Unleash the Positive Power of Ethical Leadership
Leading Through Complexity and Uncertainty
In The Center For Creative Leadership’s White Paper, The Future of Leadership Development, Nick Petrie describes the new work environment as “typified by an increased level of complexity and interconnectedness.” This new work environment requires new leadership skills, including a willingness to lead when the situation is complex and the outcome uncertain.
Diversity of Ideas Provides Perspective
When dealing with complexity, we need fresh thinking. We need to listen to all ideas that may help, regardless of where they come from in the organization. That involves giving up the notion that we are “right.”
Developing Business Leader Future
In response to the post “Business Leader Future: A Sketch” Graham posted a question about how we support leaders who are learning to lead in the ways described in that post.
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Here are some of my thoughts on how to help business leaders lead ethically through the complexities of their role:
We are Beginning to Understand the Kind of Educational Leadership that Prepares Young Students for Success in Our Complex World.
Forward-thinking leaders are advocating these educational approaches and roles that lead to creativity, learning, growth and innovation:
By Linda Fisher
Ethical leadership failures can be caused by different types of problems that may compound. Some of these problems are individual and others may be embedded in the organizational culture. In 7 Lenses, I describe the kind of proactive ethical leadership that builds ethical cultures. The book is a road map for how to lead ethically in a complex world. While 7 Lenses is written from a positive perspective to help leaders avoid ethical problems and create ethical cultures, I often get asked “What causes ethical failures? What goes wrong?”
By Linda Fisher Thornton
We have learned that human DNA is not fixed, but changing. We all have DNA markers that are turned on or off by our life choices and experiences.
There are specific things educators do to enable ethical education. Like markers in our DNA, these important factors in education switch on responsible education. In their absence, a switch turns to “off” that damages people’s willingness and ability to learn.
By Linda Fisher Thornton
Ethical leaders, who accept the realities of the a global marketplace and “learn through” complexity, see the world and their role in it at a high level.
By Linda Fisher Thornton
Most of the time when we answer a question with a single response, that answer is only part of the picture. We have all seen leaders (who may feel a need to appear decisive) answer quickly without thinking through the implications of their response. When this happens, what they share is oversimplified and “partialized,” not a relevant or responsible interpretation of the complex issues involved.
By Linda Fisher Thornton
Have you noticed the steady increase in the complexity of navigating our daily lives? It feels like we have too many choices, too much information, and not enough time. More information and more choices would be great if we had the time to research and decide, but the reality is that it’s difficult and time consuming to sort out which information is reliable and which is not.
By Linda Fisher Thornton
There has been a lot of recent discussion around nationalism. The term has been used in ways that seem to put it on par with patriotism. To understand how it’s different, I’ll take a look at nationalism, patriotism and globalism using an ethical lens. Without seeing them through an ethical lens, the differences are less clear. Using an ethical lens, we begin to see that what appear to be subtle variations are vast differences in intent and impact.
By Linda Fisher Thornton
My article, “Ethical Thinking Isn’t Automatic,” featured in the August issue of the Talent Development Journal, describes five culture gaps that inhibit ethical leadership. These culture gaps are common problems that organizations should watch for and avoid.
“For ethical leadership to stick, the culture needs an infrastructure that consistently supports acting on stated values…Ethical cultures treat ethical thinking as something that must be cultivated, demonstrated, and practiced over time.”
By Linda Fisher Thornton
A theme I have noticed in the past in the most viewed posts on this blog is Looking For a Better Kind of Leadership. It’s a great time to explore the question “What is Good Leadership?
While it’s tempting to over simplify leadership and think about it as any one thing, good leadership can only be fully understood by thinking about it in multiple ways. Here is a starter list of 16 defining characteristics of good leadership:
By Linda Fisher Thornton
The “Keep it Simple” approach is good for many situations, but keeping it simple will set you up for failure in ethics. Using an oversimplified approach to solving a complex ethical problem just means you leave out variables you should be considering.
By Linda Fisher Thornton
In my Applied Ethics Class, I introduce my students to the Five Whys. This is a simple and valuable tool for getting to the root cause of problems. We may think we understand why something happened but when we “fix” whatever we think is the sole cause we don’t always get the intended result. The reason for that is that problems tend to have multiple causes. They happen in the context of multiple processes. Singling out one “cause” is rarely sufficient for understanding what really happened.
By Linda Fisher Thornton
Most people think about ethics, at least some of the time. Ethics comes to mind during ethics training, ethics conversations, when people are thrown into ethically complex situations, and when trying to understand current events.
Leading in Context 