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+1.301.405.5218
ila@ila-net.org
3119-F Susquehanna Hall
Univ. of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
United States
About Our Home
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When describing a transformational leader, one of the conceptual
anchors always includes ethics. There have been many discussions and
presentations around ethics since the ILA began. What has not yet been created
is a place, a home if you will, for this very important work. There are many
ways to approach ethical leadership: research, practice, frameworks and
theories, development, education, or cultural and organizational context. The
list could go on and on. It is a topic that moves beyond the focus of any single
Interest Group. Thus, our new learning community Ethics Forum has been launched
to anchor ethics within our diverse organization!
The Ethics Forum is a continuation of a
discussion started by the Leadership Development MIG in
an effort to collaborate across ILA communities. This Learning
Community has been developed by Jan Byars, Tom Sechrest,
and Ted Thomas. We are all a part of the Leadership Development
MIG and were on the original Ethics Forum Panel in Prague
2009. The Leadership Development MIG will continue to play
a supporting role until the Ethics Forum has its own leadership
fully in place. This will help in further developing a community
structure, and give us some time to decided how we will
elect future Chairs.
We have been working on creating the Ethics Forum learning
community since the idea first emerged in February of 2009.
It has taken so much longer than we had hoped. Now, we have
the infrastructure to allow us to place more attention on
content and engagement. Yeah! Let’s get rolling! We already
have an active discussion on ILASpace at
www.ilaspace.org/group/ethicsdiscussionforum. So you
can sign up and get started right now!
Our intention is to create a living space
for leadership ethics, an ongoing practical forum for discussion
available for all ILA members. It is a place to bring ethical
dilemmas and hopefully move into a community of practice,
maybe even suggest a code of ethics. The forum will be a
place to share and broaden perspectives. It will offer a
place for reflective thinking and a process for self-evaluation,
allowing each of us to explore our beliefs and attitudes,
and their impact on our leadership. We hope to provide a
home to optimize learning with a diversity of experiences
and perspectives.
We know leadership is about attention. What
we pay attention to is what directs our behavior and our
thinking. Hopefully this Learning Community will anchor
our attention—help us be a bit less fragmented and help
us keep an eye on our ethical leadership. Imagine if we
can each move one step higher in our practice. What if we
could influence the organizations we touch to move one step
stronger?
We had a great discussion at ILA’s 11th Annual Global Conference
in Prague in November 2009. We had a packed room with people
actively and energetically sharing. The interest was high
to continue the conversation. Some of the topics discussed
in Prague included: the relativism of ethics, and the impact
of culture, context, peer pressure, or age. How do we factor
in so many issues? How to teach ethics? How to develop ethical
leaders? How to support others in making ethical decisions?
Why is unethical behavior tolerated? What part of ethical
choices is conscious or unconscious? Can we codify ethics?
Can unethical leaders be salvaged? How can we change an
ethical culture of an organization?
We had another live discussion of the Ethics Forum in at
ILA’s 12th Annual Global Conference in Boston in November
2010. It was another intense, interactive conversation around
diverse topics, and how to walk forward as a community within
ILA.
We all know, order emerges in a self-organizing group by
way of the interactions and relationships in the group.
So participation is the key to learning from each other
and making our ideas multiply and regenerate across the
span of global membership in ILA. This will be a grand experiment
in and of itself! Whether or not we gain value from this
process depends on our willingness to participate! So if
you would like to play a leadership role in the ILA, here
is a simple way to step forward and participate!
Have I peaked your interest yet? What does the future look
like? Facilitated Skype discussions? Webinars? Work groups
to shape Ethical Leadership within ILA? These questions
will be answered by you! Are you ready to join?
Organizers: Jan Byars (Innovative Leadership Solutions, Ohio), Tom Sechrest
(Associate Dean, St. Edward's University), and Ted Thomas (Director, Command and General Staff College)
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