By Linda Fisher Thornton I wonder what our workplaces would be like if every leader cared. Most leaders care about their own well-being. But what if every leader cared about others? How would things be different? In an organization where every leader cared, wouldn’t we experience improved employee engagement and customer retention? Wouldn’t it be easier to recruit and retain talented and dedicated employees? Wouldn’t we be able to get more done?
Tag: ethical leadership context
Ethical Leaders Care (Part 3)
By Linda Fisher Thornton Demonstrating care is one of the hallmark requirements of good leadership. In addition to caring about what happens in our own careers, we must CARE about people, about their success, and about creating a positive work environment. If leaders don’t seem to care, that numbs the organization’s culture, disabling the natural systems that would prevent and identify ethical risks.
Ethical Leaders Care (Part 2)
By Linda Fisher Thornton Using an ethics of care changes how we think and act as leaders. It helps us remember that each person is important and that treating each other with care is part of our shared human experience. Caring shows that we know that people are more than task-doers and that leading is more than tactical, more than obligatory, more than just a job
Ethical Leaders Care (Part 1)
By Linda Fisher Thornton Ethical leadership is about much more than making good decisions and abiding by laws and regulations. One of the elements of ethical leadership that may be overlooked when we view ethics using a “legal lens” is supporting and developing the potential of the people we lead.
Building an Ethical Culture (Part 3)
By Linda Fisher Thornton Ethics has a compounding effect on culture, and our leadership choices determine whether that effect will be positive or negative. Being diligent about ethics in every decision brings the culture ethics dividends. Being careless about ethics brings ethics penalties. The tricky part about managing ethical culture is that every leader decision and action throughout the organization is changing the equation. The culture equation is changing in real time, every day.
Building an Ethical Culture (Part 1)
By Linda Fisher Thornton After I published “Prevention or Cure: Your Choice” about reducing ethical risk and creating a positive culture a reader asked for more information about the business case for prevention. Here are some compelling reasons why the prevention approach is a better business decision than waiting for ethical problems and applying a “cure” after the organization is already in trouble.
Leadership Questions For The New Year
By Linda Fisher Thornton What will 2023 be like? We've been through so much over the past few years. Will things be better? Whatever happens, the start of a new year is a great time to take stock of our leadership strengths and areas for improvement. Regardless of the leadership challenges we may face this year, there are important things we should be doing to make it easier for others to succeed, and our teams are counting on us to do them so that they can do their best work.
A Thankful Heart
By Linda Fisher Thornton Cicero’s quote reminds us that if we want to act on the important virtues that create a just society, we must first see the world with a thankful heart.
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.
Leading the Return to In-Person Work: 5 Perspectives
By Linda Fisher Thornton This week I am sharing 5 interesting articles that tackle the challenge of leading the process of returning to in-person work. They each share a slightly different perspective. As a reminder, there are many human issues to consider beyond just keeping people well as we learn to live with COVID-19, and I discussed some of them in a previous post. Below are 5 additional resources, each highlighting issues to consider as you lead the return to the office this fall.
Recognizing Ethical Issues (Part 3)
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'll dig into the importance of ethical awareness as the basis for ethical decision making.
Recognizing Ethical Issues (Part 2)
By Linda Fisher Thornton In Part 1 of this series, I explored why it is important to develop our own internal warning system to alert us when we need to think carefully about ethical issues. In this post, I'll address why some leaders who want to do the right thing have not yet developed their capacity to detect ethical issues.
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.
Navigating Return to Work Challenges: Virginia Business
By Linda Fisher Thornton Today I'm sharing an article from Virginia Business called Future Shock that includes my recent interview with John Blackwell. His article focuses on how leaders are navigating through the many challenges of returning to in-person work after workers have enjoyed the increased flexibility of remote work during the pandemic.
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.
Leading in Context 