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Leaders: Check Your Motivation, Your Authenticity, And Your Ethics

By Linda Fisher Thornton If we are leading others, we need to be asking the questions of leadership – about our motivation, our authenticity and our ethics. Continually asking ourselves these questions keeps us sharp, focused and aware of our greater impact on others, organizations and society. The Questions of Leadership What are some of the deep questions that we should be asking ourselves…

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The Journey to Authentic Leadership

By Linda Fisher Thornton The journey to authentic leadership is not an easy one. It’s full of challenges, and it requires developing a high level of self- and other-awareness over time. “Knowledge experiences” alone won’t be enough to stimulate the kind of learning that is required on this important journey. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes authenticity as both personal and…

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Help Young People Center Themselves in Values

By Linda Fisher Thornton How do we help young people become ethical leaders? This is an important question because our long-term future depends on how well we prepare young people to make positive ethical choices and honor multiple dimensions of ethical responsibility. “We can surely no longer pretend that our children are growing up into a peaceful, secure, and civilized world. We’ve come to…

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Ethical Leaders Demonstrate Both Character and Integrity

By Linda Fisher Thornton Sometimes the terms Character and Integrity are used interchangeably, but they mean very different things. Let’s take a look at the two terms and how they are related. Character is the broader of the two terms, and is about staying grounded in moral values and ethical awareness. This includes considering one’s impact on a wide variety of constituents, and keeping…

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On Patriotism, Nationalism, and Globalism

By Linda Fisher Thornton I teach global leadership and applied ethics. Students often have questions about the differences between patriotism, nationalism and globalism. This post explores the differences and their ethical implications.  There has been a lot of recent discussion around nationalism. The term has been used in ways that seem to put it on par with patriotism. To understand how it’s…

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5 Common Culture Gaps That Erode Ethical Leadership

By Linda Fisher Thornton My article, “Ethical Thinking Isn’t Automatic,” featured in the August issue of the Talent Development Journal, describes five culture gaps that inhibit ethical leadership. These culture gaps are common problems that organizations should watch for and avoid. “For ethical leadership to stick, the culture needs an infrastructure that consistently supports acting on stated…

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Ethical Thinking, Ethical Self: 5 Things You Need to Know

By Linda Fisher Thornton Developing an “ethical self” is important for good citizenship and good leadership. But what does it involve? 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. Even if we start with a clear awareness of the context and an…

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16 Answers to "What is Good Leadership?"

By Linda Fisher Thornton A theme I have noticed in the past in the most viewed posts on this blog is Looking For a Better Kind of Leadership. It’s a great time to explore the question “What is Good Leadership?  While it’s tempting to over simplify leadership and think about it as any one thing, good leadership can only be fully understood by thinking about it in multiple ways. Here is a starter…

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Your Ethics: Is it a Priceless Asset?

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 concerns about profitability. It’s a risky choice to take ethics lightly. Why? Unlike heart or kidney transplants, there are no “ethics transplants” for people who have made bad ethical decisions. We…

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Insights for the Class of 2025

By Linda Fisher Thornton As you begin to build your ideal image of your future plans, and figure out your next steps I have 5 pieces of advice to share that may be useful. I wish someone had shared these life insights with me when I was a new graduate beginning the next chapter of my life. 5 Insights For the Class of 2025  Find Ethical Role Models – While many others around you will stray from…

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What Does It Mean to "Do the Right Thing?"

By Linda Fisher Thornton The “Keep it Simple” approach is good for many situations, but keeping it simple will set you up for failure in ethics. Using an oversimplified approach to solving a complex ethical problem just means you leave out variables you should be considering. 5 Reasons a “Do the Right Thing” Message Isn’t Enough Nobody knows what it means Even though it is positive, it is too…

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Systems Thinking: Using The 5 Whys

By Linda Fisher Thornton In my Applied Ethics Class, I introduce my students to the Five Whys. This is a simple and valuable tool for getting to the root cause of problems. We may think we understand why something happened but when we “fix” whatever we think is the sole cause we don’t always get the intended result. The reason for that is that problems tend to have multiple causes. They happen…

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Ethical Thinking: Sifting For Values

By Linda Fisher Thornton Most people think about ethics, at least some of the time. Ethics comes to mind during ethics training, ethics conversations, when people are thrown into ethically complex situations, and when trying to understand current events. While we may think about ethics from time to time, ethical thinking is different. It is the process of actively considering how our choices…

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Shallow Thinking

By Linda Fisher Thornton The question of the day is “How does “shallow thinking” lead to ethical mistakes?” By shallow thinking, I mean thinking that is limited in breadth and depth.  Think about taking a stroll on the beach as you read the characteristics of shallow thinking below. How do these characteristics describe the kind of thinking that can lead to ethical mistakes and decision…

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How is Critical Thinking Different From Ethical Thinking?

By Linda Fisher Thornton Ethical thinking and critical thinking are both important, and it helps to understand how we need to use them together to make decisions.  Critical thinking helps us narrow our choices. Ethical thinking includes values as a filter to guide us to a choice that is ethical. Using critical thinking, we may discover an opportunity to exploit a situation for personal…

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The Missing Domain: Ethical Thinking (Part 2)

By Linda Fisher Thornton The first post in this series, “The Missing Domain: Ethical Thinking (Part 1)” explored WHY leaders need to fill the gap and help people develop ethical thinking. This post will begin to unravel HOW to do that. I included this guidance on ethical thinking in a previous post: Ethical thinking means we never lose sight of our positive purpose. We choose to be the sum of…

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The Missing Domain: Ethical Thinking (Part 1)

By Linda Fisher Thornton Using the commonly taught types of thinking is very useful in life, and helps us be better professionals and business people. But there’s a catch. Critical thinking can help you understand why a problem happened. It won’t help you find the most ethical solution to the problem once you identify it. Creative thinking can help you figure your way out of a business…