Ethical Leadership

Saint Paul SCORE

August 9, 2011

“Business ethics is so…negative.”

Empower others to improve the world

Ethical Leaders in ActionLeadership Development Model

Leading

Self

Leading

Others

Leading

in Context

Learning across contexts

Among my teachers…

Thinking about stakeholders

Investors

Employees

Vendors Customers

Partners

Competitors

Environment Communities

Arms-Length

Contractual

Fiduciary

Relationships

may be

harder to

graph

than to

improve!

A More Realistic View of Stakeholder Diagrams

The Old Employment Model:“Master-Slave”

Minimally constrained by human rights.

Employment at Will is a logical evolution from this view.

Eugene Genovese’s economic conclusion: slavery didn’t pay!

(The Political Economy of Slavery: Studies in the Economy

and the Society of the Slave South, 1965).

Not all

slavery

structures

were/are

the same.

The same

Is true for

employment

terms

Measuring Engagement

• Retention

• Safety

• Customer Service

• Productivity

• Profitability

Source: Gallup Q12 Summary

• Clear expectations for

performance

• Adequate materials

and equipment

• Ability to succeed

in assigned roles

• A supervisor who cares about subordinates

• Co-workers committed to quality work

• Opportunities to learn and grow

Source: Gallup Q12 Summary

Employee Engagement Drivers

We are most likely to trust and

co-operate with individuals and

systems - whether we win or

lose - when we experience fair

process.

“Process”

includes

anything

from

giving

feedback to

a single FF

to setting

departmental

strategy

Kim & Mauborgne, Harvard Business Review, July – August 1997

Why think about “Fair Process?”

• Engagement– Stakeholders invited to participate

– Participants have an opportunity to be heard

• Explanation– Process and rationale are clearly explained, along with

decisions and outcomes.

– Explanation is respectful – it is also often educational.

• Expectation Clarity– When decisions are made, implications for all

stakeholders are clearly articulated.

– Everyone knows what to expect, and what is expected

of them.

Fair

Process is

working

WITH

others

The Three Elements of Fair Process

Fair Process does not mean:

• Democracy

• Consensus

• Happiness or Contentment

• Accommodation of individual wishes

or whims

• Command relinquishing legitimate

decision authority or accountability

• Just being nice

A good indication of a fair process is when people who do not

“get their way” understand why and how a decision was made,

and acknowledge that the process was fair.

• Maintain control by keeping

employee’s at arms length.

• Substitute memos and forms

for direct, two-way

communication.

• Avoid challenges to their ideas

and authority.

• Believe that knowledge is

power and retain power by

keeping what they know to

themselves.

• Deliberately leave the rules for

success and failure vague.

The Misuse of Power

Customer Expectations and Commitments

• What should our

customers expect from

us?

• Do we communicate

about those

expectations?

• How do we hold

ourselves accountable?

• How do we respond

when problems arise?

“Even if two customers are buying the same

product, they may want totally different

services wrapped around it.”

– VP, Customer Service,

semiconductor firm

Challenge: engaging vendors

• What should your clients expect from their vendors?

• What should vendors expect of them?

• What do basic, healthy relationships look like?

• What about shared-destiny, strategic relationships?

Ethical Dimensions of Competitors

• Ethical Duties:

– Comply with laws

– Refrain from manipulating legal/regulatory processes

• Competition can expand markets and validate

customer desire

• Competition can drive innovation, discipline, and

efficiency.

• Defeating competitors is an easy surrogate for the

pursuit of excellence.

The oldest leadership seminar

• Safety and comfort

• Tactical information

• Problem-solving

• Strategic decisions

• Who are we???

If we

aren’t

telling

stories,

others

surely

are!

Thank you for your attention!

Chad Weinstein

Ethical Leaders in Action, LLC

cweinstein@ethinact.com

651-646-1512

“We enable ethical leaders to achieve

extraordinary results”