Ethical Leadership: Philosophical & Spiritual Approaches to

Organisation

Avoiding ‘More of the Same’ in Our Solutions to Ethics

Leah Tomkins

• Clash between commerce & ethics?

• Collusion of business schools?

• Failure of ‘ethical leadership’?

If that’s the problem, what’s the solution?

Articulations of the problem

• Tendency to craft solutions from within the same systems that caused the problem in the first place

Before grabbing at solutions...

Problems & solutions

If all you have is a hammer, all problems

look like nails

Maslow (1966)

Question our assumption that:

• The only tool we have is the hammer

• The only sense we can use is intellect

• The only mode we have is control

What’s wrong with hammering?

• Codification of values

• Removal of complexity, paradox & discomfort

• Creation of the ‘case for change’ & the basis for action

Laminated card effect

• Designed for efficiency

• Packaged as tools for pastoral care

• Codification of authenticity

Hammers in disguise?

• ‘Back to the things themselves’ (Husserl)

• Suspend the ‘natural attitude’

• Realm of ‘the They’ (Heidegger)

• How things are supposed to be ≠ the path to authenticity

Contributions from phenomenology

• Not knowing ≠ total ignorance

• Bodies & feelings

• Instinct & intuition

• Stop thinking for a while!

• Dismantling some compartment walls

A glimpse of the ethical register?

• Not ‘laissez-faire’ enablement

• Not about being difficult

• Not simplistically evangelical

• The alternative-ness of the alternatives

Additions not replacements

The way out of the hole?

• Can regulation generate ethical leadership?

• Can leaders be virtuous?

• Is leadership the solution or part of the problem?

...Followed by plenary discussion, capturing insights & observations from the day...

Discussion