Every corporation or organization has a culture. Sometimes it is consciously developed; sometimes it merely evolves. But, no matter how it is developed culture guides employee behavior and how they think and approach their jobs. Think of culture as a kind of default mechanism for employee actions, for the organization’s culture guides behavior when specific counsel or direction is not available or has not been forthcoming. Recognize too, that culture is conveyed to employees both explicitly and implicitly as it becomes a guide to the “proper” or acceptable way to think, feel, and act.
Leadership, no matter where located in the organization, is constantly shaping and reinforcing culture – sometimes consciously and sometimes not, sometimes by specific actions and other times by a lack of action. In the video clips and transcripts in this section, we see compelling evidence of how seriously leadership takes their role in building a culture of ethical business behavior. This is a fundamental and continuing function of leadership – one that cannot be delegated though it must be shared for effective implementation throughout the organization.
Note too how leadership connects an ethical culture with a winning business; in other words it is essential to success not tangential to great performance. In this section, you will find many good ideas of how leadership instills and keeps reinforcing a culture of ethical business behavior and the benefits there from.