I had a 3 hour afternoon ethical leadership program booked for a company in New York, so I arrive early in the day to meet, greet and spend time on a tour of the corporate headquarters. I met with a middle level manager who was my contact and she took me for a tour of, what I would call, an employee work and conference center.
As I looked around the room I must have seen 20-30 “Successories” posters. You know the kind. They read, “Persistence is..” Excellence is……..” etc. So I asked this mid level manager , “So what do you think about all these posters?” She immediately responded, ”It’s all crap. C-suite doesn’t believe these, They just want us to read them.”
That perception actually set the tone for my program that afternoon, as C suite down to mid level management were supposed to participate in my session, and guess what group didn’t show??
I walked into an “us and them” corporate mess! What the C suite was saying to their people is” You need this, we don’t.” The lack of morale, productivity, collaboration, team work, etc. ,were quite evident in my interactive session. I was hamstrung before I even started, didn’t know it, on the spot, adjusted my session and worked out well considering.
My contact told me all the key leaders were going to participate because ethical leadership was a key focus for all of the corporate staff and they didn’t show!
I think their employees got the message alright!
fbucaro
Like you, business ethics and ethical leadership expert, Frank Bucaro has seen the challenges and problems of corporate leadership, particularly over the past few years in regards to poor decision-making, SEC violations, and record breaking financial settlements in a number of different industries.
With over two decades of executive training, speaking, writing and with real life experiences, his view and approach to ethics in the workplace is uniquely different. He emphasizes that ethics is a moment-to-moment choice and has little to do with position, titles, personalities or education. Ethics is everybody’s responsibility from the top down.
His goal is to help organizations to:
a. Strengthen their ethics training initiatives in order to significantly decrease the odds of an ethical/compliance violation.
b. Energize, train and motivate employees to understand the value of consistent “high road” behavior as a business advantage.
c. Support individuals and thereby the organization by contributing to its success by quality, ongoing values based leadership development.
Frank is known for his very practical, slightly irreverent, yet somewhat humorous approach to ethics and leadership development. His conversational style and real life stories connect with his audience in a personal, intense and practical level.
Companies such as Bayer Healthcare, BP, ReMax International, EnMax Energy, Danone, etc. have partnered with Frank when they want to proactively stress the message, tools, insights and practical applications that good ethics IS good for business!
