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:
Category: Ethical Leader
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…
Top 10 Posts 2014: Changing Ethical Leadership Expectations
By Linda Fisher Thornton There were 52 Leading in Context blog posts published in 2014, and the ones isted below are the 10 that were most popular with readers. They are focused on learning proactive ethical leadership and building a high-trust culture. If I had to describe the theme of these posts it might be "learning how to keep up with changes in ethical leadership expectations." As you review these reader favorites, think about how you will adapt to changing ethical leadership expectations in 2015.
Leaders, Keep Your Sense of Wonder
By Linda Fisher Thornton This holiday season I wish you wonder - the joyful, expectant mindset that comes with not knowing how things will turn out, but thinking they're going to be good. I don't mean the ordinary type of wonder, such as wondering what you'll have for dinner. I'm talking about the magical kind of wonder. This type of wonder refreshes our hopefulness, and keeps us open-minded and expectant. It is positive and exciting. What happens when we lead with a sense of wonder?
12 Gifts of Leadership (Will You Give Them This Year?)
By Linda Fisher Thornton How do we lead when we want to bring out the best in people? These 12 Gifts of Leadership are on the wish lists of employees around the world. They aren't expensive. They don't require dealing with the hustle…
Read More 12 Gifts of Leadership (Will You Give Them This Year?)
9 Questions for Ethical Leaders in The New Year
By Linda Fisher Thornton As we head into the New Year, use these questions to plan how you will transform your leadership, your workplace and your world.
Ethical Leadership 2015: Graphics That Tell the Story
By Linda Fisher Thornton The graphics at the links below tell the story of the future of responsible leadership. They describe the kind of leadership that is respectful, caring and ethically aware. This is the positive leadership that engages employees in meaningful work and helps builds an ethical culture. My hope is that you will share this story with your leadership team and plan now for the future, using the questions that follow.
10 Things Trustworthy Leaders Know…
By Linda Fisher Thornton This week the Alliance of Trustworthy Business Experts from Trust Across America-Trust Around the World is holding a social media awareness campaign called #Trustgiving2014, In support of that campaign, I am featuring 10 posts about what it means to be a trustworthy leader. They include individual actions and organizational commitments that build trust. I hope you enjoy them!
Want To Thrive in Leadership Future? Tether Yourself To Values
By Linda Fisher Thornton It would be "easy [...] for organizations and leaders to become frozen by the magnitude of the changes under way" (McKinsey & Co., Management Intuition For the Next 50 Years). Success in future leadership requires being nimble and adaptive, flexing with constant change, and being ready for anything. How should we stay grounded as we avoid crises and manage our way through a maze of increasing expectations?
Global Sentiment About Taking Responsibility
By Linda Fisher Thornton A clearer picture of global ethics is coming into view. In this clearer picture, we know what's important and see how far our responsibilities extend into the global community. We understand that business leadership includes responsibility for much more than just making a profit and obeying the law. Ethical leaders have begun to realize how connected our global community is. Customers for our products may live in 50 or more countries. Product parts may be made in multiple countries, each with different laws and regulations.
What is Integrity? Beyond “I’ll Know It When I See It”
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.
3 Factors That Numb Ethics Efforts (And 3 That Energize Them)
By Linda Fisher Thornton To build a strong ethical culture, leaders should take a positive, preventive approach to ethics. That would include communicating clear ethical values and expectations and quickly stopping any unethical behavior. But those things are not enough by themselves. There are cultural factors that either enable our prevention efforts or disable them.
Focusing on Profits? Watch Out For the “Blinder” Effect
By Linda Fisher Thornton We need profits to exchange goods and services, pay bills and grow our businesses. So what's the problem with it? The problem is that profitability cannot become our defining business goal, and it cannot replace values as the central beacon of our decision-making.
Leading in Context 