11-20-13 Know Thyself OracleofDelphiWeb  

 

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The Four Values of Ethical Leaders

EthicsAtHome-Friend'sDaughterI heard the parents in the bleachers stabbing me in the back, “Why didn’t they get a real coach? What’s wrong with Jensen? Doesn’t he want to win the state championship? Why won’t he put Billy in the game?”

Their comments stung. But I stuck to my guns. We had a rule, “if you don’t practice, you don’t play.” Our star center, Billy, had missed many practices leading up to the state championship game. When I took over as interim coach, I had told him that just because we won the New England championships as teammates the previous year didn’t mean that he would receive special treatment. My warnings went unheeded. He didn’t show up for practice. So, I didn’t play him. And we lost the state championship game.

Did I do the right thing? No, according to those parents. How about you?

Do you do the right thing… when it hurts? More importantly, how do you decide what the right thing is when the issue is not black-and-white? In other words, if leadership is “the process of unleashing the energy of others towards worthy goals,” what process do you use to unleash the energy of others when the issue is gray (i.e., not a matter of the law)?

Leaders can educate themselves and their employees about the importance of ethics benefits by focusing on values. There are many values you could, and probably should, embrace. My review of the research reveals that you will improve your leadership effectiveness the most by focusing on these four values:

A.    Honesty
B.    Integrity
C.    Equity
D.    Humility

To incorporate these values into your decisions, ask four simple questions any time you face an ethical dilemma.

  • What are the relevant facts and values at work here?
  • How do these facts/values relate to the outcomes or culture we want to create?
  • Who should be engaged in discussing how these values apply here?
  • What is the right thing to do for the greatest number over the long haul?

By asking these questions consistently, you will develop your process for gray ethical decision-making. Your answers will help you apply the four values and do the right thing even when others are stabbing you in the back.

The next section describes how to grow the four practical and profitable values of ethical leaders.

A. Honesty

Honesty means “freedom from deceit” and “adherence to facts.” Here are a few tactics to put honesty to work for you:

          1. Report the whole truth: Despite what Jack Nicholson’s character testified to in A Few Good Men, most employees can handle the truth. Not only can they handle it, they hunger for it. Employees want to know what is discussed in senior management meetings – the good, the bad, and the ugly. How can you disseminate information about sales goals, financial performance, milestones, key competitive information, market trends, problems, opportunities, successes, and failures?

          2. Ask the rank and file for help: When employees have the right information, they can come up with very effective and efficient solutions to difficult problems. One executive gives the example of a product launch that went so well that the executive team was on the verge of asking people to work seven days a week, three shifts a day, including Thanksgiving and Christmas, to meet the explosive demand.

Instead of making this unreasonable demand, the leaders called a meeting of all their employees. They discussed their success by relaying powerful stories about how their new product delighted patients and physicians. Then they asked the employees how to meet the extraordinary production demand. When the possibility of working long hours throughout the holidays came up, one woman asked: “Could you wrap our Christmas presents?”

“We’ll do more than that,” the executives volunteered. “Give us your lists and we’ll hire people to shop for you.”

Within half an hour, the employees came up with a variety of ways to manage the tension between meeting production goals and meeting their family needs during the holidays. Executive honesty leads to employee creativity.

          3. Solicit honesty feedback: If you want to ensure that honesty is alive and well in your team, use feedback to stay on track. One CEO implemented the “hot seat” feedback session. Each member of the executive management team sits on a tall stool in front of peers. One by one, these peers bring up the positives and negatives they had observed in the other executive and offer suggestions for improvement.

Initially, these are very unpopular sessions. Over time, people came to understand that feedback is neutral. Feedback literally means, “information returned to the source.” It is up to the leader to choose how to think about it (Helpful or hurtful – you decide!). It is in the receiving that meaning is made. The CEO concluded that the hot seat was the most powerful tool for building mutual accountability and honest communication that she had ever seen.

B. Integrity

An insurance company executive once pointed out that he believed his team members demonstrated high integrity because they talked about issues during meetings the same way they talked about those issues at the bar at night.

Yet, transparency is only the first step of integrity. If leaders don’t follow lip service with hip service, they are transparent hypocrites. Honesty asks for the truth, integrity demands transparency and consistency. Here are a few tools to help you increase integrity:

          1. Discipline consistently. Employees must see that leadership holds senior executives, middle managers, and front-line employees to the same high standards. Reprimand anyone who violates established standards.

          2. Establish systems. Make it easy for employees to report financial, legal, and ethical concerns anonymously. In addition, conduct employee surveys that ask these questions:

– Is integrity compromised by day-to-day pressures?

– Are company leaders’ verbal commitments to integrity reflected in their actions?

– Do leaders discuss ethical issues at division/department meetings?

          3. Minimize change. Employees suffer from change fatigue when leaders flood them with new policies, initiatives, or management fads. Although waves of change are necessary in a competitive and global marketplace, ensure that your changes are strategic. Remember, strategy is as much about saying no as it is about saying yes. If you are honest about what is important, employees will know what is strategic.

C. Equity

Equity, the third value, is “the quality of being fair or impartial.” Whenever you want to implement a major decision, here are three ways to address the process of fairness:

          1. Engage employees early in the process. Select a group of well-respected managers and ask them to interview a large number of employees from different parts of the company to learn about the pluses, minuses, and consequences of implementing the major decision. Increasing engagement increases commitment.

          2. Show the data. Show the employees the data used to make a decision. The more transparent the process, the more buy-in to the outcome of that process. If they don’t believe in the process, they won’t believe in the outcome of that process.

          3. Practice two-way communication. I once consulted with a $20 billion company whose CEO stated, “Anything worth communicating is worth over-communicating.” Unfortunately, he confused communicating with broadcasting. He had no mechanism to detect responses to the signals he sent. His major change initiative failed miserably and he was fired. Feedback keeps you on track because it allows for early and frequent course correction. Effective executives find multiple channels to listen to the employees’ perception of fairness during any change.

D. Humility

Abraham Lincoln’s humility helped him achieve extraordinary results. Every member of Lincoln’s administration was better known, better educated, and more experienced than he was. Moreover, Lincoln placed all three of his rivals for the 1860 presidential Republican nomination in his cabinet.

Are you humble enough to surround yourself with superior people?

Humility is a “modest opinion or estimate of one’s own importance or rank.” It helps leaders direct their ego away from over-focusing on the “me” and toward the greater cause of the “we.” Humble leaders, like Abraham Lincoln, are able to subjugate their ego for the good of the team.

In his groundbreaking book, Good to Great, author Jim Collins revealed that only 11 CEOs of the 1,435 companies studied possessed what he called “Level 5 leadership.” A Level 5 leader is one who “builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.” (1) To help you reach Level 5, try a few of the tips below:

          1. Shun public adulation: Humble leaders seldom boast. They shine their light on others. They prioritize the company’s success, not their own. Humility is the ability to keep your accomplishments in perspective. It is, as Pastor Rick Warren says, “not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.”

          2. Motivate via standards: Humble leaders rely on inspired standards, not charisma, to motivate. The “WHYs” behind their motivating SOPs are discussed frequently.

          3. Look out the window: Humble leaders spend more time looking out the window than in the mirror: They properly apportion credit for the success of the company to the leaders, managers, and front-line employees who are responsible for it. They do not allow deflated self-esteem or an inflated ego to shut down their openness to feedback.

How do you maintain your ethics at work? What process do you have to help you do the right thing even when it may hurt? I’d also love to hear what you think about the four ethical questions and values, and how you use them…

Keep stretching,

Dave

  1. Jim Collins, Good to Great. HarperCollins: New York, 2001, 20.

Dave Jensen helps leaders manage ambiguity, gain buy-in to any change, improve decision-making, and achieve difficult goals in today’s complex, competitive, and conflicting environment. For a FREE Chapter of his forthcoming book, The Executive’s Paradox – How to Stretch When You’re Pulled by Opposing Demands, or to receive his highly researched, yet practical leadership tips once a month, sign up for his free eZine (Dave’s Raves), visit http://davejensenonleadership.com/

 

4 comments to The Four Values of Ethical Leaders

  • Michael Sullivan

    So many valuable concepts, Dave!
    I look forward to getting your new book to adequately digest these ideas and suggestions.

    • I appreciate that Mike,

      The book (The Executive’s Paradox) is getting its finishing touches by my graphics guy and should be out in a couple of weeks.

      Keep stretching,
      Dave

  • Chuck Williamson

    Dave

    Excellent points on ethics and solid principles for any leader seeking to develop a culture of ethics in their organization.

    • Thanks Chuck,

      As Einstein once said “make things as simple as possible, but no simpler” :-)
      I try to keep things simple, but not simplistic.

      Keep stretching,
      Dave