When my son called me from Officer Candidate School to report that he’d made it to Quantico, I told him I loved him — and then I said something that surprised me: “Keep your honor clean.”

It’s a line from The Marines’ Hymn. I knew he’d be singing it every night before lights out with his fellow candidates. I don’t know exactly why that line rose to the surface in that moment. It just did. But thinking about it now, I understand why it was exactly right. It’s better than good luck — it’s a challenge. And maybe, at a deeper level, it’s because I know he’s ready mentally, physically, and emotionally. The only thing that could prevent him from succeeding would be doing something other-than-honorable.

That phrase — other-than-honorable — carries real weight in the military. When you leave active duty, you receive a discharge rating: Honorable, Other Than Honorable, or Dishonorable. That rating follows you for the rest of your life — when you apply for a job, when you apply for a home loan, when someone does a background check. It becomes part of your permanent record.

Which raises a question worth sitting with: How could finely trained, highly-capable service members — people who have had values, ethos, and leadership principles drilled into them from day one — ever stray?

The answer, honestly, is pretty simple. Once they step out of training, they lack the grit, structure, and courage to uphold those principles when it’s hard. In other words, they’re human. Imperfect. And sometimes the most rigorous training in the world can’t override every character flaw a person brings through the door. But here’s what I know to be true: if you know the expectations, and you have the grit to adhere to them — especially when no one is watching — you leave with honor.

Honor is a word we don’t hear much in corporate life. And that’s worth noticing.

It’s both a noun and a verb. You can be a guest of honor. A company can honor a contract. But at its core, I think honor is the level of respect and integrity a person holds — toward themselves and toward others. It’s not a performance for an audience. It’s a standard you carry internally, one that shapes how you show up whether you’re on a main stage or in a quiet one-on-one.

So what would it look like to bring honor into our professional worlds more intentionally?

It might start with your own sense of self-honor — genuinely caring about the level of integrity and self-respect we bring to work each day:

• Are you doing what you said you’d do? 
• Are you treating people the way they deserve to be treated? 
• Are you holding yourself to a standard, or just to what you can get away with?
• Are you a steward to your business – with resources, funds, etc?
• Are you filling your days with work that respects the company’s mission, vision, and values?

And then it extends outward:

• Do you honor the people around you? 
• Do you recognize their contributions? 
• Do you keep your word? 
• Do you show up with integrity even when it costs you something – like popularity?

The Marines don’t talk about honor as an abstract value. It’s an actual value, an observable behavior, one that earns a rating at the end of your service. Imagine if we held ourselves to a version of that standard in our organizations — not as a formal rating, but as a personal commitment. What if the way you ended every chapter of your career was measured by whether you kept your honor clean?

I’ll be thinking about that question for a while. And I suspect my son will too — every time he sings that hymn.

PS Judge turns 21 this week – I’m 100% confident that he won’t forget this milestone.  I can’t wait to have his “first” beer with him when he graduates!