Leaders on Ethics: Real-World Perspectives on Today's Business Challenges

(Hardback)

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Beat the competition. Go global. Influence government. Persuade customers. Increase shareholder value. These are among the pressures to perform in today's business environment, and the consequences of failure can be dire. Leaders must stay ahead of competitors and deliver results, all while trying to do the right thing by employees, customers, communities, and other stakeholders. Yet the opportunities to cross ethical boundaries are widespread and compelling. What are leaders learning as they face these challenges Over a dozen of today's most influential leaderspeople who grapple with ethical dilemmas on a near-daily basisshare real-world perspectives from the trenches, showing the breadth of ethical challenges facing today's leaders in a variety of industries and professional fields. Leaders on Ethics is a window into the minds of some of our most prominent leaders. It features first-hand presentations by CEOs and other nationally known executives, originally given to their peers during discussion forums at The Southern Institute for Business and Professional Ethics. In addressing subjects ranging from marketing with a conscience to promoting workplace diversity to dealing with the implications of globalization, these leaders provide a wide variety of perspectives on the ethics of leadership. Along the way, they reveal successes and failures and present lessons learned in navigating the tumultuous waters of today's society.

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These 15 high-powered contributors understand very well that the ethics of modern society has changed rapidly, as evidenced by the behavior of ordinary individuals as well as by the heads of major businesses. They urge readers to consider maintaining an uncompromisingly high level of ethics despite what others get away with, at least for a time, and comment on using crisis as a platform for positive change, recognizing unenlightened self-interest, restoring corporate trust, tying high ethical standards to governance and free enterprise, and learning from the world's great religions. They get more specific on ethical issues in accounting and auditing, in markets where sex sells, in competitive situations, and in higher education. They urge leaders to be trustworthy, sensitive to diversity, accepting of others regardless of class or union affiliation, and capable of putting high values and ethics first. * Reference & Research Book News *

Author Bio

John C. Knapp is University Professor and Mann Family Professor of Ethics at Samford University. He is also the Leadership Director, Frances Marlin Mann Center for Ethics and Leadership, at Samford. He has also been visiting lecturer at the University of Wales and Adjunct Professor of Ethics at Columbia Theological Seminary. Knapp is the editor of For the Common Good: The Ethics of Leadership in the 21st Century (Praeger, 2007).