By Linda Fisher Thornton As we progress on the learning journey toward positive leadership, some of the qualities we seek seem to be paradoxical. For example, as leaders we need to be CRYSTAL CLEAR in outwardly communicating what we expect and also OPEN to hearing input from others that might change our plans. We need to be FULLY PRESENT in this moment, and still able to THINK AHEAD to prepare for the future.
Tag: ethical
10 Ways The Leadership Relationship is Changing (Part 1)
By Linda Fisher Thornton A convergence of positive trends is changing leadership expectations, and today I want to explore how those trends are changing the leadership relationship.
How Does Struggle Shape Us as Leaders?
By Linda Fisher Thornton On the journey to ethical leadership, we all struggle. We struggle to make ethical choices when there are multiple stakeholders to consider. We struggle to balance competing interests, high expectations, information overload and overbooked schedules. We struggle to be at our best in difficult circumstances.
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:
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?)
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.
5 Powerful Trends in Ethical Consumerism
By Linda Fisher Thornton If you think your customers are separate from your business, you are behind the times. Customers are becoming part of the fabric of organizations in ways that meet their very specific needs. This week I describe 5 powerful trends that are changing the rules of business, and require a heightened ethical awareness.
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!
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.
Ethics is Contagious
By Linda Fisher Thornton I must admit that I can't take the credit for coming up with the catchy title of this post. A group of attendees at a recent keynote I delivered came up with it as a way to describe what they had learned. And it makes perfect sense. Ethics is catching, and leaders set the tone for the ethics of the organization. What would happen if everyone in the organization followed our lead? Would the organization be more or less ethical? What kind of ethics are people catching as they work in our organization?
It’s Not About Us
By Linda Fisher Thornton You may have noticed that people's expectations of us as leaders have increased exponentially. Consumers are choosing companies that care about their well-being. Employees are choosing companies that do meaningful work and give back to the community. To survive in this new land where ethics is key to success, we must confront the situation with a clear realization that it is not all about us. As leaders, we are not the center of the universe.
In Conversation About Ethics
By Linda Fisher Thornton This week Realizing Leadership: Everyday Leaders Changing Our World published a cover story interview with Laurie Wilhelm. We talked about what ethical leadership really means, how ethics and trust are related, and how leaders can learn to be more ethical from wherever they are.
How Do We Achieve Corporate Integrity?
By Linda Fisher Thornton In the quest for corporate integrity, we must do a number of things well. We need to have clear expectations for what ethical leadership looks like in our organization; we need a congruent system for managing ethics that sends a consistent message; and we need a clear message about what taking responsibility for ethics really means to us. There is an ethics trend away from a "push" mentality when it comes to learning about ethics (making people do it) to a "pull" mentality (making it positive so that people will want to do it). Taking on that "pull mentality" involves creating a positive ethical environment:
10 Ethical Leadership Questions For the New Year
By Linda Fisher Thornton Ethical leadership is evolving, and expectations are increasing. Will we be ready? As we go into the New Year, here are some questions we should be considering:
What Ethical Leaders Believe
By Linda Fisher Thornton ChangeThis.com is an 800ceoread project for "spreading good ideas and changing business thinking for the better." I am honored that today they published my Manifesto about ethical thinking. This Manifesto begins with an Aristotle quote "We are what we repeatedly do" and then asks us to think hard about what we repeatedly do. "Is our thinking on autopilot?" "Is that autopilot programmed to make ethical decisions?"
Leading in Context 