Integrity is the quality of being honest, Wikipedia teaches us. Somehow I find that a difficult definition to work with, therefore I propose a slightly different one “Integrity is the degree to which objective Facts, personal Feelings, Beliefs/Ideas/Convictions, Words, Actions and Results of those Actions are synchronized.

Sensations and Feelings
Whereas Facts ‘should’ be seen identical by all, most frequently that is not the case. Whatever the actual occurrence, it needs to be translated into sensations for the human brain to process. Well-known are tests where e.g a yellow car crashed into a red one, where witnesses saw a blue car hit a white one (which experiment description by itself is also an example of ‘fact creep’). The ‘Chinese wall’-experiment where one whispers a message from one side of a row of people to the other, shows that often a totally different message develops throughout the process. That even leaves aside different preferences: a room temperature of 23 Celsius (about 73 Fahrenheit) might be ok for some, but for others way too high.

The art of realization of feelings is an area where humanity has practiced for centuries. Self reflection and meditation are only a few methods applied, to different degrees of success.

Belief
Logic dictates that beliefs and ideas are based on feelings and sensory input, often it is more feasible to identify feelings via the resulting beliefs or convictions. Here beliefs, convictions or ideas can all be used as a description for the whole of all of our sensory inputs processed by our mind. Especially trauma victims can be helped by all kinds of techniques to distinguish between original events (facts, whether real or imagined is of a secondary importance) and the (limiting) convictions that hamper personal happiness and development as a result. The degree to which a person’s beliefs and ideas are in sync with her own feelings is not only a measurement of personal integrity but also an indication of (lack of) impediments to personal well-being.

Words
The expression of beliefs occurs via words and other symbols. The art and science of persuasive speaking has been studied at least since the ancient Greeks but often has the connotation of insincerity. Still, rhetoric’s help in persuading others and thereby to transform ideas via those very words into actions of others. There is an interesting trade-off here, where integrity between beliefs and words vs. integrity between words and actions might have to be exchanged, a continuous challenge to many.
An additional challenge is offered by the development of ideas: where in time one might get an ever better understanding of the facts and thus ideas, it might be that therefore words in the past become outdated. The integrity among words in time might get lost, which generally is fairly easily documented so that a loss of integrity often is discussed in this arena.

Actions
Some of the most famous examples of recent times raising questions about the integrity are the ‘Guantanamo Bay’ promise of Barack Obama and the reneging on the rejection of the troika austerity measures by Alexis Tsipras. The discrepancy between words and actions was ‘obvious’ to many. There might be very good reasons why Obama did not close ‘Guantanamo’ – reasons he can not disclose because of legitimate national security interests, reasons he might also not have been aware of during his election promise – however, the discrepancy between his words and his action remains a fact. Similarly is the case of the Greek austerity measures: when taking a closer look, Tsipras apparently changed his mind. Whether that is for good reasons or not, the loss of integrity here is just as poignant.

Since these examples are supported by many more samples of broken election promises, one starts to doubt whether politicians as a group can be judged by their election rhetoric – and thus be voted on.

Results
When one undertakes actions with a particular goal, there is a certain expectation that these goals will be reached. In business these goals are generally fixed in the Business Planning and individual targets and bonus levels. In projects, the planning, scope and budget are similarly fixed. The degree to which one reaches the goals set determines the level of measured integrity, and the bonus paid out. These results are then the facts upon which a new integrity cycle will start.

Conclusion
One could focus on the consistency of only 2 elements mentioned in the overview above, but that would always provide only part of the picture. In the end, true integrity will be measured by the overall consistency of all of them, with each other, and over time.