By Linda Fisher Thornton Of the 52 weekly posts published on the Leading in Context Blog in 2022, these 10 were the most popular. See if you notice a theme that connects these new topics that readers accessed most frequently:
Category: Complexity
Advancing Ethics in Your Organization (Part 4)
By Linda Fisher Thornton The focus of this week’s post is on Ways to Inspire Leaders to Lead With Positive Ethical Values. Here are 3 ways to inspire leaders to reach for positive values – that also help you “do good” in your organization, community and world.
Will You Give the 12 Gifts of Leadership This Year?
By Linda Fisher Thornton How do we lead when we want to bring out the best in people? These 12 Gifts of Leadership are on the wish lists of employees around the world. They aren't expensive. They don't require dealing with the hustle and bustle of holiday shopping, and one size fits all. Sure, these gifts are harder to give than a fruitcake, but they will be life-changing for those you lead.
Advancing Ethics in Your Organization (Part 3)
By Linda Fisher Thornton The first post in this series addressed ACCOUNTABILITY. The second asked you to evaluate your IMPACT. This week's four ways to advance ethics in your organization focus on MANAGING THE SYSTEM.
Advancing Ethics in Your Organization (Part 2)
By Linda Fisher Thornton The first post in this series addressed ACCOUNTABILITY. In this second post we’ll take a look at IMPACT. Here are 3 ways to Advance Ethics that also improve the impact of your organization and your leadership.
Advancing Ethics in Your Organization (Part 1)
By Linda Fisher Thornton Each day brings new challenges for leaders. They struggle to deal with uncertainty and complexity and sometimes the most ethical choices are not obvious. In this kind of environment, we can’t assume that things are going well even when there are no lawsuits or imminent ethical crises. What we need to do is build an ethical workplace that will discourage ethical problems. The focus of this week’s post is on Ways to Improve Accountability For Ethics. Here are 3 ways to avoid relying on the status quo – that also help you “do good” in your organization, community and world.
Focus on Teaching Students How to Think (Not What To Think)
By Linda Fisher Thornton Have you noticed that the current fray about what to teach about difficult subjects has been focused on teaching "one way or the other?" "Are you for it or against it? and "Which side are you on?" This approach completely misses the point that the purpose of education is not to teach students what to think. It's to teach students how to think, and how to navigate differences respectfully.
Non-Violence and the Greater Good (Part 2)
By Linda Fisher Thornton Nonviolence provides a higher order mindset that helps us provide lasting solutions to global problems. In the process of human development, we reach a point when we become increasingly concerned about our impact on others and society. We begin to consider our impact more broadly and use a long-term perspective when we approach problems. We outgrow the notion that expedient violence will solve our problems.
Non-Violence and the Greater Good (Part 1)
By Linda Fisher Thornton When we lead for the greater good, we leave a positive legacy for future generations. At this highest level of ethical leadership, we ensure quality of life and opportunities for others we may never meet, well into the future. We intentionally create a better world.
Transdisciplinary Thinking Leads to Better Decisions
By Linda Fisher Thornton There's a problem that people don't talk about often enough. In the quest to understand things, we have divided up content and areas of science and our world in general into categories that we label (like biology, art, and psychology for example) and think of as separate. People study inside these realms intensely until they become experts in them. The problem is that these divisions and their labels are false constructs that we have imposed on a world that is much more complex than the categories convey. When we think in these simple terms (and teach using them) we are oversimplifying our decision making, and that can lead us to make choices that don't lead to the outcomes we want.
Get News Closer to the Source
By Linda Fisher Thornton We have a "spin" problem in the media and it's out of control. Unfortunately, many media channels have decided that clicks, and the dollars they generate, are more important than journalistic integrity. So we end up with people getting what they think is "news" when what they are actually getting is from sources of "infotainment," and using that bad information to make bad decisions and even in some cases commit crimes. Infotainment sources that incite anger, violence, and bad decisions do not care about you. They are using you as a pawn for their own financial gain.
No Routine Decisions
By Linda Fisher Thornton As a leadup to a keynote I'm doing for the Michigan Association of School Boards, I was invited to submit a feature article for their fall issue of the MASB LeaderBoard. In the article, "Meeting the Challenge of Ethical Decision Making," I write about how since the start of the pandemic, decision making has become more complex and requires much more intentional decision making.
Recognizing Ethical Issues (Part 6)
By Linda Fisher Thornton In Part 1 of this series on Recognizing Ethical Issues, I addressed the gaps in our thinking that require us to develop an ethical alert system. in Part 2, I explored why some leaders who want to do the right thing still don't "do the work" to learn how to do it. In Part 3, I dug into the importance of ethical awareness as the basis for ethical decision making. In Part 4 I described ways to develop ethical thinking. In Part 5, I shared some recent blog posts about how to recognize ethical issues in current events and make good decisions about them. In Part 6, I provide an overview of each post in the series and an opportunity for you to practice recognizing ethical issues with your teams.
Changing Our Mind (It May Not Mean We’re Indecisive)
By Linda Fisher Thornton When we change our position on an issue, sometimes it is because we simply can't decide. But when you look at mind-changing from the perspective of human growth and development, you can see that there is often more to it than that.
Does “Politically Correct” Mean Inclusive and Respectful?
By Linda Fisher Thornton
I studied Linguistics and Communications at The University of Virginia and I am fascinated by how words shape our perception of things. Lately there has been a lot of discussion about the term "politically correct," sometimes shortened to "PC." I have noticed it is used when people refer to the pressure to be polite to all people, including those who are different from themselves.
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