The Ethical Challenge: How to Lead with Unyielding Integrity [Hardcover]

Noel M. Tichy (Editor), Andrew McGill (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 078796767X | ISBN-13: 978-0787967673 | Publication Date: April 18, 2003 | Edition: 1

The Enron debacle, the demise of Arthur Andersen, questionable practices at Tyco, Qwest, WorldCom, and a seemingly endless list of others have pushed public regard for business and business leaders to new lows. The need for smart leaders with vision and integrity has never been greater. Things need to change—and it will not be easy.

We can take a first step toward producing better business leaders by changing some of our own ideas about what it means to "win." Noel M. Tichy and Andrew R. McGill have brought together a stellar group of contributors from a variety of perspectives—including General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, and renowned management gurus Robert Quinn and C. K. Prahalad, among others—to offer insights that will help build better leaders, communities, and organizations. They show how to present a "Teachable Point of View" about business ethics that will help all leaders within an organization:

• Internalize core values
• Build a values-based culture across the organization
• Become engaged to teach the same values lessons to their staff
• Take action and raise the ethical bar

Successful business leaders must be able to articulate their own unique Teachable Point of View on business ethics and drive it through their organization to ensure that everyone knows the ethical line and is neither shy nor silent if others risk crossing it.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

The Enron debacle, the demise of Arthur Andersen, questionable practices at Tyco, Qwest, WorldCom, and a seemingly endless list of others have pushed public regard for business and business leaders to new lows. The need for smart leaders with vision and integrity has never been greater. Things need to change— and it will not be easy.
We can take a first step toward producing better business leaders by changing some of our own ideas about what it means to "win." Noel M. Tichy and Andrew R. McGill have brought together a stellar group of contributors from a variety of perspectives— including General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, and renowned management gurus Robert Quinn and C. K. Prahalad, among others— to offer insights that will help build better leaders, communities, and organizations. They show how to present a "Teachable Point of View" about business ethics that will help all leaders within an organization:

• Internalize core values
• Build a values-based culture across the organization
• Become engaged to teach the same values lessons to their staff
• Take action and raise the ethical bar

Successful business leaders must be able to articulate their own unique Teachable Point of View on business ethics and drive it through their organization to ensure that everyone knows the ethical line and is neither shy nor silent if others risk crossing it.

From the Back Cover

Today's business leaders must fight to win the renewed support of a skeptical public— not through new products, fads, or other manipulations— but with foundations of ethical absolutes the world can trust. Noel M. Tichy and Andrew R. McGill bring together thought leaders from private, public, nonprofit, and governmental organizations to highlight the dilemmas leaders are facing, the decisions some are making, and the reasoning they all must contemplate.

Contributors include:

• Professors Noel M. Tichy and Andrew R. McGill on teaching ethics
• Professor C. K. Prahalad on the "core invariants"
• UMBS Dean Robert Dolan on courage
• James Hackett, CEO of Steelcase, on ethics in everyday situations
• Professor Robert Quinn on doing the norm vs. the ethically right thing
• Eleanor Josaitis, cofounder of Focus: hope on living values every day

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 300 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (April 18, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078796767X
• ISBN-13: 978-0787967673
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #517,116 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Ok, but others are better., February 23, 2005

By 

Bill Godfrey (Mt Stuart, TAS Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Ethical Challenge: How to Lead with Unyielding Integrity (Hardcover)

This is a book of essays on business ethics that suffers badly from the limitations of the genre - 'you write about this aspect, he'll write about that, she'll write about the other'. The result, inevitably, is a set of parts that fail to make a whole, even though some of the parts are good. It is mostly written in a folksy style with a lot of personal anecdote, which will appeal to some.
In general, it is long on how you ought to behave and what you ought to do, and short on serious examination of the system conditions that will encourage and reward ethical behaviour. It is also, unlike Paine's Value shift, short on recognition of ethics and economics as separate, sometimes complementary and equally important domains. 

4.0 out of 5 stars Leading with integrity, December 8, 2009

By 

John Gibbs (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Ethical Challenge: How to Lead with Unyielding Integrity (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership) (Paperback)

"We need smart, gutsy leaders with vision and integrity to get us through the minefields - leaders who can teach others to follow in their footsteps, hold firm to their values, and proliferate those norms across the organization." That is what Noel M Tichy and Andrew R McGill say in the introduction to this book. The book arose out of a Michigan Business School MBA course and conference, and it features chapters by a number of prominent business leaders responding particularly to the ethical issues arising from the Enron collapse.

I normally find books with multiple authors to be difficult to read, so this one has been on my "unread" pile for several months. However, I was pleasantly surprised by how interesting almost every chapter was. Former US Secretary of State James A Baker has an interesting chapter on business ethics in skeptical times, reflecting that some executive compensation schemes are creating perverse incentives, and that esoteric accounting rules are an obstacle to simple honesty. General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt discusses how a CEO needs to be the moral leader of a company.

James Hackett, CEO of Steelcase, provides a chapter which describes some significant ethical challenges which he has faced, and how he has communicated ethical values in his organisation. Eleanor Josaitis, executive director of Focus:HOPE, provides a brief chapter on the extraordinary work done by her organisation in serving the disadvantaged. All up, it is a book worth reading, although not in the "essential" category.

1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a book of so-so!, September 21, 2003

By 

T. Daokun (Beijing, Beijing China) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Ethical Challenge: How to Lead with Unyielding Integrity (Hardcover)

It is Ok in some way, but it is not so good that every leader need to read it as a whole.Personally, this is a so-so book.