Leading in Context

DECEMBER 14, 2022

This week's four ways to advance ethics in your organization focus on MANAGING THE SYSTEM. By Linda Fisher Thornton The first post in this series addressed ACCOUNTABILITY. The second asked you to evaluate your IMPACT.

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Leading in Context

JUNE 28, 2023

This complexity and uncertainty combine to create a "murky uncertainty" that may keep people from giving us their best, most ethical performance. Leaders may intend to create an ethical culture, but may still have difficulty getting past the murky uncertainty about what ethics means.

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Leading in Context

MAY 26, 2021

By Linda Fisher Thornton Ethical leaders create fear-free work environments, which are foundational in building and maintaining ethical culture and protecting reputation and ethical brand value.

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Leading in Context

SEPTEMBER 29, 2022

By Linda Fisher Thornton In Part 1 of this series on Recognizing Ethical Issues, I addressed the gaps in our thinking that require us to develop an ethical alert system. In Part 3, I dug into the importance of ethical awareness as the basis for ethical decision making.

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Leading in Context

JUNE 9, 2021

By Linda Fisher Thornton Developing ethical leaders and building ethical cultures have become critical business priorities. As if that weren't already challenging enough, managing ethics well also requires systems thinking and a broad understanding of ethical responsibilities.

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Leading in Context

FEBRUARY 3, 2021

By Linda Fisher Thornton How well is your organization navigating the ethical pitfalls of the working world? Why is it so hard to navigate ethical minefields now? If you're finding it to be a major challenge right now, you're not alone. There is currently a "toxic soup" of factors at play.

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Leading in Context

MAY 17, 2023

By Linda Fisher Thornton Ethical leadership is about much more than making good decisions and abiding by laws and regulations. One of the elements of ethical leadership that may be overlooked when we view ethics using a “legal lens” is supporting and developing the potential of the people we lead.

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Leading in Context

AUGUST 25, 2021

By Linda Fisher Thornton After I published "Prevention or Cure: Your Choice" about reducing ethical risk and creating a positive culture a reader asked for more information about the business case for prevention.

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Leading in Context

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

Respecting these (sometimes clear, sometimes hazy) boundaries is an important part of today’s ethical leadership. The 5 phrases below signal that the speaker is ignoring an important ethical boundary: By Linda Fisher Thornton Boundaries can be simply described as lines that we don’t cross when doing business.

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Leading in Context

MARCH 22, 2023

By Linda Fisher Thornton Leaders are in a unique position to make ethics a priority through their everyday actions, but simply modeling ethics isn’t nearly enough.

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Leading in Context

MARCH 8, 2023

By Linda Fisher Thornton Ethics has a compounding effect on culture, and our leadership choices determine whether that effect will be positive or negative. Being diligent about ethics in every decision brings the culture ethics dividends. Being careless about ethics brings ethics penalties.

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Leading in Context

APRIL 28, 2021

By Linda Fisher Thornton Developing an "ethical self" is important for good citizenship and good leadership. There's more to developing and maintaining an ethical self than trying to make good choices. Making ethical choices isn't easy, and while we're struggling, our brains are actually working against us.

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Leading in Context

MAY 31, 2023

If leaders don’t seem to care, that numbs the organization’s culture, disabling the natural systems that would prevent and identify ethical risks. In addition to caring about what happens in our own careers, we must CARE about people, about their success, and about creating a positive work environment.

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Lead from Within

APRIL 26, 2024

As an executive leadership coach, I advise my clients on various aspects of leadership, and one topic that has been gaining increasing importance in today’s rapidly evolving business is the role of ethics in artificial intelligence (AI).

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Leading in Context

FEBRUARY 22, 2023

By Linda Fisher Thornton After I published “Prevention or Cure: Your Choice” about reducing ethical risk and creating a positive culture a reader asked for more information about the business case for prevention.

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Leading in Context

JULY 19, 2023

By Linda Fisher Thornton Preparing leaders for ethical leadership is a long-term process. For example, what message are we sending when we separate ethics training from other leadership training? It requires careful thought about the messages we are sending.

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Leading in Context

NOVEMBER 24, 2021

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.

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Leading in Context

MAY 19, 2021

By Linda Fisher Thornton Ethical leaders can't really "control" organizations, but there are specific things they can do to bring out the best in others and teams to move the organization forward. Here are five things ethical leaders can and should control to have a positive impact on the organizations they lead.

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Leading in Context

JULY 21, 2021

By Linda Fisher Thornton Ethical leadership isn't something we can ever say we've fully accomplished. It's not about arriving at any particular place, or about achieving a certain level of knowledge.

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Let's Grow Leaders

APRIL 19, 2024

How Small Businesses Can Do Their Part In Sustainability Today I talk with Cooper Wechkin Founder and CEO of RyeStrategy about the business case for a sustainable organization (even for small organizations). 84% of those people think their organizations aren’t doing enough. Where can I start?

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Leading in Context

SEPTEMBER 23, 2020

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.

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Leading in Context

MAY 15, 2024

employees strongly agree that they can apply their organization’s values to their work every day, and only 27% strongly agree that they "believe in" their organization's values. According to Gallup (2016), just 23% of U.S.

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Leading in Context

OCTOBER 28, 2020

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?

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Leading in Context

AUGUST 2, 2023

By Linda Fisher Thornton Welcome to Part 1 in the series “Ethical Thinking and Decision Making for Leaders.” Welcome to Part 1 in the series “Ethical Thinking and Decision Making for Leaders.” Ethical decision-making is not simply a task.

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Leading in Context

MAY 24, 2023

By Linda Fisher Thornton Using an ethics of care changes how we think and act as leaders. It helps us remember that each person is important and that treating each other with care is part of our shared human experience.

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Leading in Context

AUGUST 16, 2023

By Linda Fisher Thornton Ethical Thinking and Decision Making require staying grounded in ethical values, but there is much more to do than knowing our values and living them every day through our choices. In Part 3, let’s take a look at Complexity.

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Leading in Context

SEPTEMBER 6, 2023

By Linda Fisher Thornton This series has explored 5 important leadership spheres of Ethical Thinking and Decision Making. This week I’m summing it up in a checklist that will help you apply all 5 to your daily choices.

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Ethics Leadership Talent Management Organization 251

Leading in Context

FEBRUARY 16, 2022

By Linda Fisher Thornton In part 3 of this series, I am sharing a clip from my recent talk at the Saint Anselm Center for Ethics in Society that answers the question "What happens when there is a serious conflict between two ethical values?"

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Leading in Context

AUGUST 23, 2023

By Linda Fisher Thornton Who we include in our ethical thinking, and how broadly we consider our responsibility to others are both important elements of ethical leadership. In Part 1 of this series, I explored the Depth of our thinking, and in Part 2, I broke down issues related to understanding Context.

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Ethics Leadership Talent Management Organization 206

Leading in Context

AUGUST 9, 2023

No matter how much effort it takes to understand the context, we can’t expect to make an ethical decision without taking that step. By Linda Fisher Thornton In Part 1 of this series I looked at the importance of Deep Thinking. In Part 2, we’ll consider the Context.

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Leading in Context

SEPTEMBER 2, 2020

By Linda Fisher Thornton Who is accountable for ethical artificial intelligence? How do you build accountability into your organization's use of AI? There are ethical implications at every step of the process. There is much more to think about when implementing AI than just efficiency and time savings.

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Leading in Context

MAY 20, 2020

To confirm what those values are that should guide our choices, this week I'm sharing my Manifesto What Ethical Leaders Believe. This Manifesto frames ethical leadership in clear language, and is shareable under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License.

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Leading in Context

MARCH 15, 2023

By Linda Fisher Thornton Ethical Culture is a System of Systems Don’t assume that an ethical culture will just happen in your workplace. Even if you are a good leader, ethical culture is a delicate thing, requiring intentional positive leadership and daily tending.

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Leading in Context

NOVEMBER 11, 2020

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.

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Leading in Context

AUGUST 19, 2020

"For ethical leadership to stick, the culture needs an infrastructure that consistently supports acting on stated values.Ethical cultures treat ethical thinking as something that must be cultivated, demonstrated, and practiced over time.".

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Leading in Context

AUGUST 30, 2023

In Part 5, I’ll describe how embracing Change helps us make ethical decisions. In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, I explored the Depth of our thinking, and the importance of understanding Context. In Part 3 and Part 4, I looked at embracing Complexity and the importance of full Inclusion.

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Leading in Context

DECEMBER 27, 2023

I was able to avoid an accident, but it made me think about what happens when employees start “crossing the line” in organizations. By Linda Fisher Thornton I was driving recently when the car beside me started to veer over into my lane. There are things leaders can do.

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