Students’ Integrity in Education and Workplace

The purpose of this essay is to elaborate on the topic of “Integrity in management and students”. Integrity is a very powerful attribute which one gains not just from experience but mainly from one’s core values and beliefs. People with integrity are the ones who can be trusted with anything and who will ensure every task is carried out with honesty. Despite adversity, integrity remains true to our own beliefs and moral standards of behaviour. Individuals with integrity exercise allegiance and reliability characteristics. Employers understand that the foundations of management are honesty and integrity. In order to translate these characteristics into workplace, students studying in higher education must be prepared to demonstrate a high level of trustworthiness and reliability.

Organizations value Integrity as one of the most important attributes in their potential candidates and even try to interview them in-depth to check and see if they truly adhere to their integrity standards. In a corporate organization, managers are looked onto as 'those who are deeply aware of how they think and behave and are perceived by others as being aware of their own and others' values/moral perspectives, knowledge, and strengths; aware of the context in which they operate; and who are confident, hopeful, optimistic, resilient, and of high moral character'. Integrity is one of the top characteristics of a good leader. It's a sense of profound engagement to do the correct thing for the correct purpose, regardless of conditions. An effective manager will always be at their employees' disposal and observe any personal and interpersonal issues they face. Managers should be able to make fair decisions and should care in a nonjudgmental manner for their subordinates. Employees expect credit and honest communication from their leaders. Good leaders are also sincere in keeping their commitments.

Integrity in students helps them develop a good personality and rapport with peers and professors who value relationships a lot based on the level of integrity with which a student carries out their actions. Tasks even as simple as sharing information can be done with integrity by sharing good quality content and to the limit what is ethically required rather than sharing false information in bulk. Students with integrity generally deliver good results but might have to work harder and probably longer hours than their counterparts who do not value integrity and want to get the job done fast and will end up providing fabricated information. Good students are honest firstly with themselves, with their professors, with their roommates and finally with their community. How a student approaches exam and completes assignments by ensuring that each piece of work submitted is their own and that all references have been appropriately cited and credited proves their integrity standards. The values associated with academic integrity namely the set of 'Fundamental Values', defined by 'Fundamental Values Project' are: honesty, respect, trust, fairness, responsibility and courage. Academic integrity also means that plagiarism must be avoided. It means avoiding cheating or infringing the rules otherwise. Manufacturing and falsifying information and collusion are some other examples of academic dishonesty. Higher education students should emphasize on their integrity and accordingly win their scholarship responsibly. Creating and expressing one's own ideas in an honest way is an ideal student's true qualities.

In conclusion, in any organization or even in any family, the leader sets standards for integrity and honesty. Postgraduate programs have found a large deficiency in student’s ‘understanding of plagiarism’. It is important to control plagiarism by prevention, detection, and punishment. It is necessary to find root causes of academic dishonesty and methods to intervene them.

Works Cited

1. Michael E. Palanski, Francis J. Yammarino b, 'Integrity and leadership: A multi-level conceptual framework'. The Leadership Quarterly, June 2009. https://advance-lexis-com.libaccess.senecacollege.ca/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:7VMV-GK01-2PPV-V184-00000-00&context=1516831. Accessed September 29, 2019.
2. Francis Adu Oluranti, Adu Ifedayo Emmanuel. 'Engineering academic integrity: a study of students' attitude for quality assurance in college of education Ikere Ekiti'. Business and Management Review, September 1, 2015 Tuesday. https://advance-lexis-com.libaccess.senecacollege.ca/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5HT2-D8H1-JBWT-B3D0-00000-00&context=1516831. Accessed September 29, 2019.