Do leaders lose their way or choose a different path?

  This past week the article, Why Leaders Lose their Way by Bill George crossed my desk and caused me to reflect more deeply on the concept of values-based leadership among his three reasons. Bill George wrote: “Leaders need to devote themselves to personal development that cultivates their inner compass or True North. This requires…

Is your ethics training proactive or reactive?

  I believe that ethics can only be proactive. There is no such thing as reactive ethics.  Reactive ethics really compliance, and compliance, by the very word,  is truly a reactive dynamic. To embrace ethics as proactive, please consider these reflections as a foundation for ethics training. Ethics needs to focus on action and not…

Ethics in conflict: what will you do?

An ethical dilemma is a conflict situation in which what’s “right” isn’t always clear cut or obvious. Therefore here’s a process to consider in resolving an ethical dilemma. 1. The leader attempts to clarify any ambiguous facts in the dilemma. 2. The leader encourages a broad reaction to the dilemma by asking open –ended questions…

Do you have “ethics risks?”

  What would be “ethics risks” in organizations? How would you respond to these statements? An ethics risk could be: • In not being proactive in helping employees understand the differences and likenesses of compliance and ethics. • In not providing ongoing, quality ethics training by professionals trained in ethics. • In not understanding that…

It’s all about ethical leadership…Yeah, yeah we know, now what?

  I can’t tell you the number of articles I’ve read and studies that are now out, that state, in any number of ways, how crucial ethical leadership is in the business world. So what are organizations/companies doing about their leaders’ ethics education and promoting it in their organizations? For example, when people are promoted…

Trust me….. Why should I?

  “Two findings stand out. First, trust in governments and public institutions remains very low overall and the majority now believe that business should lead. Second, while trust in business has improved, trust in executives remains low. Peers and employees are now seen as more credible than business leaders and often employees don’t trust the…

Train or educate?—part 2

I decided to write a part 2 to my last post, due to an interesting comment someone made regarding the question on the possible difference between training and education. One response was likening the difference between training and education to this analogy. “Would you rather have sex training or sex education?” This comment really made…

“True education only happens when learning links up to peoples’ experience.”

I embraced this statement as a teacher many years ago and still embrace it as a speaker and educator. My question is which do you do more of Training or Educating? They are not the same, right? Training focuses on instruction, preparation, schooling, etc. Education focuses on learning, tutoring, coaching, a process by which a…

How can you improve your ethics training in 2016?

Here’s a check list to help you evaluate how your ethics training has gone this year to help you plan your ethics training and values based leadership development in 2016. Consider these 10 questions as part of your annual ethics training evaluation. 1. Is there ethics training for employees on all levels? 2. How is…

Fraud, power, deceit, Oh my!

  I went to see the new movie, The Big Short, this weekend and what a profound movie! This movie focuses on the background to the housing bubble based on subprime mortgages and who knew what, when, why and what these men did about it.Ethics was lacking! Some of the great comments in this movie…