By Linda Fisher Thornton When you make a commitment to ethical values and ethical choices, boundaries and walls only indicate the boundaries of new places to apply those ethical values and choices. Beyond them, ethical values matter just as much…
Category: Ethical Thinking
Grey Areas: Our Choices Define Us (Part 2)
By Linda Fisher Thornton This post is an updated version of a reader favorite. There Will Always Be Grey Areas There will always be ethical grey areas. We see plenty of information about lying, cheating, stealing and other obvious ethical violations. It is more difficult to know what to do when we encounter behaviors that fall into ethical grey areas, particularly in term of relationships with other people. Grey areas are difficult for anyone to handle but leaders bear the additional weight of needing to set the tone for the organization. Each decision impacts the ethics of the organization.
What is Meaningful Leadership? (Part 5)
By Linda Fisher Thornton What is Meaningful Leadership? Making a Difference By Building a Better Society For the Future In Part 1 of this series we looked at how leaders generate meaningful environments where others can thrive. In Part 2 we explored a leader's own quest for authenticity. In Part 3 we looked at the role of powerful conversations and a focus on relational ROI. In Part 4, we examined how meaningful leadership requires truth-seeking based on ethical values. In Part 5 we'll take a look at how meaningful leadership makes a difference by building a better society for the future. Meaningful leadership sees the world in terms of building a better future together. The important focus on together requires not drawing lines around "better" or "worse" people or creating "in" and "out" groups.
The Future of Education: Ethical Literacy For Handling Global Complexity
By Linda Fisher Thornton We are not preparing students for success in the world where they will have to live and work. Some of the ways we currently think about "teaching" need to be scrapped and replaced. It will be increasingly important that teachers and other learning guides dig into complexity in order to help prepare students who need to handle increasing complexity in their lives and work. A focus on "knowing" must be replaced with a focus on "how to think, problem solve and successfully navigate global complexity using ethical values."
What is Ethics?
By Linda Fisher Thornton We are globally connected and becoming more aware of the complexity of our connections. We need a robust understanding of ethics - what it means, what it requires of us, and what we need to know and do to be ethical. As we learn about ethics, we need to understand it in a multidimensional way. One-dimensional definitions lead us down a single path and prevent us from seeing our broad responsibilities as citizens and leaders. Here is a quick tour of ways to think about ethics.
Ethical Leadership: Complexity, Context and Adaptation
By Linda Fisher Thornton Ethical leadership requires growth, a willingness to acknowledge complexity and an understanding of the broader context in which we lead. Use these resources to improve your ethical awareness, learn about how the leadership context is evolving and check for learning blind spots.
What Happens When You Ignore Complexity?
By Linda Fisher Thornton Ignoring complexity reduces the number of variables considered in a decision. That may seem convenient (see last week's post) but it also removes the nuanced thinking that is necessary for ethical decision making. With all the information available in a socially connected world, it is easy to fall victim to the quick oversimplified understanding of issues. This "quick glance" way of gathering information doesn't reveal the breadth and depth of what's really going on.
Leaders: What’s Missing in Convenient Actions? – Values
By Linda Fisher Thornton With all the inappropriate behavior in the news, I thought it would be a good time to explore the difference between actions that are CONVENIENT and those that are APPROPRIATE. Instead of saying "I'll know appropriate when I see it" it seems necessary to break it down and articulate the difference clearly. So here goes...
Leaders: Can You Control Ethics?
By Linda Fisher Thornton The question for today is "Can we control ethics?" Leaders have tried to control ethics with compliance-based systems (based on rules and penalties) but that does not tend to inspire people to ethical action. Leaders have tried to control ethics by running a tight ship, closely managing workers, but that does not bring out the best in people and may lead to workers not caring about protecting the company's reputation.
Trust: The Force That Drives Results
By Linda Fisher Thornton
When leaders trust and are trustworthy, this brings out their best and fuels a virtuous cycle that brings out the best in others and releases the potential of the organization for great performance.
Ethical Leaders Are Trustworthy and They Choose to Trust Others
When we choose to trust, we access a higher level of capacity in ourselves and our organizations. When we are consistently trustworthy, people know they can count on us to support their success.
How Does Trust Drive Results?
Once thought by business leaders to be "soft," trust is now proven to be a "results-changer." Here is a sampling of the many ways trust transforms organizations:
Ethical Leaders Don’t Put the Brakes on Learning
By Linda Fisher Thornton
When leaders stop learning, they generate friction. Professionals who work with a leader who has "put the brakes on learning" are likely to experience conflict and dissatisfaction. A leader's failure to learn starts a chain reaction that harms individuals and teams.
29 Flawed Assumptions About Leadership
By Linda Fisher Thornton
I was pruning shrubs this week and it occurred to me that we have many mistaken assumptions about leadership that can lead us to make bad choices. Those flawed assumptions are like the deadwood we prune away from our plants in the spring.
...If we don't prune regularly, the deadwood affects our growth and success.
22 Resources For Developing Ethical Thinking
By Linda Fisher Thornton
This week I'm sharing a collection of hand-picked resources that will help you upgrade your thinking. With all of the ethical messes in the news recently, this seems to be the right time to help you focus on PREVENTION as applied to thinking. It's our thinking, after all, that determines what we decide to do under pressure.
Seeing The Nuances Of Ethical Leadership (A Developmental Model)
By Linda Fisher Thornton
Leadership is not a position or a task. It is a complex array of roles, relationships and processes, and yet we use one term, "leadership," to talk about it. And in using that term, we often mean different things. What Then is Leadership?
Fear is a Poor Advisor (Moving Us Away From Ethical Thinking To Protect Us)
By Linda Fisher Thornton
When we make decisions based on FEAR, our brains switch on the lower-level processor - which makes decisions based on a FIGHT-OR-FLIGHT response. The decision-making power of that part of our brain is extremely limited, turning our thoughts to lower level responses like "RUN!" or "HIT THEM FIRST." Obviously, ethical decisions must be based on better thinking than "RUN" and "HIT THEM FIRST."
Our fear response takes us into PROTECT and DEFEND mode, and that mode causes us to shelter in place, retrench and protect our own interests. It drastically restricts the breadth of our thinking and doesn't give much energy to our impact - what our choices will do to others.
Leading in Context 