54. Leadership and Ethics: How to Communicate Your Core Values
Mar 15, 2022
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Neil Malhotra and Ken Shotts, esteemed political economy professors at Stanford, delve into the nuances of leadership and ethics. They stress understanding that not everyone will share your core values, making empathy crucial to effective leadership. The duo discusses transitioning to a stakeholder model of business ethics and the impact of environment on ethical choices. They also highlight the power of clear communication, tailoring messages to resonate with diverse audiences. Their insights are both practical and thought-provoking.
Leaders should not assume everyone shares their core values in an organization.
Create a culture encouraging open discussions and exercises to understand diverse core values.
Deep dives
Changing Concept of Business Ethics
The traditional focus on maximizing shareholder value in business has evolved to a stakeholder model, highlighting the need for businesses to consider various societal stakeholder groups. This shift has prompted a reevaluation of how business leaders navigate ethical responsibilities. In their book 'Leading with Values,' Neil and Ken present actionable recommendations drawn from multiple intellectual disciplines to help leaders address ethical challenges in today's complex environment.
Identifying Core Values in Organizations
Identifying core values within an organization involves moving beyond generic mission statements and recognizing the diversity of values among individuals. Leaders should not assume that everyone shares their values and should actively engage in exercises to articulate and understand their own core values. Creating a culture that encourages open discussion and dissent on values is crucial for fostering an environment where differing perspectives can coexist.
Assessing Actions Based on Values
Assessing actions in alignment with values involves employing various tests to ensure ethical decision-making. Neil and Ken discuss tests such as bright line rules, the New York Times test, and the friends and family test, each offering different perspectives on evaluating actions. By considering how actions align with personal values and how they would be perceived by friends and family, individuals can make more informed decisions that uphold their ethical principles.
“A mistake that some leaders make is to assume that the people in your organization share your core values. Some of the time some of them do, but there's a bunch who don't, and those are the most difficult sorts of situations.”
In this episode, Political Science professors Neil Malhotra and Ken Shotts sit down with host and lecturer Matt Abrahams, to discuss how to lead others whose values may not align with your own.
“The most effective thing you can do is to understand the other person's story and frame the language and arguments around them. And I think kind of this is what framing is about, it's fundamentally about being empathetic.”