ABSTRACT
It is a generally accepted business principle that leaders must set the tone from the top. The key and challenging word in the pro-integrity business model's process of: ‘Ensure that the leadership’s moral compass demonstrates the right tone from the top’ is ‘demonstrates’. What matters is employees’ perception of a leader’s trust, worthiness and demonstration of their ethical values and not the proclaimed values by management; as concluded by Guiso, Sapienza and Zingales (2015) in their statistical analysis of the Great Place to Work Institute’s top 100 companies to work for in the US. Such a finding is endorsed by George (2003), Heineman (2008), Browne (2015) and Koch (2015), in that leaders must demonstrate their tone in not only what they do but also how they do it, with the latter aspect being vitally important.
