Abstract
Integrity is a fundamental principle that contributes to ethical business practices. Integrity is a guiding principle for organisational values and practices. Leaders must model integrity so that it is valued in the organisation's culture. Empirical research focusing on is integrity limited. This is due to the absence of a definition of integrity that can be empirically tested, and the unavailability of a measurement instrument. This present study firstly defined integrity in behavioural terms, and secondly developed the Leader Integrity Scale to measure leader integrity. The internal, convergent, and discriminant validity of the Leader Integrity Scale was tested using a sample of management students.
Participants completed a questionnaire that included the Leader Integrity Scale and other leadership and organisational scales. The results showed that the Leader Integrity Scale is a highly inter-correlated, unidimensional scale. Both convergent and discriminat validity between the Leader Integrity Scale and the other scales was found. The internal, convergent, and discriminant validity results formed the basis of reducing the Leader Integrity Scale down to a 24-items scale. Future directions and implications for leader integrity were discussed.