Tag Archive for: leadership

The Difference Ethical Leadership Can Make in a Pandemic

The human costs of the COVID-19 pandemic are hard to grasp and accept.

How Leaders Help People Find Real Hope in the Face of a Pandemic

From all corners of the earth, this pandemic has revealed humanity at our best, combating a pandemic virus with a pandemic of compassion. Like many leaders, my clients are scrambling to adapt to this new “virtual reality” of uncertainty…

The Case for Diversifying the Prototypical Leader

Fostering a diversity of views and styles of leadership could give organizations, among other things, an ethical advantage.

Leaked Boeing Emails Show Slippery Slope of a Bad Compliance Culture

Today’s hyper-transparent environment has given the public stunning opportunities to review internal communications from executives at leading companies and to pass real-time judgments on the strengths and vulnerabilities of their cultures.…

The Psychology of Ford’s Fiesta and Focus Cover-Up

It started with a trail of car owners bringing their Fords to repair shops. Eventually, it escalated to an out-of-control hemorrhaging of warranty costs and legal bills. Now Ford faces a federal criminal fraud probe into its conduct. Did the…

Here Is What Replaces Shareholder Primacy

One day, about a decade ago, an evolutionary biologist from Binghamton, New York, made a decision: He’d use his knowledge of humanity’s social nature to try to understand and improve its social life, especially in his hometown.

Listen to Adam Grant Talk Leadership Science with Preet Bharara

It is safe to say that I am a podcast junkie. Whenever I find myself “ears-free”—while taking a shower, walking the dog, riding the subway—I listen to an episode. Usually it is intellectual fare—scientists or other sorts of scholars…

Retail Bank Incentive Schemes in Australia

Dennis Gentilin is the author of “The Origins of Ethical Failures” (Routledge, 2016) and the Founding Director of Human Systems Advisory.

 

Last week, Mr Stephen Sedgwick AO released the findings from his review into remuneration arrangements for retail banking staff in Australia (the final report can be downloaded here). The review is part of a broader program of work being undertaken by the Australian Bankers Association that is aiming to address the culture and conduct issues within the banking sector.

With this objective in mind, the review represents a significant (albeit small) step in the right direction. Although some may question whether Mr Sedgwick went far enough, he has squarely placed the ball in the banks’ court and left them under no illusions that change is needed.

Featured Ethics [and Leadership] Scholar for March: Ron Carucci

Interview with Ron Carucci, author, leadership consultant and cofounder / managing partner at Navalent


What are your main areas of research/work?

My colleagues and I at Navalent spend our days working with organizations pursuing dramatic change.  That could be changes in strategy, re designs of organizations, or strengthening of leadership capability. Our writing and research focuses on those same areas – we see our intellectual capital as the opportunity to learn on behalf of the clients we serve.

 

How does strengthening leadership help reduce ethical misconduct in companies?

If you think about the nature of many ethical misconduct, they can often emanate from previously undiscovered character flaws that get exposed when leaders are pressured in broader roles.  Preparing leaders early in their careers to assume increasingly bigger jobs can help reduce the likelihood that the challenges of power and resources, political rivalries, or intensified performance pressures won’t drive leaders to make short-sighted, unethical choices. 

Featured Ethics [and Governance] Scholar for February: Andrea Bonime-Blanc

Interview with Andrea Bonime-Blanc, Author and CEO of GEC Risk Advisory

 

What are your main areas of research/work?

Even though I teach at a couple of universities (including NYU and ESADE) and hold a PhD (in political science), I am not a scholar in the traditional sense of the word. I have always worked as a lawyer or corporate executive for global companies and four years ago started my own strategic advisory firm (GEC Risk Advisory). That said, my current advisory practice falls under the general rubric of “Strategic ESG (environmental, social and governance) Risk and Value Creation”. Subtopics include:

  • Governance (including cyber-risk governance)
  • Ethics and culture
  • Strategic risk
  • Reputation risk
  • Crisis preparedness
  • Transforming risk into value

Sometimes clients ask me to do practical research – one of my favorite recent client engagements was preparing a white paper for the board of directors of a leading African bank on future trends in global corporate responsibility. I also use my own research on cutting edge topics like reputation risk and cyber-risk governance to push the limits of where we currently are on finding solutions to current serious challenges in the marketplace, focused almost exclusively on what the board and the c-suite need to know.