Craig Dowden
Special to Financial Post
Originally published June 13, 2013
The sheer volume and diversity of recent scandals in the corporate world, various levels of government, and even the media, has been astounding. Even though initiatives to get tough on corporate malfeasance were introduced and promoted in the early 2000s, it seems the only lesson learned is how to shield bad deeds more effectively while keeping up the appearance of compliance.
The most recent National Business Ethics survey reinforces this notion. Using data from the 2011 report, 42% of respondents state their organizations have weak ethical cultures — a result comparable the highest level in the history of the survey.
Given the importance of ethics in underpinning effective organizational leadership, the question remains: how do we demonstrate and promote ethical behaviour?
Empathy and the moral compass
The Management Research Group (MRG) has been administering the “360 review” process to executives for almost 30 years, allowing it to build a database of 100,000 leaders’ assessments.
One of the great value-added features of the MRG 360 process is that it includes various outcome measures of leadership effectiveness. One of the performance indicators asks respondents to rate a leader on whether he or she “demonstrates ethical leadership.”
When MRG examined what was the strongest predictor of ethical leadership behaviour out of the 22 competencies in their model, the resounding answer was empathy. In other words, leaders who scored highest on empathy also exhibited the highest levels of ethical leadership.
The entire article is here.
