Integrity is assuredly not an easy thing to define because it is so individual at its core, yet it is perhaps the single most essential quality needed by a leader. Integrity is about the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that go into how we make decisions, how we conduct ourselves in our day-to-day lives, who we are in the workplace and at home.

The word integrity comes from the Latin word integer, which refers to a whole number, not a fraction. All integers are multiples of one whole number. To live with integrity means to live as one whole person, then— the same in public as in private.

noting the common root of the words integrity and integer (or whole number), author Warren Wiersbe observes, “A person with integrity is not divided (that’s duplicity) or merely pretending (that’s hypocrisy). He or she is ‘whole’; life is ‘put together,’ and things are working together harmoniously.