Volume IV, Number 4 ~ Online
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Leadership: Facing Moral and Ethical Dilemmas | How can it happen?
Is business ethics an oxymoron? | Leaders have a responsibility for creating trust.
How to solve an ethical dilemma.


We need a Nobel Prize in business, awarded to organizations that demonstrate how business effectiveness (meaning survival, market share, profits, and stock value) results directly from ethical behavior. A society that is not built on ethics – on fairness, freedom, and mature hearts and minds – cannot survive for long.

Peter Koestenbaum, 2002

Last year in the U.S. alone 257 public companies with $258 billion in assets declared bankruptcy. This was a huge increase over the previous year’s record of 176 companies with $95 billion. Big Fortune 500 companies aren’t supposed to collapse, yet this year is expected to be worse.

Taking a look at what went wrong and why these companies failed reveals moral and ethical shortcomings. Many negative factors contribute to a company’s demise: a bad economy, financial risks that don’t pay off, accounting manipulations that seem smart at the time, loss of competitive advantage, breakdowns in execution, growing too fast, and rapidly changing market preferences. But to understand truly, one must look deeper, into the very hearts and souls of the leaders who guide corporate responsibility. One must look at the moral and ethical stance of an organization and the role of leadership in creating a culture of values.

Liz Peterson
Executive / Business Coach
Business Training and Consulting, Inc.
lizpeterson@train4success.com
www.train4success.com
1-800-925-9794

With a background in psychology and an executive MBA, Ms. Peterson has the expertise to guide business leaders who are dealing with the complexity of change in the business environment. Liz works with clients to help them develop clarity of vision and purpose in their business ventures. Utilizing the cost-effective strategies of coaching, clients become aware of their strengths and are able to use these strengths to increase energy and wellbeing. Assumptions, blocking development, are surfaced and changed to positive action steps.

An entrepreneurial client writes: "Throughout the coaching process Liz was very supportive of my ideas. She helped me clarify my goals, she patiently encouraged my exploration of many different avenues.... I feel much more prepared to head into my future."

Liz is a member of the International Coach Federation, and a licensed RN.
Leadership: Facing Moral and
Ethical Dilemmas, Vol IV#4
Copyright © 2002 Simmonds Publications
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