Impeccable integrity is something I have witnessed from the time I was a little girl. My father is a man of great integrity. He taught us all the reasons to act and live with integrity in all that we do.

Living an ethical and compassionate life, with integrity, is a way to teach a beautiful lesson your children, and indeed trust and integrity are the cornerstones of all healthy relationships.

So what do you do when you encounter people who don’t live with that kind integrity, who want to undermine you or betray your trust and your confidence?

Narcissism, according to Barbara Killinger in her book Integrity: Doing the Right Thing for the Right Reason, is the antithesis of integrity. There are people who have lost integrity, and there are many reasons for this.

“Often the need to belong and be accepted is unfulfilled and so it is difficult for us to develop trust and self-respect and to gain competence. When children are constantly criticized and rarely praised, they are left with “a legacy of self-doubt and seriously impaired social skills, Killinger says. “Their alienation becomes a breeding ground for future resentment and distrust.”

We need to safeguard this value and help improve our level of integrity, personally, professionally, within the community and the world that we live in. So how do we do it?

“We can strengthen our integrity by making a conscious decision to follow an understanding path rather than a judgmental one,” Killinger says. “Integrity should be integrated into our character, beyond choice. This means honouring our highest values and resisting temptation, striving for a more balanced psyche and being more appreciative of what we already have.

“Integrity is a personal choice, an uncompromising and predictably consistent commitment to honour moral, ethical, spiritual and artistic values and principles.”

The elements of integrity always include honesty, empathy, compassion, sympathy, fairness and co-operation, just to name a few. How do we foster it?

One way is to teach our children respect for rules and traditions, laws and regulations. Also, ask yourself what words would help you to be more gracious or diplomatic in a difficult situation. Try to listen more carefully and to put love in your heart in all of your dealings with people in your life.  Notice who lives with integrity in your life and use them as a role model, and a reminder of how you want to live. Ask yourself if you are compassionate and trustworthy, and if you make the people you know feel important and accepted.

“There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience,” as the proverb goes. The good news is that integrity can be taught to anyone.

In Hal Urban’s book, The Ten Commandments of Common Sense, he writes that integrity brings peace of mind, builds character, cements relationships, makes people complete, promotes good health and helps us to be authentic. “Integrity is an inside job. It begins by being real, genuine, authentic, sincere. When we’re true to ourselves, we’ll be true to others, too.”

As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “the time is always right to do what is right.”

When I see my dad walking jauntily toward me, with a jovial smile on his face, I feel a sense of peace because I know that he is the embodiment  of a man of integrity – a great role model who is ethical, honourable, trusted and respected in all that he does. And I know that his integrity is the light that guides his way and all those who are fortunate to have him in their lives.

Judy Siblin-Librach is an Adler-trained coach. Website: www.findingyourbliss.com, e-mail: [email protected].