About Transpersonal Leadership: Ethical Leadership

The News of the World debacle identifies our total lack of ethical leadership – and it’s not just Rupert Murdoch

The current disaster can be laid firmly at the door of unethical leadership. The unethical genius that is Rupert Murdoch together with his disciples Rebekah Brooks and son James Murdoch may be at the pinnacle but our political leaders Blair, Brown and Cameron have shown more than just bad judgement in their quest for News International’s support. Then there is the police, the newspaper advertisers (who have been supporting the tabloids for years and then pull out for purely commercial reasons) and of course the journalists and private investigators themselves.

Engage Staff to Survive.

Consultants PWC state that involvement is essential in managing change successfully. They identified that nine out of ten barriers to change relate to people.

LeaderShape’s Managing Director, Greg Young, agrees: “Engaged people are up to 40% more productive, developing solutions to improve productivity that no top-down approach can ever identify. They bring innovation to the way they and their organisations work. It is leadership, at all levels, that determines the level of engagement in an organisation, its productivity, its agility and therefore its long term sustainability of performance.”

Staff engagement is seen as one of the biggest keys to success.  A new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit identifies more than 80% of top company executives across Europe and the Middle East airing this concern.  Yet almost half (43%) admit that issues like motivation, identification with company goals or willingness to ‘go the extra mile’ – are only ‘occasionally’, ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ discussed at board level. Moreover, almost 90% say their organisations fail to take action to tackle continually low staff engagement.

Changing Education Paradigms.

If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with something original.

Business leaders know what they want from the next generation workforce. Yet mainstream education continues to suffer complaints of low student achievement and employees who aren’t ready for the job.

Internationally recognized guru, Sir Ken Robinson, has penned Government education reports and was central to the Northern Ireland Peace Process regarding its economic development strategy. If that isn’t enough, he was one of four international advisors to the Singapore Government for its plan to become the creative hub of South East Asia.

Are we all hard-wired to be selfish and is ‘survival of the fittest’ our true default?

Neuroscience contradicts this mantra and shows that the empathy we feel for others can drive our understanding of leadership. When the boss gets angry, the whole workforce reacts to the tension in the room. But leaders can motivate when they connect better with staff, using collaboration as a tool for success. It’s the opposite of our belief that business only wants ‘profit at any cost,’ a view that is wrecking our social structures and our world economy.

Learning is ALL Around

Learning opportunities are going on around us all the time and we don’t necessarily recognise them until we really absorb what is going on.  And Leadership has common themes, which hold true in the most unlikely of places.