The Issues at the Core of Ethical Decision-making and Leadership Bruce Lloyd (2009)

Introduction

The objective is simple: “Better decision-making.” The only issue is that there are so many different views over what we mean by “better.” At the core of all decision-making is the need to balance Power with Responsibility, as the vehicle for resolving the “better” question. This article explores why that is so difficult? It also argues that exploring the concept of Wisdom can provide invaluable insights into how to achieve the most effective balance between Power and Responsibility, which is central to what our values mean in practice, as well as how we incorporate ethics into our decision-making.

Wise decision-making also, inevitably, involves moral/ethical choices and this occurs every time we make a decision. Hence, it is not surprising that we find that the comments we might define as Wisdom are essentially comments about the relationship between people, or their relationship with society, and the universe as a whole. These statements are generally globally recognised as relatively timeless and they are insights that help us provide meaning to the world about us. Yet how often it seems to be almost totally ignored in Futurist, Strategy, Knowledge Management, and even Ethics-based, literature. We also appear to spend more and more time focused on learning knowledge, or facts, that have a relatively short shelf life, and less and less time on knowledge that overlaps with Wisdom, that has a long shelf life. Why is that? What can we do about it?

Author

Dr. Bruce Lloyd, Emeritus Professor of Strategic Management, London South Bank University, London, UK

Paper

• The issues at the core of ethical decision-making and leadership