Dayo Sowunmi's slidedeck: Defining and Ethical Baseline. International Leadership Association (ILA) 21st Annual Global Conference. Ottawa, Canada. October 2019

1. ILA 21st Global Conference
Leadership: Courage Required
Ottawa, Canada 24-27 October 2019 #ILA2019OTTAWA
Dayo Sowunmi II (GAICD)
dayo@anode.com.au
Defining an Ethical Baseline
For Courageous Leadership

2. The Why?
Governance, Culture & Accountability
From 2017, the
Australian Royal
Commission/Inquiry
into the conduct of
Financial Services
companies…
…highlighted the
need to improve on:

3. Overview
Intro/The Why?
Literature Review
Novelty Introduced By Proposed Model
Ethical Baseline Models (From The Field)
Next Steps…

4. In The Literature…
• Corporate culture & values:
o Lewin, Lippitt and White, 1939
o Rest, 1979
o Badovick & Beatty, 1987
o Jurkiewicz & Giacalone, 2004
o Hofstede, Neuijen, Ohayv & Sanders, 1990
• Corporate values: Accountability, Effectiveness,
Honesty, Impartiality, Incorruptibility, Lawfulness,
Profitability, Reliability, and Transparency
(Van der Wal, De Graaf & Lasthuizen, 2008)
• Poor corporate governance and control mechanisms,
and lack of sound ethical tone by people in leadership
are significant contributors to corporate scandals and
eventual collapse
(Soltani, 2014)

5. In The Literature…
• Issue-contingent model, based on moral intensity,
“a construct that captures the extent of issue-related
moral imperative in a situation.” (Jones, 1991)
• It is multidimensional, characteristics of the moral
issue include magnitude of consequences, social
consensus, probability of effect, temporal immediacy,
proximity, and concentration of effect.” (Jones, 1991)
• “Higher collective moral sensitivity (stronger norms of
moral sensitivity at the social-system-level) will be
positively related to ethical behavior and negatively
related to unethical behavior.” (Arnaud, 2006)

6. In The Literature…
• Individuals perform four psychological
processes prior to engaging in ethical
decision-making acts:
• moral judgment
• moral motivation
• moral character
• moral sensitivity - where decision-maker is aware
of attendant ethical dilemma, and how their
decisions affect others (i.e., empathy) (Rest, 1986)
• The empathy dimension is central to the proposed
model
• Extending the person-situation interactionist
model, “moral action takes place in social context and
can be influenced heavily by situational variables”
(Trevino, 1986)

7. In The Literature…
• “People tend to become much more concerned
about moral issues that affect those who are close
to them rather than those with whom they have little
or no contact” (Jones, 1991)
• The proposed ethical baseline model offers a
visual way of highlighting such conscious or
unconscious biases held by the decision-maker
• Designed to foster objectivity, transparency,
consistency, and courage during crises

8. Four Key Components
Ethical Scenario Planning (pre-crisis)
Level of Negative Impact (of ethical decision)
Impacted Parties (of ethical decision)
Strategic vs Operational Level (abstraction)
Novelty introduced by Ethical Baseline Model:
www.LeadershipisMental.com

9. Ethical Baseline Model
Yes
Maybe
No
Actions
you
would do
Actions you
would not
do
Actions you
might do
© Dayo Sowunmi 2019 www.LeadershipisMental.com

10. Autocratic Leader/Narcissist
Yes
No
© Dayo Sowunmi 2019 www.LeadershipisMental.com

11. Ethical Baseline Model (#1)
Senior Technical Manager (Fin Services)
R R R R R
R R R R R
R R R R R
A A A A A
G G G G G
www.LeadershipisMental.com

12. Ethical Baseline Model (#2)
Team Assistant (Fin Services)
r r r r r
r r r r r
g g a a r
g g g g r
g g g g a
www.LeadershipisMental.com

13. Ethical Baseline Model (#3)
Mid-Level Manager (Finance Dept)
R R R R R
A R R R R
a A R R R
G A A A R
G G G G r
www.LeadershipisMental.com

14. Ethical Baseline Model (#4)
R R R R R
R R R R R
R R R R R
A A A A G
A A A G G
Senior Technical Manager (Insurance)
www.LeadershipisMental.com

15. Ethical Baseline Model (#5)
Exec & NED (Not-For-Profit)
r r r r r
r r r r r
a r r r r
g a a a a
g g g g g
www.LeadershipisMental.com

16. Ethical Baseline Models
r r r r r
r r r r r
a r r r r
g a a a a
g g g g g
Exec & NED
(Not-For-Profit)
r r r r r
r r r r r
g g a a r
g g g g r
g g g g a
R R R R R
R R R R R
R R R R R
A A A A G
A A A G G
R R R R R
A R R R R
a A R R R
G A A A R
G G G G r
R R R R R
R R R R R
R R R R R
A A A A A
G G G G G
Team Assistant
(Fin Services)
Senior Technical Mgr
(Insurance)
Mid-Level Mgr
(Finance Dept)
Senior Technical Mgr
(Fin Services)
www.LeadershipisMental.com

17. Ethical Baseline Models (Comparisons)
www.LeadershipisMental.com
Yes No Maybe

18. Ethical Baseline Models (Comparisons)
www.LeadershipisMental.com
For further comparisons, deep dive into the Model’s 25 boxes.
Example showing shift when Negative Impact increased from
Negligible to Low.

19. Next Steps
Produce models for decision-making
groups (e.g., board of directors, college
senate etc)
Explore and Exploit AI to guide future
decision-making activities
Simulation Modelling/VR www.LeadershipisMental.com

20. ILA 21st Global Conference
Leadership: Courage Required
Ottawa, Canada 24-27 October 2019 #ILA2019OTTAWA
Dayo Sowunmi II (GAICD)
dayo@anode.com.au
Defining an Ethical Baseline
For Courageous Leadership

21. References
Arnaud, A. (2006). A new theory and measure of ethical work climate: The psychological
process model (PPM) and the ethical climate index (ECI). Retrieved from
http://commons.erau.edu/db-management/11
Badovick, G.J., and Beatty, S.E. (1987). Shared organizational values: Measurement and
impact upon strategic marketing implementation. Journal of the Academy of Marketing
Science, 15(1), 19-26.
Eisenberg, N. (2000). Emotion, regulation, and moral development. Annual Review of
Psychology, 51, 665-697.
Hofstede, G., Neuijen, B., Ohayv, D.D., and Sanders, G. (1990). Measuring organizational
cultures: A qualitative and quantitative study across twenty cases. Administrative
Science Quarterly, 35, 286-316.
Jones, T.M. (1991). Decision making by individuals in organizations: An issue-contingent
model. The Academy of Management Review, 16(2), 366-395.
Jurkiewicz, C.L., and Giacalone, R.A., (2004). A values framework for measuring the
impact of workplace spirituality on organizational performance. Journal of Business
Ethics, 49, 129-142.
Lewin, K., Lippitt, R., and White, R.K. (1939). Patterns of aggressive behavior in
experimentally created social climates. Journal of Social Psychology, 10, 271-301.
www.LeadershipisMental.com

22. References
Rest, J. R. (1979). Development in judging moral issues. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.
Rest, J. R. (1986). Moral Development, advances in research and theory. New York:
Praeger.
Soltani, B. (2014). The anatomy of corporate fraud: A comparative analysis of high
profile American and European corporate scandals. Journal of Business Ethics, 120(2),
251-274.
Trevino, L.K., (1986). Ethical decision making in organizations: A person-situation
interactionist model. The Academy of Management Review, 11(3), 601-617.
Van Der Wal, Z., De Graaf, G. & Lasthuizen, K. (2008). What’s valued most? Similarities
and differences between the organizational values of the public and private sector.
Public Administration, 86(2), 465–482.
www.LeadershipisMental.com