The Ethical Leader
Morgen Witzel
“Ethical behaviour by businesses, or their staff, is often seen as the corporate and social responsibility icing on an organizational cake – something that is nice to do but never really essential. But by turning this view around – and making ethical behaviour a primary focus – Witzel shows how businesses can create and maintain long-term competitive advantage.”
In the first line the author warns the reader – “Oh, no. Not another book about ethics” – in a laughing way that this won’t be one of those books. But it kinda is just another book about ethics. It was very slow to start off with, and there was a point near the start where I wanted to abandon it, but then I pushed through and got to a better part later on.I read it when I knew I would be distracted because I could easily pick it up and drop it again – it didn’t require too much brain power.
A strong point of this book were the inclusion of some really nice case studies that are boxed clearly from the rest of the text. For some of the case studies, the author asks ‘What would you do?’ and then tells you at the end of the chapter what actually happened. Any time there is a fact, it uses a reference. Its worth could be as a reference book because it has A LOT of references that you can refer to (haha). It has both footnotes by chapter and a Bibliography. If you like an idea, it’s easy to go and find out more about it.
The real ethics framework is only the last chapter (Chapter 10), where he gives how to make an ethical decision – how to ask yourself if it is an ethical decision you are making. But in the end, different people have different ways and levels of ethics to adhere to. It’s great to read about, and it’s nice that you should do the right thing, but even with the framework there will never be a black and white question. You can ask the questions, but not reach an answer – it’s just your opinion.
I’d like more items to action out of it, such as how to implement this in your workplace. What can I do to improve my business? How do you look after your shareholders vs employees vs customers? There were no takeaways of what I can do to create value or build employee relationships. Ultimately I just didn’t enjoy it and got nothing useful out of it. It IS just another ethics book – it’s average.
Bloomsbury | 12th February 2019 | AU$35.00 | paperback
This book will leave you feeling breathless and raw. The author’s honesty is breathtaking and painful, and will make inroads on your heart. What Michelle has written will resonate with other people who have been or are depressed, and hopefully make people feel less alone. Her descriptions of how she felt when deeply depressed may feel familiar, equally so the pages on her social anxiety.
Where should I begin? While this is billed as a memoir that Neill has written documenting his journey to recovery from being ready to kill himself to finding a path forwards, this is far more than that. I actually found that quite a minor part of the book – instead I was equally entranced and horrified by the stories of the African orphans living in Rainbow who live with being HIV+. Ted’s time there included the introduction of antiretrovirals (ART) and the lengthening of the children’s lives – so that they could live into adulthood. That of course is a very positive outcome, but not available for all children because it is so expensive and there are so many affected by this insidious disease.
First off, there are lots of interesting (and horrifying) facts about the true amount of plastic in the world. Then there are practical and accessible ways to approach quitting plastic. Something I found particularly good was that each tip comes with easy, medium, hard, and ‘it’s personal’ symbols. Just a few little steps can make a huge difference. As per the starfish parable – it makes a difference to that one (
I hoped that this book would discuss how to exploit people as media. Instead it reads as a list of facts with no actual argument. My wife got half way through this book before she gave up and needed to rant to me about it. She did read the second half (no other books on offer at the time) which had more details and practicality in terms of what will happen next eg. ‘getting lots of likes’ is the way that things are heading.
What I thought I was going to get out of this book was a series of interesting, respectful stories about funerals Wilde had directed. Instead I encountered a memoir that aimed to dispel a negative ‘death narrative’ and restore a knowledge of death as inevitable, but not bad. While there are some stories, this book is more about how Wilde has changed his attitude towards God and religion since being a child afraid of hell through to being an adult who sometimes suffers from compassion fatigue.
Meg Jay has really delved into this topic with insight and sensitivity. Some of the chapters really resonated with me, even as I struggled with the concept of the horrible human circumstances that some people grow up with (eg. sexual/physical/mental abuse, neglect or alcoholism). The statistics on how many brilliant people come from adversity were really eye opening.
I put off reviewing this book because I wanted to cook some things out of it to really get a feel for its usefulness. In the end though, I didn’t cook anything out of it because I just didn’t have the motivation to go search out the ingredients, and I also don’t eat many of the items in it (like slices or some veggie dishes).
I started reading this book, and then put it down in favour of something else. When I picked it up again, I had to start from Chapter 1 because I honestly didn’t remember what came before that. That first chapter is one of the most interesting ones – what I would think of as true ‘shapeshifters’ such as the biology behind the myth of werewolves. After this there are discussions of pregnancy, menopause, tattoos and other body changes. Which are interesting, but just not what I expected.
I should have really enjoyed this book, but I sadly didn’t. What I mainly felt was a sense of envy that the case studies within the book had contact with such a fantastic, holistic MD. I am very grateful for the medical facilities in Australia, and I understand the importance of funneling resources, but the system sometimes makes it difficult to reach the professional you need.