72. Integrity on a slippery slope is difficult to stop
The loss of integrity generally happens because of many small mistakes. The danger of this is that SPs do not notice and continue to see themselves as acting with integrity. For this reason it is good for SPs to be strict in situations involving a slippery slope. However, it is also possible to slip consciously and against your will, for example, when maneuvered into a position vulnerable to blackmail. SPs should therefore be alert to situations that could turn into traps.
American writer Robert Brault states, “You do not wake up one morning a bad person. It happens by a thousand tiny surrenders of self-respect to self-interest.”408 The loss of integrity is not an abrupt step, taking an SP from integrity to corruption overnight. It generally happens because of many small mistakes. What does this mean?
The danger of gradual decline is that the person involved does not notice.This is because every mistake is normalized, making the next mistake seem small, a negligible deviation. Because this process keeps repeating, the standards are stretched in small steps but the gulf between the original standard, the starting point, and practice becomes ever greater.409 It begins, for example, with a single white lie with the best of intentions and ends in frequent deception, from a single exaggerated mileage declaration to self-enrichment, or from accepting a gift that is a little too expensive to systematic demands for bribes.
Furthermore, lapses become habitual. The first time you do something that is not permitted it may be with remorse, guilt, and crises of conscience, but the more you make the same mistake the less problematic it will seem because it becomes a habit. This process of habituation is promoted by use of rationalizations. Common rationalizations include the idea that others do it too, the damage to others is negligible, you have a right to it, and others demand it. This makes transgressions steadily easier.
The problem with such normalization and rationalization is that culprits continue to see themselves as having integrity, when the opposite is the case. Since their self-image is wrong, self-correction does not occur and risks to integrity increase. The further a person slips the greater the mistakes and the chance of the culprit abruptly losing personal integrity in the eyes of others if they are found out.
The simplest advice is therefore to be strict in situations in which there is a slippery slope. As one SP said, “If you enter into discussion with temptation, it is already too late.” If you realize you have made a mistake the task is to be extra alert in ensuring it stops there and that you return as quickly as possible to the original standard. This can be achieved by repeatedly acting according to the original standards and making them a habit.
However, SPs can also slip consciously and against their will, for example by correcting one mistake with another, rescuing themselves from one lie by telling another. This also occurs when SPs are maneuvered into positions in which they are vulnerable to blackmail, whereby one mistake under pressure leads to another, and in turn to additional blackmail, demanding ever greater conscious and unwilling mistakes. For instance an SP accepted a bribe from a company in exchange for preferential treatment and was subsequently frequently forced to provide preferential treatment, because both the bribery and the preferential treatment were a means of blackmail.
It is therefore important that SPs are alert to situations in which such traps can arise: situations in which people steadily trade in more freedom of action until behavior lacking integrity is the only option. In order to avoid this, it is always advisable to have the option of withdrawal: to be able to leave, cancel what you are doing, or say goodbye, as in the case of the SP who chose to keep living simply so that he would not be bound to his position by a mortgage. If you feel bound hand and foot (and often also heart and conscience), then with an eye to integrity you should seriously ask yourself where you are heading and what the consequences will be, whether you want this, and whether there are better ways.