This is the most important topic to write about. Out of everything that’s written—challenging the typically accepted advice on finding your niche, chasing your dreams, or being a generalist—answering this question for yourself, personally, and for your business is the most important thing you can do to be a sought after work from home mom. Why integrity is important in business as a work from home mom and virtual assistant? You need to answer this for yourself because this will impact every aspect of your life. For your business because this will influence the clients you work with and the people you hire.
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As I was thinking about writing this post, I started thinking about people whom I observed not working with the highest degree of integrity, and it seems like their business is not affected by this. So why integrity is important in business? Why does it matter, when those who aren’t working with integrity get away with it? I came to the conclusion that as their reputation grows, eventually there will be no one left to work with them. Their businesses will be affected by their lack of integrity, even if it doesn’t happen immediately.
If you want to be a sought after virtual assistant, work from home mom, and business mom then you need to know why integrity is important in business.
But First Let’s Define Integrity
It is always a good idea to make sure we are on the same page. That when we say something we understand the meaning behind it. Dr. Henry Cloud wrote a whole book on this topic, Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality.
When you hear the word integrity you probably think trustworthy and honesty. While these are aspects of integrity, Dr. Cloud takes it beyond just these two characteristics to encompass the whole person. It is beyond morals and ethics, and reaches from gaining trust to getting results.
Integrity is about a person’s character. A person of integrity does hold to strong ethical and moral principles, but it is also a truthfulness in one’s actions. How a person works or gets results are all a matter of integrity.
Why Integrity is Important in Business as a Work from Home Mom
As a work from home mom and virtual assistant, integrity is the most important skill you can offer a client. A virtual assistant requires a higher level of trust than someone who works in the same position in an office. As a virtual assistant you are working totally and completely independently. You routinely handle confidential information, and it is up to you to ensure that it remains confidential.
In a traditional office, even if you are an independent worker, there is still a level of someone looking over your shoulder, following up on your time, or checking your progress. There is a greater level of accountability because there are always people around.
Your greatest selling point as a virtual assistant is being a person of integrity. I would rather work with someone who lacks a certain skill, but I can trust them completely. I can teach them the skills I need, but I can’t force them to be a person of good character. This is why integrity is so important in business.
Why Integrity is Important in Business—Characteristics of a Sought After VA
There are more characteristics than listed here. I want to give my top 3, most important characteristics of an integral person. If you want to read more on the topic, I recommend Dr. Henry Cloud’s book Integrity.
1. Perseverance
This one may come as a surprise, but possessing the ability to see something through until the end is a part of integrity. This also means that you are reliable and dependable. You are an independent worker, you need to have a reputation of finishing what you start.
Have you ever had someone bail on a project you were depending on them to finish? Or someone doesn’t meet the deadline, and they let you know they can’t meet it the day it is due (when they knew a week ago they wouldn’t make it)?
Maybe these people are truth tellers, but they lack integrity because they have a habit of not following through. Would you want to bring someone like this into your business?
Perseverance or grit is one of the traits that goes beyond morals and ethics. That is why integrity is about the whole person, not just a couple of aspects of the person. As a work from home mom, you want your clients to be confident that you will get the job done, on time. This is one reason why integrity is important in business.
2. Lose well
This is probably not the next characteristic you were thinking of. But, again, we are going beyond just being an honest person and really looking at the whole person. I am going to tell you something shocking and earth shattering, make sure you are sitting down. Here it goes. We all lose at some point in our lives. I know hold onto your chair because your world was just rocked.
Ok enough sarcasm, let’s be serious now. There is an expectation that if you just do these steps in this order then everything will go well for you and you will always be successful. And if something doesn’t work out for you, then it is the end of the world. You might as well curl up in a ball in the corner for the rest of your life (ok so more sarcasm, but it was needed). We all want success, but we also want to ignore the fact that most successes are birthed from failures. Ouch. Yes, that hurts.
So how do you lose well in order to answer the question why integrity is important in business? See all failures and losses as a growing experience. I know that sounds so cliché, and I almost cringe writing it. But it is true. We learn best through experience. Most of the time, it is when we need to dismantle something to find the problem. In order to come up with a solution that will actually fix it, not put a band-aid on it.
Avoid curling up in a ball for the rest of your life. You can give yourself a day to cry over your loss, but then you need to move on. It is time to find the solution that will work. And then read this post, Winning for Life: Why Moms Need a Win and How to get it.
3. Growing
You need to be growing. This is an important aspect of why integrity is important in business as a work from home mom or virtual assistant. This applies to all areas of your life, remember we are talking about the whole person. You need to be growing personally, professionally, and relationally.
This is about investing in who you are as much as what you do. Most of the time the tendency is to focus on improving a specific skill or gaining better business knowledge. But do you need to work on inter-personal skills or soft skills? Are there difficult personal relationships that you need to work at or drop?
In what areas do you need to grow, so that you are able to face the demands of reality with perseverance, fortitude, and integrity.
Conclusion: Why Integrity is Important in Business
As a virtual assistant or work from home mom, you want to have a reputation of working with integrity. But integrity that goes beyond morals and ethics. You want the reputation of handling difficult situations well, figuring out how to turn a failure into success, and that you are humble enough to admit you need to keep growing.
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