Frank Kanu

Ethics and leadership both seem to be abstract and ambiguous. Ethical leadership is not about how to lead to reach specific goals but what ethical affects leadership has. Ethic isn't moral but the meaning of moral ways and actions. Even so philosophy and religion offer ethical values roughly a third believes in those values. Ethic does not decide nor does it take decisions away. It is a guidance to find a decision; to know how to justify them.

Leadership is about those who are in a position to make decisions; create opinions and attitudes. It is more then just managing. Because leaders have to lead by example, speech, action and values ethics plays a big role. Responsibility and credibility are two of the most important elements of leaders. Responsibility is deeply based in the interaction with others. Because every action has an impact ethics are always part of decisions. Ethics is not the cookbook for great decisions. Leaders know that every decision has to be carried by responsibility and credibility. Be to be recognized as leader people have to believe and trust that person. For many the values and ethics of the leader have to match their own understanding of those.

Understanding ethics is more an academic task then anything else making it important to find the right questions to ask:
* How do we implement Corporate Social Responsibility
* How to select and support employees while achieving the business goals?
* What core competence does a business need to stay successful? How do those bind the people?
* What values do managers need to keep the worth, responsibility and future compatibility of the business?
Today's leaders have to understand what is needed tomorrow to be able to implement the necessary changes to keep the business running. A successful leader ensures that their followers take 100% responsibility. A leader has to be smart, responsible, and ethical:
* Take responsibility and delegate
* Continuously work on the vision and goals of the business and follow those
* Support share holders, stake holders and suppliers to help them grow and stay within the vision and goals of the business
* Implement valuable, clear and responsible business solutions, either with or without the team
* Design smart teams with responsible team players
* Support employees to be themselves by bringing back the fun, understanding diversity
* Change the rules.

How much can a leader learn by looking at those who have chosen to be unethical? As long as you only look at the mistakes others made but do not try to understand why they happened you will learn almost nothing. Too many do not take into consideration that even those who are seen as not ethical mostly think they were acting ethical and responsible. Values change over the years and what might seem right today can be seen as wrong tomorrow. It is a fine line to walk.