Unleash the Positive Power of Ethical Leadership
What is Transdiciplinarity?
The Institute for the Future and the University of Phoenix Research Institute list transdisciplinarity as #7 in a list of skills critical for Workforce 2020. They define it as “understanding concepts across multiple disciplines.”
The Trouble With Using Only People-Based “Ethics”
Being concerned about people is a very important aspect of ethical leadership. The trouble with using only a people-based definition of “ethics” is that by using the impact on people as the only way to make decisions we may be ignoring these other variables:
The impact of our business operations on the planet
The long-term unintended consequences of our choices
The changing consumer mindset toward sustainable business and avoiding harm
The Trouble With Profit-Based “Ethics”
The trouble with using a profit-based definition of “ethics” is that by using profitability as a way to make decisions, an entire spectrum of other issues is conveniently ignored:
What is Judging?
If each person’s view is different from the views of others, then what is judging?
A limited worldview that only allows the views of one person or group
Promoting one’s own thinking as the “perfection” of thinking
An attempt (intentional or not) to make ourselves look smarter by belittling another person or group
An attempt to control the behavior and thinking of others or groups
Sticking to yesterday’s conventional wisdom can make us out-of-date, because it helps us ignore any information that contradicts our beliefs. It can lead us to make decisions based on out-of-date ways of thinking, and that may result in missed opportunities or even to bad decisions that can harm others. In this case, even though we do not set out to make bad decisions, the consequences of those decisions are just as real.
BE OPEN TO CHANGE, WILLING TO CHANGE AND WILLING TO THINK DIFFERENTLY!
Thinking About Decision-Making and Choosing Filters : Should You Give Back Unused Budget Money?
If we don’t think about how we want to make leadership decisions, then the crisis of the moment becomes our filter for making decisions. When the economy is unpredictable and profits are lower, the budget is often the crisis that becomes the thinking filter.
It’s dangerous to make important strategic decisions just based on money and just based on a short-term crisis. In the case below, see how different the outcome is when using strategic long-term thinking versus crisis-response short-term thinking.
Ethical Awareness
Ethical Thinking & Decision Making
Ethical Leadership
Unleash the Positive Power of Ethical Leadership
Systems Are Not Linear
When solving complex business problems, it helps to remember that systems (including organizations) are not linear. Thinking of them as linear leads to easier one-dimensional decisions but ignores these things that we know about systems:
systems are dynamic
systems are adaptive
systems have complex contexts (they connect with many other systems)
Unintended Consequences of Linear Problem-Solving
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Leading in Context 