Inc. Magazine
Leadership is not just strategy or influence but a daily test of conscience. True leaders slow down, embrace discomfort, and listen to what feels off. Ethics isn’t a headline act, but it shapes legacies through honest, hard choices. Leadership, at its core, is a deeply human and ethical responsibility.
Why Isn’t There More Talk About Ethics in Leadership?
Author: Jerry Colonna
During a recent business school visit, a discussion on ethics and leadership unfolded. A simple question from an eager student sparked the conversation. We had been discussing a case study that I helped develop when the student’s hand shot up. “But how do I know what’s right?” he asked. Long after the class ended, his question stayed with me—not because it was difficult, but because it was real.
The intersection between ethics and leadership is regularly crossed, but in the business world, people rarely discuss ethics as it pertains to leadership. They talk about scale, growth, and influence. But what about legacy? What about conscience? What about the small and difficult choices leaders make daily that ultimately shape both who they are and the companies they lead? While it’s not the topic that makes headlines, leaders face these decisions regularly and often silently.
The sound of stillness
Just before I enter a room, there are moments when time seems to hold its breath. I have learned to recognize these moments by listening to the silence—the deeper conversations often follow. These conversations in boardrooms and business school classrooms are not the kind of dialogue that’s stuffed with data or posturing. These conversations are not concerned with work but with what undergirds it. Also, they’re the same discussions that live in kitchens, in the quiet of long walks, and the thoughts of every parent or caregiver.
The lines between what’s right and the difficult decisions that leaders have to make can be blurry. Almost none of the leaders I’ve met started their journey wanting to make unethical or injurious decisions. No entrepreneur or business owner wants to lose themselves while trying to build something that positively impacts the world.
You want to lead well and you want to do good. You want to find a way to do hard things without losing your soul or compromising your values. But no map will tell you how to get there.
The truth about leading with ethics
Leadership seems simple. However, at its core, leadership is an ethical endeavor. You will be repeatedly asked to navigate the rocky terrain between what’s effective (and best for your company or business) and what’s just. You will be asked to choose between what serves you and what serves the whole. The path is never obvious. You won’t know what’s right, but you will always know when something feels off.
Discernment begins with unease, internal friction, and that lump in your throat that’s hard to swallow when something feels wrong. Those feelings are not a distraction. That’s the beginning of discernment. To lead is to care and to recognize the human need for interdependence. When leaders reduce people to means to an end in the name of metrics, they fail to lead with ethics. The only way to lead justly is to get comfortable with discomfort.
Sit in your discomfort
Sitting in discomfort isn’t something you’ll want to do. Your mind will tell you that it’s unnecessary, and you can decide without feeling the depths of that discomfort, but it’s part of making the right decision. How can you sit with those feelings long enough to make the right decision?
I tell the people I coach to slow down before making a decision. There is almost always time to slow things down. If you are a leader, someone of power and influence, use that power to ask powerful questions to, again, slow people down. You will make the right decision within the stillness of time.
Making a tough choice
Your choices may not always be the decision that everyone will stand behind. You may often have to make a choice that impacts others negatively. The important thing is to consider every angle before deciding so that you may do so consciously and truthfully.
Pay attention to the moment when silence feels safer than truth. Listen to what tugs at your conscience. Ask yourself who you want to become. Leadership isn’t about control or certainty. It is a way of being in the world.
Credits: TCA, LLC.