Ethical Navigation in Leadership Training

Abstract

Business leaders frequently face dilemmas, circumstances where whatever course of action they choose, something of important value will be offended. How can an organisation prepare its decision makers for such situations? This article presents a pedagogical approach to dilemma training for business leaders and managers. It has evolved through ten years of experience with human resource development, where ethics has been an integral part of programs designed to help individuals to become excellent in their professional roles. The core element in our approach is The Navigation Wheel, a figure used to keep track of relevant decision factors. Feedback from participants indicates that dilemma training has helped them to recognise the ethical dimension of leadership. They respond that the tools and concepts are highly relevant in relation to the challenges that occur in the working environment they return to after leadership training.

Loophole Ethics

“…6, a loophole mentality is also present when people justify their decisions by appealing to the fact that they have not acted illegally. The asymmetry in the legal domain is that when an act is illegal, there is a strong reason to refrain from performing it; however, when an act is legal, there is not a strong reason to perform it (Kvalnes & Øverenget, 2012). Reflections on the phenomenon of loophole ethics point in the direction of a similar imbalance in the ethical domain.…”

Beyond Compliance

“…A moral dilemma is a choice between wrong and wrong. Something of moral value will be lost, no matter what the decisionmaker opts to do (Brinkmann, 2005;Kidder, 2005;Kvalnes & Øverenget, 2012;Maclagan, 2003Maclagan, , 2012. Leaders and employees from the private as well as the public sector can experience that they spend their professional lives in a moral minefield.…”

“…I draw on classical contributions from Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham, and John Stuart Mill, and contemporary input from Philippa Foot and Judith Jarvis Thomson, as well as a variety of more specific works in business ethics and organizational ethics. A central and original component in the book is the Navigation Wheel, a tool I have designed in collaboration with philosopher Einar Øverenget (Kvalnes & Øverenget, 2012). Decision-makers can use the Wheel to keep track of the legal, ethical, value-oriented, moral, reputational, and economical dimensions of a decision.…”

Moral Reasoning at Work

“…0003 Mill, and contemporary input from Philippa Foot and Judith Jarvis Thomson, as well as a variety of more specific works in business ethics and organizational ethics. A central and original component in the book is the Navigation Wheel, a tool I have designed in collaboration with philosopher Einar Øverenget (Kvalnes and Øverenget, 2012). Decisionmakers can use the Wheel to keep track of the legal, ethical, valueoriented, moral, reputational, and economical dimensions of a decision.…”

“…This chapter adds to the decision-makers toolbox by introducing the Navigation Wheel, a figure designed by Einar Øverenget and myself (Kvalnes and Øverenget, 2012) to be the central component in ethics training in organizations. We have applied the Navigation Wheel in ethics seminars and courses in a range of different organizations, in the private and the public sectors, and in organizations of different shapes and sizes.…”