By Linda Fisher Thornton During the recent 2014 NeuroLeadership Summit, Jamil Zaki (an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Stanford) talked about an interesting experiment the Stanford Neuroscience Lab did. The team took a large number of Fortune 100 statements of company values and generated a word cloud from them to see which word would appear most often. Which word was it? Integrity was the most frequently used word. This experiment reveals a general agreement that integrity is important, but what exactly does it mean? People may understand it in very different ways.
Category: Complexity
5 Ways to Talk About Ethics (Without Being “Blah Blah Boring”)
By Linda Fisher Thornton We owe it to our employees to make ethics real. People learning ethics are often given "blah blah boring" material (and then expected to remember and apply it). I believe that this is not just a mistake, it's a crime! Why? Because ethics is anything but boring. Ethics is really interesting stuff when you dive into its complexities. Today I'm sharing 5 ways to talk about ethics without being "blah blah boring." Feel free to use these as conversation starters with your team, and let me know if they make your conversations more meaningful.
7 Definitions of “Good” (Why We Disagree About Ethics)
By Linda Fisher Thornton Why is it so difficult to agree on the right thing to do? One of the reasons we may not agree is that each of us may be using a different definition of what is "good." Here are 7 different interpretations of what is ethically good, based on the framework in 7 Lenses: Learning the Principles and Practices of Ethical Leadership (2013). Which ones are you using in your leadership?
Leading For Ethics Future? (Or Ethics Past?)
By Linda Fisher Thornton We are expected to make ethical decisions in a rapidly changing global society, where there is increasing awareness of what "ethical" means. The question of where ethics is headed has been the focus of my research over the last four years. I have learned that to be considered ethical, we must consider more constituents, honor more dimensions of ethics, and lead ethically through higher levels of complexity. How do we prepare for that? We reach higher and think longer-term.
Critical Roles of the (Ethical) CEO
By Linda Fisher Thornton There have been many stories about unethical CEOs in the news, but not as many about the good ones. That's a shame, because the ethical CEO is a positive powerhouse - devoted to serving employees, customers, and communities. I thought it would be helpful to describe some of the critical functions of the ethical CEO that enable organizational success. Intentionally investing in these roles creates the kind of workplaces that attract top employees and devoted customers.
5 Reasons Ethical Culture Doesn’t Just Happen
By Linda Fisher Thornton Don't assume that an ethical culture will just happen in your workplace. Even if you are a good leader, ethical culture is a delicate thing, requiring intentional positive leadership and daily tending. It requires more than good leadership, more than trust building, and more than good hiring. Why does building an ethical culture require so much more than good leadership? Ethical culture is a system of systems, and just putting in good leadership, trust-building and good hiring doesn't make it healthy.
13 (Culture-Numbing) Side Effects of Toxic Leadership
By Linda Fisher Thornton
A reader commented on the post Can A Toxic Leader Be Ethical? Yes and No requesting more information about the organizational side-effects of toxic leadership. If you have ever worked for a toxic leader (myself included) you have already experienced the powerful negative side effects first-hand.
When people are treated as "less than human," "less than capable" or as "pawns in a game" some extremely negative things happen in the organization that derail its success. Attempts to control what people do and say makes them feel inadequate and unappreciated. Withholding information to preserve power creates an environment of suspicion.
Is Your Leadership Net Positive?
By Linda Fisher Thornton
Generating an intentional positive ethical impact is the successful ethical leadership of the future, and it's already here. The Forum For the Future describes it as net positive leadership - making a positive contribution to society and leaving things better than we found them.
10 Things Trustworthy Leaders Do
By Linda Fisher Thornton
Trustworthy leaders know how to create a workplace where everyone is valued, where leadership is sincere and respectful, and where great work can get done. How do they do it? What is it in particular that trustworthy leaders do?
10 Forces Fueling the Values-Based Leadership Movement
By Linda Fisher Thornton
I believe that values-based leadership is gaining momentum. Recently I was asked to explain why I think so, and I thought I would share my answer in today's blog post.
Values-based leadership is gaining momentum, and it's fueled by a convergence of positive trends.
Here are a number of trends that I see that are working together to fuel the movement toward leading with positive values. They are coming from various directions and perspectives, all leading toward positive, proactive values-based leadership.
Building Trust: What to Weed Out
By Linda Fisher Thornton
I was weeding in the garden this week, and I discovered two new weeds that were taller than I was. I started thinking about how quickly things can get away from us, in the garden and in our organizations. There are things we must do to build a high trust workplace. But there are equally important things that we must prevent or weed out for trust to flourish.
Ethics Isn’t Finite: It’s Evolving
By Linda Fisher Thornton
As we strive to build ethical organizations, we must remember that our target is moving. As the world changes, ethical expectations change. It would be easier to develop ethical leaders and build ethical organizations if ethics were a fixed destination. A point on the map. A line in the sand. But it's just not that simple.
Ethical expectations are evolving.
The Trouble With Oversimplified Conversations
By Linda Fisher Thornton
Sometimes in the rush to make a quick leadership decision, we end up "dumbing down" an issue to speed up the process.
"Dumbing down" an issue may make the decision easier to make, but it may also lead us to make choices without considering current information, trends or context. Decisions made that way can cause problems.
Can a Toxic Leader Be Ethical? Yes and No.
"Can someone who uses toxic leadership still be an ethical leader?"The answer to this important question is "yes and no."
5 Leadership Development Priorities
By Linda Fisher Thornton
The recent post "It's Not About Us" was the most popular post of all time on the Leading in Context Blog. It described how our understanding of leadership has moved beyond a focus on the leader to a focus on creating shared value for others.
Leading in Context 