Integrity i-Program

October 31, 2020

Integrity is consistently performing to do the right thing. A person with integrity typically demonstrates a strong personal character. With integrity also comes openness, where a person values new experiences and people’s ideas. I believe it is important to learn how to possess a character with a strong moral compass and be more open to new situations and ideas. I wanted to learn more about ethical terms and how they relate to current events, how to be able to distinguish better between an ethical dilemma and a temptation and learn about utilizing strategies to create ethical environments.

First, the i-Program guided me through the difference between ethics and morality as well as how we define integrity. The definition that I have for integrity is having the ability to persevere through tempting situations by being honest and decent to the beliefs that you have established. Life can throw many challenges at oneself. However, it's important to always go back and see what the gut feeling is. Typically, if it feels wrong, then it must be against integrity. Integrity is being able to follow your own standards even if the outcome may not be ideal.

My definition for morality is the set of rules that current society has established in order for people to act decently and honestly towards each other. Some situations include in academic, professional, and social settings. Morality drives at the point of having everyone follow ways of conducting themselves with others. On the other hand, my definition for ethics that I have come up with is the way that we interpret what's right and wrong given by society for us to follow. Even though morality and ethics can sometimes be used interchangeability depending on the situation, ethics is geared more towards the ability to differentiate between right and wrong.

After being able to define these terms, we analyzed our top five values. My five values were Education, Flexibility, Integrity, Relationships, and Security. All of my five values come up frequently in my life. Growing up, family was very important in my life. Growing that initial relationship with my parents and siblings made me feel more secure to take leaps in my life. Furthermore, I know how to make great relationships with others whether it be as friends or partners. My family also emphasized education heavily, and still does. Every day I try to read the New York Times to keep-up-to date on what is happening in the world. This allows me to be a world citizen rather than just of my community. I'm able to feel more confident in participating in diverse discussions about current events and lead people in the right direction for information.

Flexibility and integrity are values that are continuously growing as I develop. My set of guidelines for the way I want to run my life are changing depending on the situation I am in, information I learn, and as I mature. Furthermore, as I grow older and experience more team collaborations and meet more people that enter my circle, I have to learn to be flexible. When working on a class project, it's important to have diversity. With diversity comes innovation and I have to keep an open and flexible mind in order to understand their point of views and digest the ideas so perhaps they could be implemented.

Within registered student organizations (RSOs), employment, and friendships, I try to act with as much integrity as possible. I don't believe in cutting corners if it's going to hurt someone else. Within friendships, if there's an argument between two people, I try not to take sides and listen to both of the parties. Most of the time, it's a communication mishap and can be resolved with a quick conversation. Regarding employment, I follow the guidelines that my employer would give to me. I try to ask as many clarifying questions as possible and seek out resources if I'm more confused. I always try to present the best possible outcome without misleading anyone even if the outcome is not the most ideal. Lastly, within RSOs, I put everyone's considerations in. Brainstorming ideas about the next event or how to improve the club requires a lot of listening and comprehension from all parties. It is important to keep an open mind and try being adaptable and flexible, even if someone else isn't.

What I thought was most interesting about this i-Program was being able to analyze different people or situations and relate them back to different types of cognitive bias or rationalizations. For example, I looked at the overconfidence bias that Trump has. Overconfidence bias is characterized as people who believe that they are more ethical than they actually are that leads them to make serious ethical implications without little reflection. From this description, President Trump has made several decisions that were unethical with little reflection. For example, the most recent event was when he contracted COVID, went to the hospital while initially telling inaccurate information to the public, coming back to the White House and proclaiming that virtual debates shouldn't exist. Throughout that experience, he also tweeted saying how COVID isn't really that bad. He did not reflect on other people's experiences, where family members had suffered dramatically because of the pandemic, perhaps even lost jobs, their businesses, or loved ones. Furthermore, he didn't consider the safety of former Vice President Biden. If the debate were to be in person, there would have been a high chance that Biden would have also contracted the virus. Overall, Trump's actions demonstrated overconfidence bias by jeopardizing other people and not respecting other’s thoughts and medical advice.

Furthermore, it’s important to be able to check yourself and others who are displaying different types of cognitive biases. The best way to avoid cognitive biases in our decision making is by constantly monitoring our actions. If there's an action where we follow in other's unethical footsteps, we need to recognize those and try to avoid or get back on the right track. To check others who display rationalization, we have to see what our values and how they relate to ethical decision making. Without recognizing what our values are first, the people we surround ourselves with would have values that are against ours, and we would make unethical decisions. One way to prevent others from making unethical action is you could bring up the issue with them and discuss the thought process behind those actions. I think that after talking about it and reflecting, that person may come to the understanding that those actions/thoughts are not up to standard with their values.

After learning about what other values exists and different cognitive biases that we need to look out for and reflect in our daily lives, we had the opportunity to look at several case studies and discuss among ourselves our own ethical dilemmas as well as made up ones. I felt more confident in identifying ways to exhibit integrity, being able to script out different situations before they happen, as well as making up questions about case studies in order to understand what we might do if we were in that situation.

Leadership can be practiced by anyone interested in making a contribution, regardless of formal position. Leadership begins with self-knowledge, especially having the ability to identify your own values, how they dictate your actions, recognize different opinions and experiences, and identify situations where unethical actions may occur. Through the Integrity i-Program, I can confidently say that I understand myself more through my own definition of ethics, morality, and integrity. I can check my values and see how I would react to different unethical situations. Since leadership never happens alone, it’s important to be able to be a member of a team and be able to promote greater inclusivity and respect.