The origin and the meaning of integrity
The first part of the book is divided into two parts. Based on the relevant and accessible literature, we will first define integrity, ethics as the postulate of integrity, virtue ethics, integrity as a virtue, personal integrity and organisational integrity and present the empirical research of integrity. In the second part, we will use the relevant and accessible literature to identify leadership, delimit it from management, deal with personal integrity in relation to leadership and conduct a brief review of the scientific studies of governance and the development of the leadership styles. We will then focus on ethical and servant leadership and the empirical research into ethical and servant leadership. At the end of the theoretical part, we will highlight the social importance of integrity and servant leadership.
The etymology or source of the word ‘integrity’ comes from the Latin word, integritas, integer, meaning comprehensiveness, consistency and purity (Petrick and Quinn 2000, Worden 2003, Paine 2005, Audi and Murphy 2006); it also originates from the French and Latin words, intact, integrate, entirety, meaning that everything works connected, unharmed and incorruptibly (Cloud 2009).
Audi and Murphy (2006) discovered that the wider understanding of integrity is connected with two similar concepts: integral and integration, which are also Latin in origin. The concept of integral means wholesome or undivided. In conjunction with man, we can talk about the integrity of his personality characteristics and, in conjunction with his behaviour, we can talk about the completeness of his actions. The concept of integration is understood as an amalgamation of completeness and wholeness, and can be understood in our context as the integration of human personality traits (key characteristics).
We can also identify one of the possible sources of the meaning of integrity through Aristotle’s philosophy, that a good man is ‘always of the same opinion with himself and tends with his wholeness of soul toward the same goals’ (Aristotle 2002: 278), while ‘words are convincing only if they coincide with the actions’ (2002: 300). However, if this is not so, then ‘they provoke contempt and the denial even of what is true in them’ (2002: 300). Aristotle also thought that
within a bad man there is a disagreement between what he must do and what he does; while on the other hand, a good man does what he must do. For reason always decides what is best for him, and a good man obeys reason.
(2002: 287–8)
The concept of integrity somewhat varies over time; integrity, more or less, used to mean completeness or wholeness, and yet today, some of its conception is intertwined with honesty, trust and so on (Palanski and Yammarino 2007).
Petrick and Quinn (2000) showed that integrity is defined in philosophical and psychological literature as a moral conscience, moral judgement, moral reasoning, public responsibility, moral commitment, moral character, moral consistency or authenticity. The authors note that integrity as a construct, which can be individual or collective, is focused on four fundamental factors: (i) the process (moral awareness, moral deliberation, moral character – strengthening the virtues, moral behaviour); (ii) understanding and prudence (a balanced application of basic ethical theories – teleological, deontological, developmentally systematic, virtues – with the aim of the right conduct and achieving the right destination); (iii) development (cognitive development of the pre-conventional and post-conventional phase after Kohlberg); and (iv) the system (implementation of organisational rules that encourage the development of an ethical environment) (Petrick and Quinn 2000).
Paine noted that, despite the different denominations, integrity contains or is defined by one or more related characteristics such as moral conscientiousness, moral responsibility, moral obligation and moral consistency (Paine 2005: 247–9). Moral conscientiousness is reflected in the desire to do what is right, moral responsibility (including accountability) means taking responsibility for yourself and for your own conduct, the moral imperative (including commitment) is reflected in loyalty and effort concerning the implementation of certain principles, moral consistency (moral coherence) is reflected in different ways such as the consistency between belief and expression as well as between words and deeds (Figure 1.1).
Given that our task entails focusing on personal integrity and integrity in relation to leadership, the remaining concepts of integrity explained below are mainly for information purposes. The only exception is organisational integrity, which is presented at the end of the chapter on integrity.
For a general example of a practical application of integrity, we may use the integrity of the hull, which would mean that it is ‘water-resistant’ and waterproof (Palanski and Yammarino 2007), while mathematical integrity would be represented as an integer (Fitsimmons 2008).
The meaning of integrity depends primarily on the activities in which it is understood or interpreted or on the activities for which it is implied. Thus, the concept of integrity can be traced in medicine (the integrity of the patient), philosophy (the integrity of the soul), religion (the integrity of faith), industry (the integrity of surface materials, constructions, reproductions), computer science (data integrity), management (personal integrity, organisational integrity), politics (state integrity, integrity of a proceeding), the army (integrity of the military leader), the police and so on.
Figure 1.1 Integrity.
Source: Paine (2005).
The importance and use of the concept of integrity can also be understood as a relationship between the foundation and the attributes in a sense that a single, indivisible thought is given, which translates into countless idioms.
Definition of integrity
There is no universal definition of integrity (Yukl 2002, Audi and Murphy 2006, Palanski and Yammarino 2007, 2009). It is always defined differently by various researchers and authors. Comprising the centre of our study, personal integrity is most commonly understood as consistency between words and deeds (Kirkpatrick and Locke 1991, Simons 1999, 2002, Paine 2005, Brown 2006) and in conjunction with moral behaviour or the absence of unethical behaviour (Craig and Gustafson 1998, Posner 2001, Parry and Proctor-Thomson 2002, Palanski and Yammarino 2007, 2009).
Those already mentioned and other conceptions of personal integrity will be discussed in detail in the following sections. Before that, we found the following definitions of integrity in different dictionaries:
In dictionaries, integrity is defined as perfection (Oxford 1989b, Webster’s 1996, Cambridge 2003), wholeness (Oxford 1989a, 1989b, 2004, 2009, Webster’s 1996, Dictionary of the Slovenian Language 2001, Cambridge 2003), compliance (Dictionary of the Slovenian Language 2001), undivided (Oxford 1989a, 1989b, 2009), unreduced (Webster’s 1996), a thing of chastity and purity, something unspoiled (Oxford 1989b) and the original perfect condition or state where any part or element is not lacking (Oxford 1989b).
It is also defined as fairness (Oxford 1989a, 1989b, 2009, Webster’s 1996, Cambridge 2003), justice (Oxford 1989b), authenticity (Oxford 1989b), moral principles and uprightness (Oxford 1989b, 2009, Webster’s 1996), firmness with moral virtues (Oxford 1989b, 2004, Cambridge 2003), dedication to moral and ethical principles (Webster’s 1996), untouched moral status (Oxford 1989b), internal consistency (Oxford 2004) and uncorrupted (Oxford 1989b).
The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy divides the concept of integrity into two parts, first, in the simplest sense of the word, it is defined as a synonym for honesty (Blackburn 2008). Often, however, it refers to a more complex understanding of integrity or the harmony of the individual who perceives himself as someone whose life without integrity would have lost harmony or that it might be tarnished because of doing different things (Blackburn 2008).
Ethics as the postulate of integrity
Given that integrity as a virtue falls within the framework of ethics and that ethics is its baseline, we firstly identified ethics and morality, and the difference between them through the findings, thoughts and ideas of historical authorities and contemporary researchers. Starting from their role in relation to integrity and its 2,000-year-old development, we want to emphasise their importance and at the same time narrow down and limit the number of authors given the enormous amount of literature. In the following, we looked at business ethics as a kind of practical and applied ethics because our empirical study focused on the integrity of leaders and leadership in non-profit and for-profit organisations. We continued with the definition of our relevant ethical theories and pointed out virtue ethics. We also defined the concept and importance of virtue, which is similar to ethics, only more focused on the foundation of personal integrity, which is in the core of our interest. In addition, we emphasised justice in relation to integrity, which Aristotle considered as the highest and most perfect virtue (Aristotle 2002).
Ethics and morality
In dictionaries, ethics is defined as a science of morality (Oxford 1989b), a study of ethical principles (Oxford 1989b), addressing moral issues (Oxford 1989b) and studying what is morally correct and what is not (Cambridge 2003), while ethic is understood as accepted beliefs or a set of moral principles that control, manage or influence behaviour (Cambridge 2003, Oxford 2004) (Figure 1.2).
In Merriam-Webster’s Encyclopedia (2000), ethics is defined as the branch of philosophy that examines the nature of the fundamental values and norms by which human actions can be judged as correct or incorrect. In the dictionary of modern use of the English language (Fowler 2009), it is defined as the science of morality that studies and discusses the principles that define the human duty to others. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Blackburn 2008) defines ethics as the study of the concepts involved in practical understanding or interpretation, such as good, right, obligation, virtue and so on. In the case of morals, it is essentially ‘the same thing’ as in ethics, taking different approaches mutually differ (e.g. Kant had moved to the obligations, commitments and principles of conduct, Aristotle on practical reasoning through the prism of virtues – virtue ethics) (Blackburn 2008). According to the Oxford Dictionary (1989b, 2004), moral should relate to the character or the situation taking good or bad into account and the difference between right and wrong. Moral sense is the ability to detect the difference between right and wrong (Oxford 1989b, 2004). It means the standards of good behaviour in which each individual believes or it means the manner of conduct by most people regarded as correct and fair (Cambridge 2003). Moral is defined as a feeling of a person or a group of people at a given time (Oxford 2004).
Figure 1.2 The difference between ethics and morality.
Source: Authors.
Etymologically speaking, the term ethics comes from ‘the old Greek word ethos, which means custom, or tradition, character, while the term morals derives from the Latin mos, which means a similar custom, proper handling and morality’ (Strahovnik 2010, 5).
Philosophical debates about ethics in Europe began in ancient Greece in the fourth century BC (Palmer 2007), whereby the ancient Greek philosophy was divided into three degrees, namely logic, physics and ethics – manner science (Kant 2005). As noted by MacIntyre (1993: 151), throughout history there have appeared three different understandings of moral rules, as a form of human life in which we strive for good (Plato, Aristotle), as the commandments of God (Christianity) and as an indicator of which actions bring more of the desired (sophists and Hobbes). The first concept refers to functional well, the other concepts refer to rewards and punishments and the third to our wishes and the means to achieve the objective (MacIntyre 1993). At the end of the last century, Badiou (1996: 7) realised that the word ethics, ‘in which so clearly shows the trail of Greek philosophy or teaching that evokes the memory of Aristotle’, is again in the spotlight. In Greek, it means ‘finding good ways to stay or wisdom of the operation’, while for the Stoics in ancient times it meant the heart of philosophical wisdom (Badiou 1996). As he says, it is known ‘that the Stoics philosophy is usually compared with an egg: the logic is the eggshell, white is physics, and ethics is the yolk’ (Badiou 1996), or as Strahovnik says, ‘the Stoics’ logic is compared with a terrace fence, physics with a tree growing in the garden and, finally, ethics with the fruits of the tree of philosophy’ (Strahovnik 2010: 4).
The foundation of ethics as a science was laid by Socrates (Sovre 2003) in dialogue with the sophists (Jerman 1992: 202) when he was posing ethical questions about how a man should live (Raeper and Smith 1995: 10). ‘In his typical teachings all of the virtues are actually manners … and also from the moral-intellectual virtues he realized that all human happiness depends on that’ (Kocijančič 2002: 571). Kunzmann et al. (1997) concluded that it was in the heart of the philosophy of Socrates’ question about good and virtue (areté), whereby the quest for philosophical insight into the essence of virtue was understood as a concern for the human soul.
Later, Plato, who was dealing with ethical issues taken up by his teacher Socrates defined an internal ethical criterion, the concept of conscience. According to Plato, a man must behave ethically towards himself, others and the gods, while the truth of his morality (ethos) is ethical and political virtue (areté) (Kocijančič 2004: 1102). Plato, in his most important work ‘The Republic’, in the debate on dikaiosyne, covered most of what the word morals means, where the concept of dikaiosyne is translated as righteousness, which is narrower than the Greek conception (MacIntyre 1993, Palmer 2007: 287). At the same time, there is a difference between ancient Greece and contemporary Europe (modern English) in the way of social life (MacIntyre 1993). The author also believes that justice is not an appropriate translation of what is also true for other translations because the word dikaiosyne has ‘completely unique importance and in this way combines fairness in small things with personal integrity that cannot be captured by any English word’ (MacIntyre 1993: 23). For an allegory of what it means to act morally, Plato wrote Socrates’ comparison of the human soul with the state and the division thereof into three classes or sections (rulers – the mind; soldiers or keepers – whip; the working class – desires). Each component of the soul has its own virtue, namely the intellect – wisdom, zeal – courage and desire – moderation. If all three components of the soul
act according to the law of reason, justice (dikaiosyne) is the result and anyone whose soul is governed it would be clear why it should or should act fairly (i.e. the moral). Why is it so? As is the opposite of justice, injustice, chaos ... which is incompatible with virtue.
(Palmer 2007: 295)
This means that ‘man is moral, when he grasps this sensible principle, draw his heart to follow and heart should temper the passion’ (Palmer, 2007: 296), at which ‘as in Plato there is later in Kant’s philosophy more than a sagacious implication that the...
