Managing with Integrity: Insights from America’s CEOs

This compelling work draws on the experiences of America’s most successful business leaders to examine the issue of character in business. Based on interviews with 125 CEOs of major U.S. corporations, Managing with Integrity shows how it is possible for the businessperson to do what is right and run a profitable company at the same time. A wealth of practical examples and anecdotes demonstrates that even today, corporate America’s most powerful figures tend to place what is ethical over what is expedient and adhere to a higher standard than is generally assumed by the public. By revealing the strategies these leaders employ in the face of the myriad challenges to character encountered in the day-to-day business world, the author provides invaluable insights for executives, managers, supervisors, professionals, and entrepreneurs confronted with their own ethical dilemmas. Readers will find Managing with Integrity both an unusually candid look at the dimensions of executive decision making and an eminently practical guide to the development of a workable moral philosophy for business.

Is it possible for a decent human being to succeed in business? How does one find meaning in the business life? These are some of the questions asked by the author as he explores the difficulties associated with ethical thinking within the context of business. Finding that those persons and organizations that aspire to serve worthwhile purposes are ultimately the most profitable, he shows how businesses can and do prosper when high ethical and moral standards underlie executive decision making. Finally, the author examines the concept of success in business and describes the various dimensions of success which are most mentioned most often by the senior executives interviewed for the book. Written in an engaging and nontechnical style and filled with hundreds of real-world examples, Managing with Integrity offers an important counterweight to the cynicism that so often pervades popular thinking about corporate America.