By Linda Fisher Thornton Last week I blogged about 40 Ethical Culture Gaps to Avoid. This week, I'm sharing a 'What To Do" list of 40 Ways to Build an Ethical Culture. This list includes many ways to incorporate ethical values into daily organizational leadership. Each one of these 40 Ways to Build an Ethical Culture can improve an organization. Leaders paying attention to all of these factors will reap rewards that include improved employee engagement, better financial performance, increased productivity and job satisfaction, improved competitive position and more. Use this "ethical to do list" to assess your culture. Put a check mark beside the positive ethical actions that you have observed in your organization. Any that you leave unchecked are opportunities for improvement.
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40 Ethical Culture Gaps To Avoid
By Linda Fisher Thornton Leaders set the tone for how ethical values are applied. They mentor those they lead, and serve as positive role models. It is not enough, though. for them to talk about ethical values and model what they look like in action. They must also fiercely protect the ethics of their organizations. They are the caretakers of ethical culture.
12 Trends Shaping the (Responsible, Human) Future of Learning
By Linda Fisher Thornton Much of our success in a rapidly changing world will come from our ability to learn our way through difficult situations that have no clear solutions. Since we can't use a scripted response for unexpected situations, we need to help people learn how to handle complexity and information overload and still make ethical choices. This graphic pulls together 12 important trends in learning that will be important to our success in the future. I believe that the transition from a focus on content to a focus on learner success in the real world is already underway. It transcends settings, being equally important in classrooms and corporate training rooms.
What is Authentic Leadership?
How Do We Define Authenticity in Leadership? Most people would agree that authentic leadership is a good thing. But what does it mean? What qualities do authentic leaders possess that set them apart from other leaders?
There Are No Quick Fixes For Ethics
By Linda Fisher Thornton I have been thinking about how lightly some leaders take the subject of ethics. Some ignore ethical issues altogether or think ethical issues are unimportant compared to money concerns. It’s a risky choice to take ethics lightly. Why? There are no “ethics transplants” for people who have made bad ethical decisions. We are responsible for our choices. If an ethics transplant did exist and we could easily start over, imagine how long the waiting list would be for that procedure! Since there is no quick fix for failed ethics, we need to protect our ethical reputations carefully, and choose to stay on an ethical path. In our global society, where almost anything can be obtained for a price, you can’t buy ethics.
5 Ways To Bolster Your Organization’s Ethical Immune System
By Linda Fisher Thornton I was thinking about organizational culture recently, and noticed an interesting parallel. Eating healthy foods, exercising and getting enough sleep all boost our individual immune systems. What actions can we take to boost our ethical immune systems? And how could doing that help us create more ethical organizations? Building a healthy ethical culture where people take steps to protect ethics and reputation takes intentional effort. It requires regular attention, similar to the way we must eat healthy foods and exercise daily to maintain our individual health.
Leaders: Is Respect Enough?
By Linda Fisher Thornton Respectful behavior makes it possible for people to work together successfully. But when we ask the teams we lead to be respectful, I wonder if we're aiming too low. Shouldn't we be asking for more?
11 Paths To Ethical Leadership Competence
By Linda Fisher Thornton Developing competent ethical leaders is a huge challenge. Why is it so difficult? We live in a globally-connected society, and are expected to be globally-aware. We are dealing with catastrophic change and uncertainty. We fill roles in many different settings including in our organizations, industries and communities. Competence in all of these areas is not simple to achieve.
Trust is a Relationship (Not a Commodity)
By Linda Fisher Thornton Waiting For Trust to Be Earned I sometimes hear leaders say that they think "trust is earned" and that we should not trust others until they have earned our trust through their behavior and choices. I see several big problems with this way of thinking about trust.
Why Do People Lead?
By Linda Fisher Thornton Have you ever thought about why people lead? If you could look into the window of their motivations, what would you discover? I have noticed that people want to be in positions of leadership for very different reasons. Some of those…
7 Questions For Ethical Culture Building
By Linda Fisher Thornton We create organizational culture through strategic choices and daily actions. If we imagine building our culture as creating an elaborate painting, what will we depict on the canvas? Will we work together to carefully paint a background theme of positive values, or will we just give everyone brushes and "see where it goes?"
It’s All About The Trust
By Linda Fisher Thornton Monday I received the wonderful news that I was in the Trust Across America-Trust Around the World 2015 Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trust. I consider this a great honor because trust is critical to successful business. Trust improves communication, culture, performance, engagement and results. Today I'm sharing some inspiring quotes from recent trust reports about why "it's all about the trust" - why trust has such broad importance and impact in work relationships and organizations:
Imagining The Future Of Leadership
By Linda Fisher Thornton Learning At 2,400 Tweets Per Hour I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to co-host the live #LeadWithGiants Tweetchat with @DanVForbes on January 19, 2015. The topic was "The Future of Leadership," and the live chat trended…
Prepare Now For The Future of Leadership
By Linda Fisher Thornton Leading with positive values and demonstrating care are becoming expected ways of doing business. Leading now is not as much about leaders as it is about bringing out the best in those they lead and serve.
Leader Development 2015: Human Growth Required
By Linda Fisher Thornton When we want to prepare leaders for success in the trenches of business leadership, we don't get very far by providing a cushy "spa-like experience." We can easily focus too much on creating "events" for leader education and…
Leading in Context 