Integrity Gaps and the Different Realities They Create
Building shared narratives in a world increasingly split by unseen integrity gaps
It’s been a little while since I’ve written. In part because of the constant barrage of news, so often connected to integrity gaps - it takes its toll. This year, I’ve had to redesign how I’m personally resourcing and supporting my energy levels because the old strategies weren't cutting it. Managing my online time has become a higher priority for me as an intentional part of my wellbeing toolkit.
We are living in times where dehumanisation, the rise of authoritarianism and racist xenophobia are becoming normalised. It can, temporarily, knock you off your game. But …I’m back and with new energy, focus and perspective, and it’s exactly this experience that has inspired this piece of writing today.
Last week, I had a conversation with a charity leader supporting women of colour, particularly first- and second-generation immigrants. They shared their observations about the well-being of these women following the riots in the UK and the huge impact that moment back in summer 2024 had on their community.
We spoke at length about what we might describe as a “Matrix moment”, where two completely different realities were now being lived side by side in their community.
The women of colour who now live in real fear for their safety are no longer able to trust their neighbours. They are experiencing an increase in overt racism and xenophobia and noticing markedly different treatment by doctors, police and other services.
And their white neighbours, fellow residents and colleagues, for whom the riots feel like a distant memory. Perhaps they were briefly reminded of them with the recent arrival of the flags. Still, it doesn’t preoccupy them, and their attention isn’t on the sustained impacts of the moment, nor on how it affected the targeted people. Possibly that’s because they don’t see themselves as part of the problem, so it’s not something that needs to involve or concern them.
The gap between these two versions of reality is the thing I want to talk about. Let’s call it the integrity gap - it is a place of unseen, unacknowledged pain.
An integrity gap is the space between what people, organisations or communities say they value and how they actually behave. It means the truth of people’s lived experience doesn’t match the publicly upheld version of reality, and the people living the truth pay the price.
And because of this, integrity gaps create different realities:
one group still living the impact,
another group moving on or refusing to see it altogether,
no shared naming of what actually happened,
and an external narrative that either slowly erases or fails to notice it at all
We see and experience integrity gaps in many ways in workplaces. I’ve seen all kinds over the years. Organisations focused on supporting women being bullied, yet struggling with their own internal bullying culture. External commitments to EDI are made yet the business continues to protect senior leaders causing harm. Those who cite transparency as a value, except not when a whistleblower speaks up. Those in the sector focused on enabling social mobility, yet they underpay and never promote working-class team members.
Integrity gaps are bad for your health!
Some integrity gaps we can live with. Maybe we can make a trade-off because, on balance, there is enough value or investment in the relationship or sufficient trust that patience will be worth it. But sometimes we can’t live with them, and they become damaging to our health and wellbeing.
Years ago, I worked in a consultancy that was toxic inside but celebrated outside. No one wanted to hear what was actually happening, because it didn’t fit their romantic view of the brand. I burned out and left as a result, and it took me a long time to overcome the trauma of that sustained rupture. Integrity gaps literally make you sick, in a multitude of ways:
Your body absorbs the harm first
Integrity gaps land physically before anything else - your body registers the rupture instantly, even when others don’t. Whether it’s an integrity gap that comes about because of an event or moment, or it’s revealed over time, the somatic shock and deepening is really felt. Our safety systems no longer feel safe, because what we thought we knew about what people or organisations cared about can no longer be trusted. That can feel like loneliness or even like a betrayal, especially when it’s an integrity gap that deeply compromises our values.
Your reality is dismissed or unseen
Because others don’t register the rupture, you’re left doing all the emotional and cognitive work, naming it to yourself, making sense of it, holding the contradictions, navigating the silence. You’re living one reality while those around you move through a more comfortable or unchallenged one, and you have to figure out how you’ll continue to be in a relationship with people who don’t see or acknowledge what you’re going through. That can feel heavy and draining - needing to sit with your own compromised personal values, the feeling of invisibility, or the challenge of having to put your pain away in service of someone else’s comfort.
Trust and safety become challenging
When people can’t (or won’t) see what happened, a shift takes place. For some, this shift looks like becoming more cautious around a particular person - less open, less trusting, less willing to be vulnerable. For others, it shows up as a growing scepticism toward a team, an organisation, or even a wider system. It’s not that you want to lose faith; it’s that your body and your experience make it harder to hold onto the belief that you will be protected or heard or understood.. Distance replaces openness.
You grieve what you thought you were part of
Integrity gaps reveal truths you didn’t want to learn about people, organisations, or systems. You grieve the imagined alignment, solidarity, or shared values you believed were real. You realise the reality you were living in wasn’t the one others were committed to. This has been a hard one personally this year. Seeing the ease with which so much violence and hate can be justified through policy and law, normalised through claims of pride or protection. And also having to dig deep to stay in relationship with people who don’t see the integrity gaps I experience or care about, and figuring out how to do that with compassion and love.
Where Do We Go From Here?
If integrity gaps create different realities, then closing those gaps depends on a shared narrative. This has to make space for multiple truths to exist within it, rather than replacing one narrative with another. I also believe that healing is part of the journey towards this - that when we don’t make space for healing and move too quickly to a solution, the integrity gaps don’t have the time, space, and attention needed to properly repair, and for new shoots of recovery to take hold.
That’s the work ahead of us. We need spaces where people can understand the impact of what they don’t see. And we need practices that help us build alignment again, centred on what is real, what is happening, and what it costs people.
I’m spending more of my time next year building the tools and conversations that help us do exactly that because when we can see the same thing at the same time, we can begin to act together.
More on that soon.