#leading ethically

By Linda Fisher Thornton The Top Post Series for last year on the Leading in Context Blog was called 10 Posts to Inspire Leaders in 2025. It featured specific areas of focus and strategies for living and leading with values. Explore the insights shared in this series as you consider your leadership goals for 2026. 10 Quotes to Inspire Leaders in 2025 (Part 1) 10 Quotes to Inspire Leaders in…

By Linda Fisher Thornton 10 Things Ethical Leaders Believe: Our purpose is to create value for others. How we treat people matters. Our moral grounding is more important than our goals and opinions. Everything we do has a ripple effect, and that ripple is global. We must take responsibility. The world is changing. There is a powerful responsibility movement going on. We know more about what…

By Linda Fisher Thornton 10 Things Ethical Leaders Believe: Our purpose is to create value for others. How we treat people matters. Our moral grounding is more important than our goals and opinions. When we let our goals and opinions drive our thinking, we begin to believe that “anything goes” in the quest to meet those goals or defend those opinions. When our moral compass drives our…

By Linda Fisher Thornton Developing an “ethical self” is important for good citizenship and good leadership. But what does it involve? There’s more to developing and maintaining an ethical self than trying to make good choices. Making ethical choices isn’t easy, and while we’re struggling, our brains are actually working against us. Even if we start with a clear awareness of the context and an…

By Linda Fisher Thornton In my Applied Ethics Class, I introduce my students to the Five Whys. This is a simple and valuable tool for getting to the root cause of problems. We may think we understand why something happened but when we “fix” whatever we think is the sole cause we don’t always get the intended result. The reason for that is that problems tend to have multiple causes. They happen…

By Linda Fisher Thornton Of the 52 weekly posts published on the Leading in Context Blog in 2024, these 10 were the most popular. See if you notice a theme that connects these new topics that readers accessed most frequently: #1  Ethical Leadership Development: Preparing Leaders For the Future #2 Ethical Leadership Development: Global Awareness #3 What is (and Isn’t) Leadership? #4 Ethical…

By Linda Fisher Thornton Ethical awareness may have been considered private in the past, but it has become easier to observe in a society that is always socially connected. Since ethical reputation is a defining element in individual and organizational success, it is time that we consider ethical awareness as a key element of experience when selecting leaders for our businesses, community…

SAMSUNG By Linda Fisher Thornton Ego has a way of undoing even our best intentions as leaders. We have to be aware of it and manage it to avoid getting off track. In a world that requires rapid adaptation to changing events and circumstances, ego tries to maintain the status quo and works against our ability to pivot in response to change. Think of the adaptable leader as piloting a boat, able…