How do ethics and values fit in?
The fifth principle of leadership embodies ethics and values. Leaders need to clearly establish and embed ethics and values into their organizations. Ethics and values are the building blocks of an organization’s culture, and they require constant vigilance and commitment. The leader needs to keep a strong hold on what’s going on. This is hard work and doesn’t always make the leader popular, but it’s necessary. Even temporary lapses in ethics can destroy trust and bring an organization to its knees. Companies that get into trouble seem to do so in small steps. Essentially, people want to do the right thing. But competitive pressures to meet quarterly projections, sales goals and other objectives can be so extreme that they overtake personal morals. People find themselves rationalizing, ‘moving something here … moving something there,’ adapting a more liberal accounting methodology, for example. The sixth important principle is execution. An effective leadership team manages and imple
