Proactivity, Performance and Potential

By Linda Fisher Thornton

The Manifesto

This week, I want to continue to explore the mindset behind T he Leading in Context® Manifesto. Here is an important quote from it about the positive impact of ethical leadership:

“Imagine the potential. What could we accomplish if we proactively developed ethical leaders and an ethical culture? Unleash the performance potential of our people? Transform our organizations? Improve lives and communities? Change the world?”

“Take on the mindset: We believe that ethical leadership drives business metrics including employee engagement, customer retention and innovation. Ethical leadership creates great places to work, and gives us staying power in a global marketplace.”

T he Leading in Context® Manifesto

Improving Organizations Through Proactive Ethical Leadership

Three important concepts in the quote above are:

Proactivity

Performance Potential

Improving Business Metrics

Proactivity means not waiting for someone to direct us to do something. It means doing things before we have to, in order to make them better. How does being proactive about ethical leadership impact our business metrics?

When we lead proactively and seek to improve, we intentionally make changes in our leadership that improve our character, and build trust with others. We choose to continue to be better every day. Applied to ethical leadership, proactivity includes intentionally demonstrating respect and care for others, building trust, and making learning a leadership priority. That continual commitment to organizational excellence releases the performance potential of our organizations. Over time, these small daily choices that bring out the best performance in our organizations begin to improve business metrics.

Questions to Ponder:

Are we more likely to lead ethically when we take a proactive (rather than reactive) approach?
How do the small things that we do proactively to improve our leadership help bring out the best in those we lead?
What is the positive ripple effect of many small leadership improvements on our organization’s overall performance?