My Take-5 of Leadership and Ethics

As a kid, I remember believing leadership was a big office, nice cars, power, and a private jet. I still want to fly on a PJ, but life began teaching me that leadership isn’t about the privileges that came along with titles; it’s about the privilege to serve – to impact others.

In Dr. Adam Stoverink, Ph.D. ’s MBA Leadership and Ethics course, that understanding of leadership was confirmed and fortified. If you ask me today, leadership isn’t about you or me; it’s about we. Here are my 5 takeaways:

We’re All Just People:

If only life was as simple as the comic books, where there are clear “good guys” and “bad guys.” In reality, we’re all just people. Each of us are capable of unethical things. We also have cognitive biases that paint ourselves as better people than we really are. That’s why you probably didn’t like what I just said. Adding power to that equation makes decision-making even more complicated. Power becomes addicting, like a little drug that wears off fast and leaves life dull without it – you’ll always want more. It also makes perspective-taking more difficult. That’s not a good thing if you think leadership isn’t about you. But by being people, we are also all capable of doing the ethically correct thing, too. There’s good in all of us. As a leader, it’s important we understand and stick to our values, that we check our biases, watch out for moral disengagement (mental gymnastics), and that we install discipline in our decisions. By being openminded, we see more of the world around us and become better leaders of others.

We’re All Still Learning:

One of my biggest pet peeves is a “know-it-all,” mostly because I know it’s a fixed mindset and that they really don’t. They just can’t see it over their ego. Besides, even if you are the best wayfinder in the world today, the wind and seas beneath us will change by tomorrow. A willingness to constantly learn is key to survival in business. Staying humble helps you stay quick on your feet and see the problems coming because you are closer to them. Further, my second biggest pet peeve is labeling someone as an “underachiever.” This is another fixed mindset that shapes people’s performance to meet the expectations and beliefs of those around them – an assigned self-fulfilling prophecy. In truth, we are all capable of more than we are today. The growth mindset isn’t just something we should strive for personally, but something we should encourage those around us to adopt. We learned in class that growth, improvement, and achievement are the greatest intrinsic motivators and are linked to long-term happiness and performance.

We’re a Friendly Face to Someone:

Our Leadership and Ethics class rightfully acts as a capstone course in our MBA program. We closed the class by presenting a “Do Good” project that focused on creating morally good impact in the community – a great initiative for future business leaders. One moment from the presentations struck me more than any other, when a member of a group called “Be Good NWA” asked us to think of a time when someone randomly brought a smile to our face. Colin K. was trying to get us to recognize our shared humanity. I looked around the room at all the faces in my cohort that make me smile. And I thought about how I make others smile, too. We learned in class that loneliness is now considered a public health crisis, and only 38% of employees think at least one person at work cares about them. This not only should be a concern to leaders but a call to action for us all. To approach everyone with cognitive empathy and compassion. To be a friendly face because there’s no telling who out there really needs that right now – kindness is cheap to give and means the world.

We’re in It Together:

As I sat in my last class of my final finance course, my professor gave us a history lesson about where the term “company” came from. He changed the way I look at business entirely. Interestingly, he studied war before getting his PhD in finance – he’s a character but I loved being in his class. He explained that “company” came from the Middle Ages when kings would ask noblemen to amass armies by creating “companies” of troops. This company was in it together. It was them against the world. Truly, that is what teams still are today. You have a goal, you have constraints, and you have each other. The team I was a part of for our Leadership and Ethics class taught me so much about the dynamics of working with others. Together we built a culture, we established psychological safety, we persevered, we understood each other, and we achieved. I would walk across fire barefoot for those people. After all, as we learned in class, culture eats strategy for breakfast. My advice for leaders would be to view your team like a company on the battlefield. Fight hard together and have each other’s back – you might just come home with the riches of victory.

I’ll Do It for Others:

Compassionately challenge others towards positive change. This is my purpose statement, and I try to make decisions in my life around it. I’m not sure what my life will look like, but I trust someday, somewhere, somehow, I will be approaching people with compassion and empathy to create a catalyst for positive change. In that way, I will be making the world better, and that will be just fine for me. Who needs the PJ? I’ve always liked Biscoff cookies, anyway. To be honest, leadership seems scary to me. That’s a lot of pressure and responsibility – I wonder if it’s even worth it. I then think of the times I have led and remember the gratification of watching others grow and achieve. It makes my chest swell because I know I helped them, and I love internalizing that – talk about a high. In my quest to understand leadership and the motivation to do it, I’ve affirmed that I will do it for others.

Thank you, Adam, for developing a class that fostered these views of leadership. I appreciated all your work.