Ethical Leadership in Uncertain Times

Ann Skeet (@leaderethics) is the senior director of leadership ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Views are her own.

Leaders are struggling to respond to an onslaught of contextual changes and wondering how to guide their organizations in the face of such uncertainty. In a podcast I taped with Craig Dowden, Ph.D. on his Do Good to Lead Well podcast, we talked about the role of empathy in creating organizational cultures healthy enough to navigate in times of greater uncertainty.

It was but one of many topics we covered in our conversation, but certainly one of the most relevant to this moment in leadership and business ethics, as corporate leaders are trying to anticipate regulatory and legal changes moving at a rapid clip, but also provide guidance to their organizations in ways that are consistent with their companies’ values. Compassion requires adding action to empathy and one key thing leaders can do is to acknowledge the uncertainty that arises in moments like these. This acknowledgement results in temporal integration, the ability of humans and organizations to handle uncertainty and risk. Leaders can do this by providing images of a shared future desired state an organization is striving for, while acknowledging that how it is reached is not fully known. This might feel uncomfortable for some leaders who are used to having all the answers, but it rings sincere to employees who recognize and respect the truth.

Craig authored a book by the same title as his podcast, published in 2019. He and I share a belief that providing a positive frame for people to aim for goes further than dwelling on negative stories of things gone wrong. It is one reason I have researched, written and taught about healthy cultures, rather than focus on toxic, unhealthy cultures, which tend to fuel scandals, undermine strategic direction, and result in missed business objectives.

In this era of intense partisanship and change, leaders who can foster a culture of trust within their organizations have a competitive advantage. It helps organizations to stay focused on their mission and deliver results consistent with the enterprise’s values.

In addition to empathy and developing healthy cultures, we cover many things in our discussion such as characteristics of ethical leadership, including things leaders can do to encourage ethical leadership in their own organizations; the value of organizational self-assessment; and navigating ethics in technological advancements like artificial intelligence. I begin by sharing how my interest in leadership ethics began. I invite you to listen to learn more.