Tag Archives: business ethics

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How Leaders Can Guard Against Unethical Behavior

When leaders behave in ways that violate ethical norms and harm customers, it has a devastating effect on connection and employee engagement. A quick glance at business news headlines shows the extent to which unethical behavior has become a problem today. Many of these unethical practices seem to defy common sense, such as the restaurant owner in China who made headlines for lacing food with opium in an effort to get customers to return.

The best leaders, whom we at E Pluribus describe as servant leaders, maintain a mindset that they serve employees who in turn serve customers.  This mindset inspires them to excellent performance and helps protect them from drifting towards unethical behavior.

If leaders don’t maintain this mindset, they are likely to start serving themselves, which makes them vulnerable to drifting into unethical territory to beat competitors and maximize personal wealth, power and status. Ironically, this mindset only diminishes personal wealth, power and status because unethical behavior sabotages sustainable superior performance once a business’ reputation is tarnished.

How do you protect yourself from the temptation of unethical behavior? Leave a comment to let me know your thoughts.

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To Impart Your Values

How do you impart values to the people you are responsible for leading, including your children? Recently I had the opportunity to watch a leader who does this well. I’d like to share three critical actions that I believe are necessary to impart your values and I think you will be inspired by and learn from his example.

1. Communicate Your Values, Upfront and Often

Leaders need to lead courageously by telling people what they believe. Ted (not his real name) has developed a small, pocket-sized, laminated card that describes his values and has given the card to all of the employees of his company.  The contents on the card define what behavior Ted expects of himself and of the people he is responsible for leading. Each morning a one-page sheet entitled “Connect” is circulated throughout Ted’s company that includes a story about employees living out one of the values.  Work groups meet briefly each morning to review the Connect sheet.

One morning I attended a session that Ted holds each week with his leadership team and a select number of potential leaders.  There were about 30 people in attendance. Ted stood upfront where he spoke and facilitated the session.  During the time the group discussed one chapter in a leadership book they were reading together. About one-third of the 60-90 minutes session is set aside for small group deliberations.  The material they covered the day of my visit was on the value that is most important to Ted: caring about people.  Studying great books is an ideal way to learn and grow, and to bring the team together.  This shared practice also helps maintain awareness of and reinforce the importance of Ted’s values.

2. Live Your Values Daily

It is said that values are caught not taught.  I don’t agree.  Values are taught and caught.  Both are critical.

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What would Jack Bauer do?

24wallpaperIn the current season of the show “24,” the President of the United States is about to uncharacteristically agree to cover up a murder for the sake of a peace treaty. When Jack Bauer, the show’s hero, confronts the president, she admits she doesn’t like to do this but in this particular instance the end justifies the means. Bauer disagrees and is now working against the American government to expose the murder.

It’s a thrilling story and I have to admit I’m hooked on this season of 24. It’s interesting to note that Jack Bauer in pursuit of justice is not averse to torturing suspected enemies to get information that will help him prevent harm to others or protect America. His justification, like the president’s, is that the end justifies the means.

The story in this season’s 24 also happens to be relevant to a series of presentations, articles and a book I’m working on about character values and how they impact the performance of individuals and organizations, including employee engagement, strategic alignment, productivity and innovation. In June, Jason Pankau and I will be speaking about this at NASA’s Johnson Space Center where during the Apollo 13 mission Gene Krantz uttered the line “failure is not an option” that was made famous in Ron Howard’s spectacular movie Apollo 13. Was Krantz right? Are there indeed times when anything and everything is acceptable to achieve success? If not, when is failure acceptable?

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Darden’s Leadership Sage


Jason Pankau and I were at the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business this week to speak about our work on Connection Cultures, leadership, productivity, innovation and employee engagement.  We gave a three hour presentation to students in the MBA for Executives program and briefly visited friends such as professors Marian Moore and Alec Horniman.

Darden has so much going for it.  World class professors and a great culture.  No doubt the business school’s culture benefits from Alec Horniman’s wisdom as a thought leader in the fields of leadership, organizations, change and ethics.   Take a look at the excellent video of Dr. Horniman discussing the importance of ethics in business and you’ll see what I mean.

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Strip Joints, Salesmen and Employee Engagement

John (not his real name) read Fired Up or Burned Out and contacted me about a dilemma he faced.  John is a salesperson.  One evening following dinner with a customer, John’s boss said he was taking the customer and John to a strip joint.  John’s boss does this regularly and views it as a legitimate best practice among salespeople.  John’s wife learned about it and expressed her disappointment.  She also warned that if it happened again, she would leave him.  John understood her disgust.  He felt disappointed too.  John told me that frequenting strip clubs was against his values.  He also disclosed that he had little financial resources as well as a wife and several children to support, some of them in college.  He asked me for advice. What would you advise John to do?