The world needs leaders who are not focused exclusively on the short-term, but who serve the greater good for shareholders, employees, customers, and communities. The world needs leaders who have been formed by embracing the life-long process of cultivating character, and lead with the moral authority of an authentically virtuous person.
A growing number of business leaders have expressed to me the need for business schools to cultivate the next generation of ethical leaders so that they promote an intentional culture of virtue within their organizations. At the University of Dallas, we take this responsibility very seriously. In fact, ethical leadership is at the very heart of all that we do at the Satish & Yasmin Gupta College of Business. It is at the core of our mission statement: “… we prepare business professionals to become principled and moral leaders who are ethical and effective decision-makers capable of leading in a variety of dynamic and complex environments.”
Our emphasis on developing virtue and character in undergraduate and graduate business education isn’t based on empty slogans or vacant ‘virtue signaling’. We emphasize virtue and character formation by having a required ethics course in every degree we offer, and we emphasize integrity-based decision-making in cybersecurity, accounting, finance, analytics, marketing and leadership courses and across our entire curriculum. In our traditional undergraduate classes and our graduate classes with working professionals, our faculty employ a wide array of pedagogical techniques that are designed to help students develop skills in recognizing, clarifying, communicating, and make integrity-based decisions when conflicts arise in their organizations. Our approach resonates with students, and it is responsive to what organizations want in their leaders today.
But cultivating ethical leaders is a process, not an event. It is not checking the box for having taken a required course in a curriculum. “Cultivate” is an agricultural metaphor that focuses on an intentional process that takes place over time. When planting a garden or a flower bed, the process begins with the soil preparation – removing rocks and old roots and tilling the soil while blending in fertilizer and nutrients. When seeds begin to sprout and growth begins – we often can’t see it. Yet, as the plant emerges, we continue to water, fertilize and nurture the new growth toward maturity. When the plant is finally mature, it produces flowers or fruit that contain the seeds necessary for reproduction.
Developing the character of ethical leaders is akin to cultivating a garden or a flower bed. We begin with “soil preparation” by introducing the importance of ethics and the cultivation of virtue in the very first semester of our programs. We emphasize the responsibility to use our talents, our influence, and our positions as a force for good on our teams, in our organizations, and in our communities.
Today, organizational stakeholders are increasingly calling on leaders to make integrity-based decisions. Our curriculum not only prepares students to be capable in their academic discipline, but a person who sees others as whole people and strives to create virtuous organizations where all stakeholders – employees, customers, suppliers, and the community – can flourish and thrive.
Our world needs business leaders who act with honesty which allows the free market to thrive. Virtue, character, ethics – are profoundly important, and we recognize that now is the time for undergraduate and graduate business schools to be more purposeful about transferring the system of values from one generation to the next.
