Ethical leaders tend to run more profitable companies. Why? One reason is they usually show a strong personal commitment to affecting company culture. Equally important, there’s a positive link between a company with a strong affirming culture, and individual performance. These same leaders will therefore be good at installing or […]
Tag: Unilever
Staying relevant—why ethical business leaders must keep adapting and evolving
“Why should the citizens of this world keep companies around whose sole purpose is the enrichment of a few people?” Paul Polman, the highly successful and far-sighted departing CEO of Unilever. “Society demands that companies “serve a social purpose” Larry Fink, CEO BlackRock, world largest asset manager “In the eyes […]
Resilience: How ethical business leaders can build their ability to bounce back
“We want to stay a family business. We want to be able to think long term. We want to be able to concentrate on the values—the ethical and moral values, of course that we have…” Sir James Dyson, in Boldness in Business, FT.Com March 2018 Ethical business leaders develop […]
Is your dirty supply chain secret waiting to trash your reputation?
The campaign group the European Coalition for Corporate Justice wants the European Union to force firms to do human rights due diligence on their supply chains. And not a moment too soon. Amnesty International for example, recently asked 29 companies about their use of the mineral cobalt in their products. Almost […]
Courage: The 7 areas where ethical leaders in business need to show courage
All business leaders need to show courage in the role. If you’re an employee of pharma giant GSK, a new metric is about to enter your life. CEO Emma Walmsley wants to start judging your performance in the company on the new measure of “courage.” Courage matters for ordinary employees […]
Seven lessons for ethical leaders from Unilever’s recent nasty experience
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, […]
Training leaders to lead—time for a re-think?
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 […]
Three turbo boosters to keep your company values alive
Most companies claim to have important values. In the best ones these drive the organisation, guiding both direction and culture. Yet as Enron demonstrated, boasting about values is easy. Making them come alive, and sustaining them is far harder. One leading global communication company for example, call its values “Guiding […]