By Linda Fisher Thornton We need to get leadership right because so much depends on it. Many global factors are driving changes in ethical leadership expectations, and in high-stakes times, how we handle ethical leadership development can make or break our success. This week I've created a graphic that brings the expectations and priorities into clearer focus.
Category: Ethical Decision Making
When Position Power and Ethics Collide
By Linda Fisher Thornton Our responsibilities as a citizen, worker, leader, family member, and friend require us to choose ethics over loyalty. Yet, when we do, it can surprise people. Maybe that's because it is not the easiest path to take. Here's a story about a situation I faced very early in my career, when I was in my 20s.
It’s Time For Ethically Adaptive Leadership
By Linda Fisher Thornton Agility and adaptability are mantras for leaders during this time of global unrest and catastrophic change. Each day brings new challenges that consume our time and require us to grow into higher levels of ethical awareness to avoid missteps and miscalculations. As we try to find stable footing in unstable times, ethical agility will be a factor in our success.
Ethical Awareness is a Moving Target
By Linda Fisher Thornton How well is your organization navigating the ethical pitfalls of the working world? If you're finding it to be a major challenge right now, you're not alone. Why is it so hard to navigate ethical minefields now? There is currently a "toxic soup" of factors at play...
Unethical Leadership: Beliefs of Convenience
By Linda Fisher Thornton Sometimes leaders believe things that aren't true because they haven't taken time to investigate the truth. In other cases, they may have trusted someone who has misled them. But there's an even more problematic reason some leaders may ignore the truth - claiming to believe the falsehood may benefit them in a tangible way.
Top Post Series of 2020: Leading in Context Blog
By Linda Fisher Thornton The Top Post Series for last year on the Leading in Context Blog reflected the ethical challenges of decision-making during COVID-19. Truth and Misinformation: How To Spot False Narratives This series addressed the fine points of how to tell the difference between a false narrative and a message that is true. Here's a highlight quote from each post in the series that provides an overview.
Pandemic Leadership: 3 Questions To Ask in the New Year
By Linda Fisher Thornton Each year I raise questions that help leaders stay current as ethical expectations change. Here are three new questions to ponder as we head into a New Year. They are important questions about our ethical intentions, action and impact that will help guide our choices in the coming year.
Perspectives on a Future With COVID-19
By Linda Fisher Thornton Due to the uncertainty and constant change we're experiencing during the pandemic, every organization should be considering how to adapt to multiple COVID-19 scenarios. Global futurists have already provided us with a variety of possible global scenarios to use in our planning.
Ethics is Actionable
Some people think about ethics as a theoretical concept that lives in procedures and regulations, but they're missing the point. Ethics is not just an esoteric concept. It's an actionable responsibility.
Clarify, Don’t Oversimplify
Many of us are on a quest to simplify our lives, reduce our clutter and improve our focus. This is a positive step that can improve our lives, but it doesn't work at all when applied to our decision making.
Ethics is Acting Beyond Self-Interest
By Linda Fisher Thornton Ethics is fundamentally about acting beyond our own self-interests. Can we be ethical without considering others and acting in ways that benefit them?
Beliefs Are Complicated
By Linda Fisher Thornton Part 1 in the Truth and Misinformation: How to Spot False Narratives series explored truth and narrative, and Part 2 examined how data and motives relate to the truth. Part 3 addressed the importance of media literacy. In Part 4, we take a deeper look at truth and belief.
Leadership: Evaluating Ethical Awareness
By Linda Fisher Thornton Ethical awareness may have been considered private in the past, but it has become easier to observe in a society that is always socially connected. Since ethical reputation is a defining element in individual and organizational success, it is time that we consider ethical awareness as a key element of experience when selecting leaders for our businesses, community organizations, governments, and nations.
17 Leadership Paradoxes
COVID-19 has brought us many challenges including balancing economic and human factors, moving quickly but taking time to show compassion and so on. This Center for Creative Leadership video succinctly introduces 6 paradoxes in the essential leadership skills required in a post-COVID world.
5 Ways to Avoid Opinions That Lack Insight and Understanding
By Linda Fisher Thornton Lately we've been seeing too much content that is not grounded in understanding. Some of it is intentionally misleading and some of it is well-intentioned but misinformed.
Leading in Context 