Expand Your Mind: Honesty and Authenticity
by Miki Saxon
Today’s articles are focused on executives, but, as usual, the content is applicable to all levels of management, as well as non-management.
Let’s start with a question; is it possible to effectively manage electronically? Research going back to the 1940s shows that it’s not.
Managing is not a science; it is a subtle and nuanced practice, learned mostly on the job, through paying close attention to gestures and tone of voice. (…) Information technology can and should expand your range of communication, but cannot be a substitute for interactions that build trust, share vision, and enhance community..
Next comes a pair of articles from Forbes.
The first uses recent happenings in the financial arena to illustrate how execs rationalize poor and downright unethical choices.
“But we humans have found ways to not feel so bad about it when we behave a certain way — we basically disconnect these self sanctions.” (…)”If you were to go to church or temple, that’s a moral domain. People tend to not think about business as a moral domain.” — David Mayer, management professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business
The second looks at what companies can do to stop unethical behavior.
For leaders to establish those policies, they’re going to have to fear the consequences themselves. (…) By paying attention to how the environment affects our choices, people can begin to treat their ethics as a skill to develop and continue developing, even as students graduate, enter the workforce, and become executives.
Finally, how authentic can leaders feel if they are forced by society to live a lie? That is the question that gay executives face every day.
But [after two decades] Beth Brooke was growing tired of hiding, particularly after being tapped to head Ernst & Young’s diversity and inclusion efforts.
Flickr image credit: pedroelcarvalho
