Integrity Breach

I thought this was fascinating. Mistakes are tolerated and expected but lying about them is fatal. There are so many ways we can apply this to our lives. Admit mistakes and don't make it hard for others to admit theirs.

From The Leader's Code by Donovan Campbell

"In Officer Candidate School and then again in the Marines' basic officer course, it was made very clear to us that the greatest sin that could be committed was an "integrity breach." Most commonly, an "integrity breach" took the form of a lie, but at its heart it was anything that drove a wedge between our professed beliefs—honor, courage, commitment—and our daily actions. Most often, we failed by lying, usually to cover up mistakes or gaps in knowledge. When, for example, a screaming gunnery sergeant is two inches from your face, demanding to know why you failed to carry out a specified order, particularly one from a peer, it is very easy to say you never received such an order, or that you did not understand. Shifting blame to someone else often seems the best option for getting yourself off the hook.

However, as I soon came to find out, sacrificing integrity is almost always a significant long-term loss. Candidates who were determined to have outright lied were almost always jerked out of training, hauled in front of an officer board, and harshly cross-examined to determine whether they could remain in the training. Usually, the board summarily kicked them out. Executional mistakes, on the other hand, were well tolerated, expected, even. People could fail woefully at basic skills, including marksmanship, and still be allowed repeated chances to improve, try again, and continue the training. It usually took only one integrity breach, though, to end a prospective Marine officer's career."

Find more about The Leader's Code by clicking here.

Visit my Zazzle store for things to inspire success.