How would you know if your leaders are ethical?

Now is the time to step back and take a good hard look your ethical leadership development and examine what needs to be done differently, creatively and substantively before 2015 gets away from us?
The test of the true ethical leader may lie in the answers to these questions.
1. What are specific ethical behaviors that are required of all leaders?
• Who or what established this list and why?
• How are they communicated? Consistently?

2. What are the “prices to pay” if they don’t behave ethically?
• Are the consequences in direct proportion to the behavior?
• How immediate is the consequence?
• Does this apply to everybody, i.e. Board of Directors, Senior Execs, etc.?

3. What are the situations that people encounter that could lead them into gray areas?
• Ethics can only be proactive. Once identified, how proactive is your ethics training to prepare for these “gray areas?”

4. How should gray areas be handled?
• What techniques, tools, resources are provided to help make the proper moral decision?
5. How should people make decisions when they encounter difficult situations?
• Based on what? What’s best for all concerned, amount of profit, what one can get away with or ??

6. What are the areas where leaders will not tolerate compromising values?
• Do they know what’s acceptable/what’s not acceptable? What’s negotiable/what’s not negotiable? If not, why not??

7. Where do we need to clarify our mission and values, to make it clear that we are an ethical organization, and ethics are not negotiable?
• Are your mission/values statements dated, i.e. over 3 years old?
• Is your code of ethics stated positively or negatively?

8. How can we more effectively recruit, recognize and retain ethical leaders?
• Are a person’s values considered in the hiring process and performance reviews?
• How consistent, integral and relevant is your values based leadership development program?
If you have a problem answering any of these questions, maybe they should topics for a more in depth values based leadership development program?