John N. N. Ng'ang'a

Integrity the Litmus Test of Good Leadership

In many African countries, when you listen to people discussing leadership, you quickly pick a general belief that you cannot make it in leadership unless you compromise your integrity. This book sets out to disprove that notion.

The mission of this book is to help community leaders in business, society, religion, politics and in the family to clarify what it means to have integrity, and having done so, to help them live lives of integrity. It is hoped that finally anyone in the community, will know someone in each of these areas who practices integrity, having been impacted by the content herein.

The Bible is the book that gives standards of integrity. Jesus set the standards so well in what is called the Sermon on the Mount. I acknowledge that I have tried to use this as the major source for this book.

The first part gives the basis of integrity. It seeks to describe the background you need in order to live a life of integrity.

The second part seeks to discuss integrity in the corporate world. If you are leader of integrity, you will be expected to lead an organization that also practices integrity.

The third part seeks to discuss personal integrity. What would you use to assess a leader as to whether he is a leader of integrity? We seek to give some objective way of doing this, a way that has been agreed on by a team that meets in Nairobi for Business Leaders Forum.

The last part is a deeper look at corporate integrity. It discusses integrity in the procurement process. Several areas tempt leaders to discard integrity but none is as tempting as the area of procurement. We therefore try to go deeper into the various aspects of procurement where integrity is put to test.

You may not agree with everything I say, but I hope that this book will provoke you to live a life of integrity.