People With High Mental & Emotional Integrity Refuse To Engage In 6 Workplace Habits
PeopleImages | Shutterstock A lot of people talk about integrity, but not everyone understands how powerful this quality can be when it comes to your career. Someone with integrity isn’t just honest and trustworthy. They’re also dedicated to staying true to themselves.
These people don’t passively accept situations that go against their values. They advocate for themselves and refuse to accept toxic workplace habits for others, too.
People with high mental & emotional integrity refuse to engage in 6 workplace habits:
1. Excessively long hours
Managing your life and your work can be incredibly difficult, especially if you don’t have the time to do it. Finding a work-life balance requires you to have time outside of work. That way, you can still spend time with your friends or family and engage in personal hobbies.
People need a good work-life balance to support their mental health, and people with integrity won’t let their job negatively affect them on an emotional level like that. They. just won't participate in these forced, excessive hours.
Sure, we all have our grind era, when we're digging in to build a career, but the people whose mental and emotional integrity disallows self-sacrifice for the purpose of corporate wealth will do it for themselves, not some CEO's extra bonus. Even in their grind era, they don’t want to put all of their time towards work because they know it’s not worth it if they end up losing sight of who they are.
2. Mistreating interns
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Interns can often get the short end of the stick because they’re at the bottom of the totem pole. They don’t have a lot of say because there’s the idea that they’re just fortunate enough to have gotten the internship in the first place.
There have been so many cases of people taking advantage of interns over the years. Upper-level employees will use their power to make them do more than is necessary. They’ll usually dump tasks they should be doing on their own onto the interns so they can have more free time for themselves.
But people with integrity refuse to do this, and they don’t let other people do it either. They don’t change their standards for themselves just because they’re busy. They treat everyone with respect regardless of their position.
3. Repressive workplace culture
Every work environment has a kind of culture around it. For a stereotypical example, just think of business and golf. When trying to get women more involved in the workforce, people even said that by learning golf, they could improve their chances.
Many people feel the need to conform to whatever their workplace culture is to make sure they're well liked. They think if they fit into what their boss likes, their boss will want to be around them more, and they can build a personal relationship. It’s a great way people can get noticed and possibly promoted from within.
But people with integrity don’t change their personalities based on what their boss or workplace chooses to do. These people don’t let themselves conform because they’re confident in who they are and trust that they can get their bosses to like them all on their own.
4. Targeted hiring
Some companies already have an idea of who they’re wanting to hire by the time they send out a job application. They might want someone with a specific degree or from a specific age group, and they’ll sift through candidates with that in mind. Sometimes it's even worse, preferring someone from an Ivy League university or someone who came from their same posh neighborhood.
Beyond the basics, people with integrity hate this kind of hiring process. They place a lot of importance on who someone is inside rather than just the qualities they can list on an application. If they work for a company that’s looking for fresh voices, they’ll refuse to accept people firing elderly employees or reject new applicants because of age.
They don’t want to work for a company where every employee looks and acts the same. They know our differences are what make everyone have a unique perspective to add. When a company has multiple perspectives on an issue, they’ll be more likely to reach the best solution.
5. Procrastination and laziness
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A lot of jobs have multiple steps in their production process. What this means is that the first person to get an assignment has to do their work before the next person can continue. It helps businesses run effectively and efficiently.
But some workers can mess up this process by not doing their part, sometimes by accident and sometimes because they just aren't willing to pull their weight. They procrastinate their tasks and it leads to more work for the rest of the people around them.
People will have to track down the procrastinator and force them to do their part so they can do their own. Sometimes they’ll even have to stay later to get their work done in time because they had to start late due to someone procrastinating their work.
Working with someone who’s a procrastinator isn’t just inconvenient. It’s also exhausting. People with integrity refuse to work with others who constantly procrastinate their work because they know it’ll just make their lives harder. They aren’t willing to let someone change their work life because they’re being lazy.
6. Giving feedback poorly or accepting critique like a sore loser
People with integrity look for jobs that they know will help them grow in their professional career. They know what they want, and they’re not going to cheat to get there. They’ll get there through improving themselves and working hard, instead. These people want their bosses to give them constructive criticism so they can improve.
That’s why they refuse to accept a job that handles feedback poorly. A company with the habit of handling feedback poorly could come in many forms. Maybe it’s a boss who's too critical when they talk to people about their work. Some bosses don’t give any feedback at all. But a workplace with bad habits surrounding feedback can also show up in the employees.
Some workers refuse to take feedback for their work. They ignore someone telling them how to do better, so they don’t improve. They hold the other workers back, and people with integrity refuse to let that happen.
Lily Bell is a college student studying English and Publications who covers relationships, mental health, and personal narratives surrounding the human experience.
