Business schools are teaching ethics and corporate social responsibility, but they do not teach these subjects in the context of building a higher-ambition or a high commitment, high performance firm. Students learn about finance and organizational behavior, for example, without ever learning how to integrate these and many other disciplines (marketing, operations, etc.) into a coherent, internally consistent set of practices that collectively reinforce a higher- ambition mission. If financial considerations require cost cutting, what should be the stance of the company toward layoffs if management also aspires to develop commitment from employees? If the company strategy calls for rapid growth, can this be done without diluting the higher-ambition culture? If you are trying to develop such a culture, rapid growth makes it harder to find people who fit the culture and possess the capabilities needed. And business schools... do not ask students to reflect on their values and define who they are and then help them see how these values relate to decisions they make about strategy, performance measurement, growth, and so on.

In short, business schools... do not teach integrity. By integrity we mean learning about (1) how different disciplines must be integrated with each other and higher-ambition purpose and values, and (2) how students' espoused higher-ambition values are reflected in decisions and actions they recommend should be taken in marketing, strategy, and finance. What business schools need is a course that teaches students how to think and act to build a higher-ambition firm.

We’re incredibly good at telling ourselves stories, and these help us feel as if we are honest even when we act dishonestly.

The glue that holds all relationships together -- including the relationship between the leader and the led is trust, and trust is based on integrity.

Integrity is the measure of the degree to which we have developed our independent will in our daily lives-how well we have implemented the goals chosen through personal leadership. Integrity is our ability to make and keep commitments to ourselves.

In globalization we can come closer together, but we still don't know one another. We can start up a new business fast, but growing wise in the way of life takes a long time. It's never complete, never right, and never perfect. An ethic is deeper than morality or custom. It comes out of our deepest desire to make meaning out of our lives and hence resides in the areas of spirituality and religion. The deepest and most meaningful relationships develop out of this level of interaction. To have integrity is to bring deep meaning to bear in all aspects of one's life. And to deal effectively in a global arena, one must have some notion of the deep meaning imbedded in various cultures.

Many Indians growing up in the United States detect an inconsistency or incoherence about modern life...Somehow you are supposed to be moral and generous in your private life, but that doesn't apply when you go to work -- you don't have to be the same person. That kind of role fragmentation or inconsistency was really seen as profane. One must find a way that synthesizes both who you are in private and who you are in public life and work. One has to find a role that creates integrity.

we used to endorse character and integrity, but today the business ethic that reigns is achievement. And whenever you establish the worth of someone based on what they can do and not on who they are, you have created the environment for fraud.

It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.

We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.

Integrity can be neither lost nor concealed nor faked nor quenched nor artificially come by nor outlived, nor, I believe, in the long run denied.