure, but if we only view it from this narrow perspective, this gives too much credit to personal integrity, undervaluing the environment. The environment can also have a positive influence on SPs’ integrity.
Pressure from the environment can have positive effects. Philosopher Bert Musschenga states that integrity is like a metal that must be tempered to make steel.161 The heat in the kitchen (see Truman’s remark in the previous chapter) can also purify and shape a person. The pressure makes people strong, allowing them to discover what they really stand for, and teaching them to set priorities. The greater the pressure on integrity, the more opportunities to show and grow this quality. US president John F. Kennedy began his book about eight brave senators with a quote from Ernest Hemmingway: “Virtue under pressure.”162 The truly virtuous SP can withstand pressure.
However, the environment affects integrity in more ways than just pressure, and integrity is more than a counter weight to negative influences in the environment. There can be positive aspects to the environment that contribute to an SP’s integrity. It is important to use these factors to protect and develop one’s own integrity. In the initial chapters we therefore looked at the use of written and unwritten rules, those which teach SPs to do right, where they would not other wise know, want, or be able to do so. There are additional positive environmental factors. These mainly become visible when one imagines oneself standing alone, without the environment.
Imagine that we find ourselves on an uninhabited island. We would have no one else to learn integrity from. We would be left entirely to our own devices. The advantage of SP positions is that there are others: SPs always deal with other people. These people form an opportunity for SPs to learn what is desirable, what can be improved, and how to develop themselves. We can learn from observing how others deal with problems, make decisions, convert their ideals into standpoints, set boundaries, and view the interests and expectations of others. We can lean on such role models and gain ideas from them.
However, role modeling behavior by others is not the only source of support. We can also feed our integrity through people who are not models. By sharing integrity issues with colleagues, for example, we can learn their thoughts, experiences, and advice, improving our own viewpoints, inspiring new ideas, and making solutions more concrete. By looking for advice among other interested parties we can learn about their expectations and feelings, deepening our own ideals and views, so that we can better anticipate expectations and feelings. Other sources of personal integrity can be predecessors in the job, mentors, coaches, and prominent figures. They can point out stumbling blocks, weaknesses, and points for improvement, as well as what is going well and should be maintained.
There is an additional factor besides rules, role models, and other people around SPs, that can benefit integrity, and that is transparency. Imagine that we could make ourselves invisible. No one would see who we were and what we did. Whatever we did, we would do freely. All brakes would be released, leading to all kinds of inappropriate behavior. That, at least, is Plato’s view: we would murder the king and take the throne.163 For that reason transparency in a job promotes the integrity of the SP, inhibiting