Self-Respect as a Normative Foundation to Integrate Integrity into Responsible Leadership

Abstract

There is a growing interest among academic researchers and practitioners in management studies to show that integrity maters for leadership and performance. Although integrity is generally understood as honouring one’s words with a plausible link with ethics and morality, it is not clear whether there is any responsibility for leaders to act with integrity. Integrity is shown to be a positive phenomenon for leadership and performance without any normative foundation. This paper attempts to show that responsible leadership requires a normative foundation of self-respect and thereby it shows that integrity can be integrated in leadership ethics for responsible leadership.