Why is ethics a seemingly elusive component in Leadership?

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If ethics is doing the right thing, at the right time for the right reason, then it seems that there is a lot of interpreting about what “right’ is. Questions need to be asked to help make sense of situations like these.

The lynchpin is the word ‘right.” Right according to whom? Should it be left up to each person to decide what is right and for everyone else affected, to accept that personal judgment blindly? This then becomes an individual vs. community scenario. “Right”, ethically speaking, needs to consider the effect of one’s decision(the right reason)?will have on others and then gauge the “rightness of the decision. This could mean, changing one’s reason about what one thinks is right to what might be a greater good.

How open are leaders to being “wrong” when they consistently think they are right and how far are they willing to go to hold that view despite the information that proves the contrary? Ethics becomes a non-entity and falls back on the false premise, that if it’s legal, it’s ethical.

Rightness is based not only on the common good but also on the greater good. When either of these is missing in one’s decisions, it’s tough, if not impossible to be right.

Doing the right thing at the right time, for the right reason is not easy, but must be done with careful thought, consideration, values-based, willingness to pay the price for the decision!?