Character strength · Courage
Honesty as a character strength: meaning and examples
The short answer: honesty, also called integrity or authenticity, is the habit of telling the truth and, just as important, of living in a way that is true to yourself. What you say, what you do and who you are line up. It is one of the 24 character strengths of the VIA classification, in the Courage family: the strengths of will.
What honesty looks like
People with a lot of honesty tend to:
- find it hard to tell even small, convenient lies
- keep their promises, or say clearly when they cannot
- would rather be disliked for who they are than liked for who they are not
- admit mistakes quickly
- feel uncomfortable around pretense and spin
In everyday life
At work, honesty is the person whose estimates you can trust, who tells the client what is actually possible, and who owns up when something slips. Among friends, it is the one who will tell you, kindly, that the plan has a problem.
Honesty is also inward: knowing what you really think and want, and not pretending otherwise, even to yourself.
Honesty and the strengths close to it
- Bravery is often needed to say the honest thing when it is unwelcome.
- Fairness treats people evenly. Honesty gives them accurate information to be treated on.
- Perspective helps decide how and when a hard truth is best said.
When honesty is overdone, or underused
Like every strength, honesty works best in the right amount. Overdone, honesty can become bluntness: the truth delivered without care for timing or feelings. Underused, small evasions add up, trust erodes, and people can lose touch with what they actually believe.
The aim is truth told with care: accurate, and kind where it can be.
Is honesty one of your top strengths?
Ask yourself:
- Do you find white lies harder to tell than most people seem to?
- Do people say they always know where they stand with you?
- Would you rather lose an argument than win it with something you do not believe?
If you answered yes to most of these, honesty may be one of your signature strengths. The only way to know how it compares with your other 23 is to rank them.
Find your top strengths with the free test
Where this comes from
The 24 character strengths were described by psychologists Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman in Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification (2004). Happy Me's assessment uses public-domain questions from the International Personality Item Pool and is not affiliated with the VIA Institute.