Reflecting on Ethical Leadership & Moral Courage
Reflecting this month on ethical leadership and moral courage, I’ve been raiding my memory banks for leadership I have experienced that’s shaped my life…it’s taken some metaphorical digging, through the layers of jobs, organisations, countries and multiple other permutations including how I was feeling at that time.
I was hoping to find exemplars to point to, that I could say “I want to be a leader like that person was to me”.
I didn’t find that! What I did find was examples of where I decided NOT to lead in the ways I had been led.
For example:
the boss that believed their role was to say yes to everything anyone else asked for, and then hope to be able to work backwards to the position that aligned with what our organisation needed/had decided on. This felt like giving in from the beginning…and often the other party wouldn’t move having had the “yes” in the first instance, which led to compromise beyond what was a positive outcome for the organisation and its purpose.
the leader who felt it was ok and justified to tell me they agreed with and valued my work, but they just didn’t like me as a person.
the leader who would agree with a well worked through strategy and design when with the team, but always folded on the first challenge from the Board and threw the work and the team under the proverbial bus.
So, where do we find our role models and everyday heroes?
If we can’t find them in our experience of work, we need to both look elsewhere (in other forums, disciplines, in community and global environments and history) and we need to shape ourselves into what we know to be ethical, to be courageous…to be role models for others.
And after all the professional memory lane wandering, looking closer to home I am fortunate to have people in my personal life who lead with integrity, who act with the courage to do what’s right in the right way, and who moonlight in my mind as my superheroes.
Which reminds me to talk to them about how much they mean to me, and how I admire their traits and role modelling.
Who do you have in your life who merits a thank you and acknowledgment for the often hard and sometimes lonely life of the ethical leader?