Integrity and Leadership:: Clearing the Conceptual Confusion

Integrity is frequently used in management literature as a normative descriptor, especially with regard to leadership. The study of integrity, however, suffers from three significant problems: too many definitions, too little theory, and too few rigorous empirical studies. The purpose of this article is to attempt to address the first problem by (1) presenting a review of the definitions and uses of integrity in the management literature and (2) proposing a specific conceptualization of integrity (i.e., the consistency of an acting entity’s words and actions) based on a virtue-ethics framework.