By Linda Fisher Thornton As a leadup to a keynote I'm doing for the Michigan Association of School Boards, I was invited to submit a feature article for their fall issue of the MASB LeaderBoard. In the article, "Meeting the Challenge of Ethical Decision Making," I write about how since the start of the pandemic, decision making has become more complex and requires much more intentional decision making.
Tag: leadership and management
Top Post Series of 2021: 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 repairing damaged trust in organizations. It featured three areas of managing trust that are most often lacking in organizations. Use these posts to assess your organization's level of trust and determine how to make needed repairs.
Setting Stretch Goals? Build in Ethics
By Linda Fisher Thornton Employers using stretch goals to motivate employees to higher levels of performance need to take note of the ethical risk. If the push for higher performance doesn't come with an emphasis on ethical behavior, it may be encouraging cheating.
Navigating Paradox: Shift Your Perspective
By Linda Fisher Thornton What is a Paradox? "A paradox is a statement that contradicts itself, or that must be both true and untrue at the same time." --Literaryterms.net. Just like the many facets of a cut gem, there are multiple dimensions to issues and problems. Each facet reflects one particular element of the issue. When we encounter a paradox, we need to step back to get a broader view of the various facets.
Consumer Trends: 5 Things Brands Should Know
We've seen many articles about ethical consumerism, conscious capitalism and the responsible consumer. The bottom line is that consumers continue to expect much more from brands than an honest and perfectly executed transaction. This week, I share a high level view of 5 key things brands should know to be successful in reaching responsible consumers.
10 Quotes To Inspire Leaders in Divisive Times
There were many things that went right in the past year, despite the omnipresent bad news. Here is a collection of inspiring quotes to keep us moving forward and ready to face the challenges ahead.
The Complexity of Ethical Thinking and Decision Making (Part 3)
Embracing Complexity is Part of Leadership
Complexity has become a way of life. To make ethical decisions, we must embrace it and incorporate it into our thinking process. That means digging in to issues until we understand their multiple dimensions, connections and contradictions. It means being intentional about decision making and avoiding making snap judgments.
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."
There Are No Quick Fixes For Ethics
By Linda Fisher Thornton
I have been thinking about how lightly some leaders take the subject of ethics. Some ignore ethical issues altogether or think ethical issues are unimportant compared to money concerns. It’s a risky choice to take ethics lightly. Why? There are no “ethics transplants” for people who have made bad ethical decisions.
We are responsible for our choices. If an ethics transplant did exist and we could easily start over, imagine how long the waiting list would be for that procedure! Since there is no quick fix for failed ethics, we need to protect our ethical reputations carefully, and choose to stay on an ethical path.
In our global society, where almost anything can be obtained for a price, you can’t buy ethics.
11 Paths To Ethical Leadership Competence
By Linda Fisher Thornton
Developing competent ethical leaders is a huge challenge. Why is it so difficult? We live in a globally-connected society, and are expected to be globally-aware. We are dealing with catastrophic change and uncertainty. We fill roles in many different settings including in our organizations, industries and communities. Competence in all of these areas is not simple to achieve.
100 Trends to Watch For 2013
By Linda Fisher Thornton 100 Trends to Watch For 2013 As we head into 2013, the trend reports at the links below will give you a "business leader's preview" of what to expect in sectors that range from consumer trends,…
Failure is Part of Innovation
By Linda Fisher Thornton
To Innovate, Rethink the Blueprint
If we just try to make something better using the design blueprint that we've always used, it is very difficult to innovate. Using the blueprint we have used in the past ties us to the assumptions and limitations of those blueprints.
Collaborative Leadership in a Global Society
What is Collaborative Leadership?
What does collaborative leadership look like in a global society?
At the societal level it's taking the best that all of us know and can do and putting it together in ways that help everyone.
What is Creativity?
What is Creativity?
In the leadership development world, creativity is getting a great deal of attention now. But what is it? Can you learn it? Is it a skill? How do we lead in ways that encourage it? This post begins to answer those important leadership questions.
When we explore the question "What is creativity?" from a thinking and learning point of view, an open and active mind is clearly required - one that can see new possibilities. But is there more to it than that? This post explores the variables that make up what we think of as "creativity."
Precautionary Principle: Profiting With Care
What is the Precautionary Principle?
Simply stated, the Precautionary Principle asks us to err on the side of caution. Following the Precautionary Principle as business leaders, for example, we would avoid using product ingredients that may be harmful in addition to avoiding those that we know are harmful. We would do more than simply follow the law - we would make the decision that would be in the best long-term interests of our customers and other stakeholders.
Leading in Context 