Leaders on Ethics

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 leaders—people who grapple with ethical dilemmas on a near-daily basis—share 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.

Author Biography

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).