Integrity is one of the fundamental values that employers seek in the employees that they hire. It is the hallmark of a person who demonstrates sound moral and ethical principles at work.

Integrity is the foundation on which coworkers build relationships, trust, and effective interpersonal relationships. Any definition of integrity you may find valuable and illustrative will emphasize these factors.

A person who has integrity lives his or her values in relationships with coworkers, customers, and stakeholders. Honesty and trust are central to integrity. Acting with honor and truthfulness are also basic tenets in a person with integrity.

Integrity is another fundamental value that you immediately recognize when you see it in the behavior of a coworker. But, it’s hard to describe adequately to provide a picture that produces shared meaning. So, the following are examples of integrity as it plays out—or should play out—every single day in the workplace. You may be surprised to learn that integrity is demonstrated in large ways and in small daily activities and practices.

1. The CEO of the company kept the employees up-to-date on the struggles the business was experiencing with clear and frequent communication at team meetings. Employees felt as if they knew exactly what was happening. They were not blindsided by the CEO’s request that they all take a 10 percent pay cut so that the company could avoid layoffs or furloughs for the time being. The employees also felt confident in the turnaround plan they were following as they had helped develop it and they trusted their CEO.

2 John was a developer who had taken a path, that was not working out, to optimize the process the code was supposed to create. Rather than patching together a solution that was not optimum, but that would allow him to save his work, he went to his team. He explained the dead ends he had run into and that he thought that they could create problems for the continual development of advanced features for the software product in the future.

The team discussed and worked through the problem. John scrapped all of his code and started from scratch with the team’s input. His new solution gave the team the ability to expand the product’s capabilities easily in the future.

3. Barbara went to the women’s restroom and used up the last bit of toilet paper in her stall. Rather than leave the dispenser empty for the next employee, she tracked down the location of the toilet paper and replaced the empty roll. Sure, it took her five minutes, but she didn’t leave the next employee in a bind.

4. Ellen missed a deadline for an important deliverable her team was supposed to have developed. Rather than throwing her team members under the bus, even though they hadn’t delivered as promised, she took responsibility for the missed deadline. She addressed the problems with her team and they put in place safeguards that would keep them from underperforming again.

Team members recognized their contribution to the failure but there were no repercussions because Ellen took responsibility as the team leader. (They also recognized that a repeat failure was not allowed.)

5. Two team members were discussing another team member’s failure to perform. They talked critically about the individual’s lack of skill and imagination. They criticized his follow-through efforts and his production. Paul entered the room in the midst of the gossip and discussion, listened for a minute, and then, interrupted. He asked the two team members if they had discussed their issues with the employee who they were criticizing?

6. Mary, the HR manager, was approached by an employee who wanted to formally complain that her boss, a senior manager, was bullying her. Mary immediately investigated the situation and discovered that indeed, the manager was acting in ways that could be considered bullying.

Other employees had experienced the same behavior. Several employees had brought to his attention about how his actions made them feel (Brave souls.) Mary asked the complaining employee how she wanted the situation handled. The employee asked Mary to mediate a conversation because she was afraid to talk to him on her own.