75. Integrity generates power
Integrity gives SPs power over themselves, providing the strength not to waste it but to make it real. Similarly integrity gives SPs power over their environment: it attracts and creates more integrity, repelling those who lack this quality. It is up to SPs to discover and use this power.
Thus far we have generally seen power as a threat to integrity. Striving for and holding onto power can spur people on to behavior that lacks or damages integrity. However, the influence of power on integrity is not exclusively negative. In chapter 41 we saw that power can also be a necessary condition for integrity. By having power, SPs can make things happen and remain themselves. However, besides power being a threat and an advantage for integrity, there is a third element in the relationship between power and integrity. Integrity gives power.
Firstly, integrity gives people power over themselves. As the author Mark Twain states, “Laws control the lesser man, right conduct controls the greater one.”418 Integrity ensures self-control. By behaving with integrity people gain control over themselves; they can handle temptations, impulses, desires, and pressure; they know what they want and are capable of consistency. Integrity in this respect gives power. By standing for causes, people find the power to proceed to action. Giving your word generates the strength to stick to it. In giving your word you give part of yourself, binding yourself to it. Integrity therefore protects itself against being squandered, generating energy to rely on and realize it.
Secondly, integrity gives power over the environment, the situation, and others. In chapter 42 we saw that SPs can damage their integrity if they become vulnerable to blackmail. Being vulnerable to blackmail means losing power over yourself and being at the mercy of the environment. Others can force you to act against your will. People get blown off course by the destructive force of their environment, which can become a power in itself. Having to act in accordance with the destructive power of the environment leads to continuation or even exacerbation of that power, so that others also have to act in accordance with it. If politicians, for example, make empty promises during elections in the knowledge that other politicians do the same, this encourages others to toe the line, or if one SP leaks information because others do so, this gives others reason to leak information in turn. This causes behavior lacking in integrity to spread unchecked.
By contrast, integrity can form a positive impulse for those around, making it easier for you and for others to behave with integrity. Integrity can have an attractive power over others. As US president Andrew Jackson said, “One man with courage makes a majority,”419 so we might say that one SP with integrity makes a majority. One person’s integrity can cause others to follow suit. An SP’s integrity can provide inspiration and motivation for others, as was said, for example, of Nelson Mandela.420
An SP’s integrity can also give others confidence in them, so that they can build on that SP. By giving confidence, you increase mutual trust, giving you more influence over others and the environment. Personal integrity creates integrity in the environment. At the same time an SP’s integrity repels those who are not focused on integrity. People who want to blackmail others will be more likely to pick on corrupt people than on those with integrity; people who are corrupt have already shown that they are willing and able to become involved in reprehensible practices. As an SP’s integrity increases it ensures that people with less integrity remain at a greater distance.
In short, power and integrity are not diametrically opposed. Power provides integrity and integrity provides power.The trick is to discover and harness the power of integrity. As Margaret Thatcher said, “I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.”421 In Thatcher’s view this was the power of integrity.422