Introduction-Pradipta Mishra
As a leadership trainer, I often recall a powerful statement by Mr. Subroto Bagchi during his convocation address at NIT Rourkela:
“Integrity is not about the big decisions alone — it’s about doing the right thing when no one is watching.”
This message came alive for me during an assignment with a client in the manufacturing sector.
While facilitating a leadership coaching session, one of the managers casually shared how senior staff members were adding small, unverified local conveyance expenses to their travel reimbursements. The finance team had noticed, but since the amounts were minor, no one raised a red flag.
When I brought this to the attention of the leadership team, their first reaction was, “These are small things — we can let it pass.”
That’s when I reminded them, “What you permit is what you promote.”
By choosing not to act, they were unconsciously normalizing the behavior — signaling that integrity was flexible when the stakes were low. Over the next few months, the issue worsened. Junior staff picked up on this silent approval, and fraudulent claims became widespread. The organization, known for its strong ethical foundation, suddenly found itself facing a credibility crisis from within.
It took a change in leadership and a deliberate reorientation around non-negotiable values to fix what was broken.
The incident reinforced what Mr. Bagchi emphasized: Integrity is not situational. It’s a daily choice, in big decisions and in small.
As a trainer and coach, this became a story I often share — not just to highlight a failure, but to show how organizations rise or fall on the culture they permit, and ultimately, promote.