Are Integrity and Honesty Redundant as Core Values?

An examination of corporate values will quickly reveal that the #1 value shared by most businesses is Integrity.

Integrity – holistic consistency of expectations and outcomes; or honest and morally upright.

When a company talks about integrity, they are generally referring to being honest and morally upright. It’s about ethics. Some even simply label it as Ethics.

Others call it Honesty.

Honesty – frank; without pretensions; dependable; not disposed to cheat or defraud; good.

Consider an analysis of the values touted by Fortune 100 companies:

• 73 directly reference possessing integrity, ethics, or honesty.
• 18 indirectly reference the values of integrity, ethics, or honesty.
• Only 9 make no reference to the values of integrity, ethics or honesty.

Based on my research, I was surprised that almost a third of the fortune 100 companies do not list or make any reference to values on their website. If they tout any values at all, they’re often found in the company’s Code of Business Conduct (COBC) documentation or their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Report.

One thing that intrigues me is when companies choose to list both integrity and honesty as core values. Isn’t it a bit redundant?

Companies touting Integrity & Honesty

Kroger lists both honesty and integrity and define them this way:

Honesty: We insist on truthfulness with each other, with our customers, with our vendors and in our business records. We expect and value openness.

Integrity: We act in accordance with our values, even when it’s difficult.

Kroger clearly defines honesty. But integrity is more of an overarching value, something that applies to all of their other values. Unfortunately, Kroger doesn’t provide any examples of what a difficult situation would be. In addition, the purpose of core values is to state acceptable behavior. So wouldn’t these be expected all of the time?

Walgreens promotes 3 values together this way:

Honesty, trust, and integrity with our customers, our shareholders, suppliers, the communities we serve, and among ourselves.

While these are three great values, Walgreens doesn’t explain the differences between them.

Nationwide combines honesty, integrity, and ethics into a single value:

We act with honesty and integrity – We adhere to the highest ethical standards as we strive to do what is right and fair for our customers and for each other.

Doing “what is right and fair” is wonderful. But what’s the difference between honesty and integrity?

Highlighted in COBC and CSR Documents

A few companies in the Fortune 100 include Honesty and Integrity in their Code of Business Conduct document and/or Corporate Social Responsibility Report.

• Metlife – the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company alludes to these values in their COBC document. The first of five sections is labeled “Integrity and Honesty” with a subheading: We conduct our business endeavors with truth, sincerity and fairness. (Now I’m even more confused)
• Enterprise Products Partners – is a large oil & gas company that references these values in their Code of Business Conduct document, with no explanation.
• SUPERVALU – I couldn’t find anything on SuperValu’s website. So I contacted the company via Twitter and was directed to their Corporate Social Responsibility document from 2009. This document references a number of values, including Honesty, Integrity, and Fairness under SuperValu’s Code of Ethics, but no definitions.
• Allstate – outlines their values in both their Code of Ethics and Corporate Responsibility Report. Their first stated value is a combination of Honesty, Caring and Integrity. This sounds great, but what does it mean?
• Microsoft  – finding any reference to values at Microsoft was quite difficult. But I did eventually find them under Compliance, in reference to Standards of Business Conduct, where they list Integrity and Honesty together. At least they have stated values, but no definitions are provided.

Unfortunately, these companies don’t clearly define their core values or explain the difference between Integrity and Honesty. Like many companies, they leave it up to the employees to figure it out on their own.

A Clear Definition of Values

Thankfully, one company does provide a clear definition of their values, highlighting the difference between honesty and integrity: Delta Air Lines.

In their fabulous Rules of the Road document, Delta defines these values as follows:

Honesty: Always tell the truth

Integrity: Always keep your deals

Now, that was easy. But I suspect the road to get there was not.

 

Do you think the values of integrity and honesty are redundant?

Do you know of a company that has defined these values well?

 

Today’s value was selected from the “Fairness-Respect” category, based on the e-book Developing Your Differentiating Value.