In some ways it was a classic case of angels versus the bad guys. On one side was Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever—long admired as the closest you get to being an ethical leader while running a huge multi-national. On the other side, a well-resourced group of ruthless deal makers, […]
Remember Jeffrey Skilling? He was the man who made Enron famous for all the wrong reasons. In 2006 this former chief executive arrived at a courthouse in Texas, for sentencing. He left with 14 years to serve, which a few years later was reduced to 10 years. Skilling is now expected […]
Now more than ever we need ethical leadership. In many companies businesses leaders regularly urge employees to speak up. To voice values. Only if they do can the organisation avoid the hidden rocks that can damage or even sink a company through reputational disaster. The benefits of speaking up are […]
How effective is the present investment in growing new leaders? US companies alone spend almost $14 billion annually on various forms of leadership development. In the UK only 7 percent of senior managers polled by a UK business school thought their companies developed global leaders effectively. Trust in leaders in […]
“Top executives need to be paid a lot to be willing to do their demanding role. Company performance depends almost entirely on the top leadership’s capability. Ethics doesn’t pay, what matters is short term rewards for stakeholders.” These three widely used assertions about business sound increasingly threadbare, unsupported by credible […]
“Everybody’s ethics are different”, claimed Richard Desmond, owner of the Daily Express. He was being put on the spot to say what ethics meant to him. His much derided response landed badly. Particularly at the national enquiry examining the ethics, or lack of them in the media and especially at […]
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