Unleash the Positive Power of Ethical Leadership
By Linda Fisher Thornton
When we reach a certain level of accomplishment as leaders, it is easy to think we can slide into neutral. Here are 14 compelling reasons why we can never afford to cut back on investing in our own leadership development and competence:
By Linda Fisher Thornton
The components of an ethical leadership performance management system are mutually reinforcing and must be closely aligned. If just one element shown on this graphic is missing, then the rest of the components will not work effectively. For example, clear communication about expected ethical behavior is important, but it isn’t likely to lead to ethical behavior unless you also holding people accountable for meeting the expectations.
By Linda Fisher Thornton
Discouraging Unethical Leadership
One of the most important responsibilities of the senior leadership team is to discourage unethical behavior and build an ethical culture. Senior leaders need to work together as a team to create an organization where ethical leadership is rewarded and unethical leadership is quickly corrected.
Modeling Ethical Behavior
To build an ethical company, every senior leader needs to model the ethical leadership behavior that is expected, and promote ongoing conversations about how to lead ethically.
Leading Organizational Ethics
Beyond modeling expected ethical behavior, each senior leader also leads the ethical aspects of their role for the organization as a whole. For example, the Chief Human Resource Officer also oversees the ethical performance management system, and the The Chief Learning Officer works to build the organization’s ethical understanding and ethical competence.
By Linda Fisher Thornton
Leading ethically requires staying competent as a professional and as a leader. The speed of change in today’s global economy may cause leaders to fall behind even while they are diligently working to stay on top of trends and industry knowledge.
These 5 phrases signal that a leader is refusing to adapt to changing times, putting the company and its employees at risk.
By Linda Fisher Thornton
Boundaries can be simply described as lines that we don’t cross when doing business. Respecting these (sometimes clear, sometimes hazy) boundaries is an important part of today’s ethical leadership.
The 5 phrases below signal that the speaker is ignoring an important ethical boundary:
By Linda Fisher Thornton
How do we help young people become ethical leaders? This is an important question because our long-term future depends on how well we prepare young people to make positive ethical choices and honor multiple dimensions of ethical responsibility.
By Linda Fisher Thornton
In Part 5 of this series on attributes of ethical leadership, I explore the importance of really hearing all stakeholders, including those who are not in the room. Here are Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 in case you missed them.
By Linda Fisher Thornton
This series has explored 5 important leadership spheres of Ethical Thinking and Decision Making.
This week I’m summing it up in a checklist that will help you apply all 5 to your daily choices. When you are making a key decision, run it through the checklist to be sure you have considered all 5 important dimensions.
By Linda Fisher Thornton
While change is a constant reality, it doesn’t always factor into leadership thinking. In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, I explored the Depth of our thinking, and the importance of understanding Context. In Part 3 and Part 4, I looked at embracing Complexity and the importance of full Inclusion. In Part 5, I’ll describe how embracing Change helps us make ethical decisions.
By Linda Fisher Thornton
In Part 1 of this series I looked at the importance of Deep Thinking. In Part 2, we’ll consider the Context. No matter how much effort it takes to understand the context, we can’t expect to make an ethical decision without taking that step.
By Linda Fisher Thornton
Ask for profitability and your company may get it, at the expense of customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and product safety. Making profitability a top business goal without balancing that with adequate ethics awareness is extremely risky, and could lead to community backlash that ends up destroying your brand.
By Linda Fisher Thornton
Research is showing that diet sodas do not help prevent weight loss, and in fact may be a cause of weight gain. How can this be? Since the way we understand it depends on which kind of thinking we use, let’s examine the issue using several different kinds of thinking.
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.
By Linda Fisher Thornton
This week I’m sharing some thoughts about teaching and learning that have been on my mind. It is hard for me to hear about students who are struggling with teachers or professors who try to trick them with impossible tests and quizzes – where everyone does poorly and classgrades have to be rounded up. This kind of behavior in the classroom leads to stress, frustration, lack of confidence, unfairly poor grades and other negative outcomes, when students really do know the material. It can happen, though, when the focus of teaching is in the wrong place.
By Linda Fisher Thornton
I have written a lot about ethical culture building, but there is one simple concept that is a game changer that many leaders overlook. It is the importance of simultaneously managing two things well in order to shore up both sides of the system.
Leading in Context 