Do leaders understand that people listen with their eyes?

It is becoming increasingly important that leaders need be more proactive in their approach to the ethical considerations of their roles, power and influence on their people and respective organizations.

Here are few questions to help, at least, start ethical reflections on leadership and to be used as a springboard for more in depth discussions and training on ethics in  of leadership.

1. What are specific ethical behaviors that are required of all leaders?

• How is this proactively communicated? How often?
• Is this part of the ongoing leadership development training?

2. What are the consequences if they don’t behave ethically?

• Are these explained prior to any unethical behavior happening, so that one could say that “they didn’t know?”
• Are the consequences administered immediately? If not, why not?
• How are these situations and consequences communicated to the organization?

3. What are the situations that people encounter that could lead them into grey areas?

• How are you identifying these situations? Who are you asking?
• Have you identified a proactive approach to create a preventive measure to limit these types of situations from happening?

4. How should grey areas be handled?

• Who handles this process, i.e. ethics officer, ombudsman, ethics committee, or ??
• How is this process communicated to the organization?

5. How should people make decisions when they encounter difficult situations?

• Are your people trained in ethical decision making?
• How is this reinforced?
• Is there a “process” that has been communicated to be followed when a difficult situation arises?
• Who or what has the final authority over the decision making process?

6. Where might leaders fall into grey areas while implementing our goals and values?

• Grey areas are the testing ground for one’s values.
• Grey areas are not usually a right vs. wrong scenario, but a right vs. right scenario. So how are the leaders trained to deal with this issue?

7. What are the areas that are non-negotiable?

• Leaders need to express what is negotiable, what is not negotiable and why BEFORE something happens.

8. What are the areas of acceptability?

• Leaders need to be clear what is acceptable, what is not acceptable and why in dealing with protocols, attitudes, approaches, and processes.

9. 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?

• How often is your code of ethics reviewed, updated, etc?
• To clarify is integral to being transparent. So what vehicles are used to make transparency a norm?

10. How can we more effectively recruit, recognize and retain ethical leaders?

• What pre-hiring resources, tools, etc. are there to help “choose right” the first time?
• When people feel like they belong and receive recognition, you get cooperation, loyalty, trust and retention.

Are these included in your ethics and leadership training?