Tom Fox welcomes Joshua Nunziato on this episode of the ESG Report. Joshua is an author, and an Instructor in the Social Responsibility and Sustainability division of the Leeds School of Business. He joins Tom to talk about corporate leaders conducting ethical leadership, its role in ESG, and why ethical leadership is a must in the future business world.
Creating Ethical Leadership
Joshua created his Ethical Leadership course for corporate leaders to equip them with the tools and insight they need to understand the changes happening around them. “We really want to help leaders who participate in our program to understand that acceleration is really the new constant,” he tells Tom. Corporate leaders need to be able to respond proactively to changes and crises. The range of stakeholders has expanded, so the traditional approach to corporate director education is no longer going to work. Directors and corporate leaders need forward-looking tools to navigate their current environment.
The Relevance of Ethical Leadership in 2022
Tom asks Joshua to explain why a course on ethical leadership is needed in 2022. Joshua responds that emerging from the crisis mode of the pandemic comes with a range of challenges that board members have to face, including increasing interest rates, high inflation and uncertainty. Board members need to be able to situate their companies against these challenges and risks, ask the right questions and provide leadership that will drive their organizations forward.
The Role of Corporate Leaders in ESG
Sustainable leadership in ESG means that the needs and wants of the broad ecosystem of company stakeholders are being met with what Joshua calls, ‘compassionate pragmatism’. “Corporate leaders are able to weigh up and evaluate the comprehensive impact that their decisions are having on the environment on local communities, on their employees, on their suppliers, on their customers, and yes on their investors,” Joshua further explains. Compassionate pragmatism is also about taking in the impact, whether positive or negative, that corporate decisions may have, as well as managing what leaders can measure, and what they cannot. Leaders have to figure out what they value, and also what values they can gather as a business community that will drive them towards enduring prosperity.
America in Ethical Leadership
Joshua doesn’t see America taking the lead on ESG, or other sustainability issues; however he does see America leading relative to other economies that are trying to get their citizens into the global middle class. Innovation on various compliance and ethical issues is happening around the US, and this is because individuals are recognizing the need to respond. The impact of corporate decisions over the decades is being felt across the political spectrum. Scandals and breaches of ethics also have serious ramifications and consequences for businesses, and so it makes sense for leaders to step and lead with ethical conviction. Joshua’s role as a philosopher is to expand the moral imagination of the leaders he works with, so they can ask the right questions and consider sustainable leadership possibilities they otherwise may not have thought of.
Resources
Joshua Nunziato | LinkedIn | Twitter
