This fall MHI initiated an Ethical Leadership series that offers an opportunity to examine ethical issues that might arise in our professional lives. We are using case studies provided by the Markulla Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University as the basis for our discussions. The case study approach helps us expand our understanding of how to navigate ethical decisions using situations that are widely known or ones that occur often in business environments.
MHI remains faithful to its mission and vision of actuating person-centric ethical leadership. Our experience in conducting case study critiques is an essential ingredient of thought leadership. Professional service firms today recognize the power of “thought leadership,” the ability to both differentiate and demonstrate expertise, as a means for highlighting and extracting useful practical principles and methods.
At our first session, held on November 19, we were fortunate to have in attendance a multi-generational group from a wide range of professional and cultural backgrounds. We began by looking at five sources of ethical standards, as defined by ethicists and philosophers: The Utilitarian Approach (the most ethical action is one that does the most good and least harm), the Rights Approach (the most ethical action is the one that provides the best protection and respect for the moral rights of those affected), the Fairness or Justice Approach (the most ethical action is one that treats all human beings equally, or if that is not possible, at least treats them by some defensible standard), the Common Good Approach (the ethical action is the one that provides the greatest contribution to the good of the community), the Virtue Approach (the action chosen should enable persons to act in accordance with the highest potential of their character). As we went over these, it became apparent that different cultural norms, often reflected in the system of government of a country, tend to emphasize one or two of these criteria over others. For example, in the U.S., we tend to favor the rights or fairness and justice approaches, in line with the high priority we place on individuality, while some countries in Europe give more emphasis to the common good.
For the first session, the case studied was ”Facebook and Our Fake News Problem.” What are the challenges in ensuring that news is reliable, and should social media be held to the same journalistic standards as print and broadcast media? What are the factors that make this difficult to control, and to what extent is the leadership of Facebook responsible for the presence of questionable or blatantly false content? If readers are not already able to discern fake news from real news, through common sense analysis or other means, what can be done to help them? The rapid pace at which new technologies have developed has far exceeded the ability to institute working regulations and has created unprecedented issues of control. Complicating this are the enormous financial incentives at stake. Although everyone has the right to truth, who is responsible for monitoring content? Although we did not come close to resolving these questions, we all benefitted from hearing a wide range of opinions, ideas, and reactions in a friendly and lively atmosphere.
Join us on January 22, when we will consider “Giving In or Giving up,” a case history concerning the dilemma faced when one is doing business in a part of the world where bribery is a way of life. Admission is complimentary.