Becoming the Most Honest and Ethical Leader You Can Be

One of the best ways to move toward being the most honest and ethical leader you can be is to surround yourself with those who possess an even higher level of integrity and ethics. Additionally, read about ethical decision making. When faced with an ethical dilemma, take some time to deliberate the best course of action. If you are unsure about how to act in the most ethical manner for a particular situation, you can rely on the help of those who have a high level of ethics. For instance, speak with a leader from church, a professor, or a trusted friend. Rather than relying on only one person, you can ask several of these ethical leaders for assistance.

Improving Personal and Corporate Ethical Decision Making

In my estimation, personal and corporate ethical decision-making can and must be improved. As a society, we need to have role models that are more positive, rather than idolizing those who amass great wealth at the expense of others. Instead of acting based on what will create the greatest amount of money in the shortest amount of time, it is time corporate leaders begin to consider the bigger picture and reassess what is really important. There exists a sort of moral bankruptcy among many business leaders, and a growing number seem to lack the capacity to think in terms of a community.

Rather than considering how their actions may affect others, they consider only their personal gain. There are many extreme cases where business leaders have chosen money over saving other’s lives. Or, they have chosen to increase their bankroll in ways that significantly reduced others’ quality of life.

Core Values Overlooked by Leaders

Leaders for a number of reasons are overlooking core values. Primarily, it seems that some people grow accustomed to living a lavish lifestyle and will do whatever it takes to keep up their high mortgage and bills. Additionally, several leaders see and watch other leaders acting unethically and rewarded.

Perhaps even more influential is that by the time people are finished with school, they are often drowning in debt and feel a sense of injustice because they had worked so hard to earn the material things they want. Then, they find that their friends who dropped out of high school or never went to college are doing better than they are, and without all the debt, stress, and responsibility. While ethics and wealth need not be mutually exclusive, many people find it easier to earn money in unethical ways.

I think that simple greed is the main reason why so many leaders overlook ethics and core values. In addition, many leaders are pawns in the system and follow orders from their superiors. If they want to continue their lifestyle and keep their job, it is often required that they follow orders, regardless of ethics. In such cases, a strong and ethical person will seek employment elsewhere.

The Five Forces model of Porter had been developed by Professor Michael Porter Strategy in 1979.

It summarizes the factors affecting the performance of a company by five forces:

* Bargaining power of customers;

* The threat of potential entrants;

* Bargaining power of suppliers;

* Threat of substitute products;

* The intensity of intra-industry competition.

The weight of these five forces determines the ability of firms involved to make a profit. If all forces are high, profits will be limited. Conversely, if the forces are weak, it is theoretically possible to generate a significant profit. The essential point is therefore to prioritize these forces so as to identify the key success factors in the industry, that is to say, the strategic elements that must be mastered to gain a competitive advantage.

The bargaining power of customers

The main influence of customers on a market occurs through their ability to negotiate. Their influence on the price and sales conditions (terms of payment and associated services) determine the profitability of the market. The concentration level of their customers pay more or less power; few clients facing many producers have greater opportunities to trade (eg supermarkets). The power of customers is even greater than the products are standard and there are substitutes readily available (cost of switching down).

power of customers is high when:

* They are concentrated

* Suppliers are numerous and dispersed

* There are sources of supply substitution

* The cost of transfer is low and predictable (when the customer changes supplier)

* There is a threat to integrate backwards from the customers

The bargaining power of suppliers

The ability of suppliers to impose conditions on a market (in terms of cost or quality) has a direct impact and inversely proportional to the customer. A small number of suppliers, a strong brand, highly differentiated products are all factors that increase the cost of switching and therefore the power thereof.

The threat of substitutes

Substitutes are not part of the market, but represent an alternative to offer. It may be of different products to meet the same need (eg: MP3 download / Compact Disc) or product affect demand (electric vehicles / fossil fuels). The substitutes are characterized by a cross-elasticity is positive. In fact, the increased price of a good cause therefore increasing the quantity sold of each other.

The intensity of competition within the sector

Competitors struggle within the industry to increase or simply maintain their position. There are between firms in the balance of power more or less intense, depending on the strategic nature of the sector, the attractiveness of the market, its development prospects, the existence of barriers to entry and exit, the number, size and diversity of competitors, the importance of fixed costs, the possibility of achieving economies of scale, character banal or perishable goods, etc.

The threat of potential entrants

The arrival of new competitors is influenced by barriers to entry, the initial investment required, tickets, patents already in place, standards, protectionist measures, the image of the industry and companies already established, cultural barriers, technical standards, etc.. All these facilities make entry more difficult for another firm. Behavior of actors in the sector (eg retail, automotive – is the last in Tucker in the 1930s).

The role of government

Although the government (State, European Commission, local authorities, etc..) Does not appear explicitly in the model proposed by Mr. Porter, his influence is taken into account and can affect each of the five forces. Policy and legislation implemented to determine how effective each of the forces exerted on the market. For example, the entry may be subject to approval or conversely be subsidized. This analysis tool is still questionable

Use concrete model of five forces in enterprises

The objective of this model is to identify key success factors of the environment, ie the strategic elements that must be mastered in order to obtain a competitive advantage. For this it is necessary to prioritize the 5 forces to determine what strategic actions should be undertaken first.

Reviews of the five forces model

The Five Forces model is the basic tool of analysis of environmental strategy. It is however criticized for several reasons:

* It is based on a rhetoric of confrontation (strength, power, etc..) Which focuses on threats as opportunities and leaves little room for collaboration strategies.

* It implies that the strategy is basically to adapt to environmental conditions, precluding approaches based on the resources and skills that emphasize endogenous vision of success.

* It can be completed: some authors (notably in continental Europe) add a sixth force, government influence. This is known as model 5 (1) forces. Porter himself said in later writings the role of supplements (eg software industry for microcomputer).

* Each business case is specific. It is necessary to integrate the application in the enterprise model of 5 forces a hierarchical order of importance as the business of the company.

* Also note that this tool is only applicable to large companies and SMEs to large (at least 300 people), it becomes unrepresentative if not useless for small and small SMEs.