ABSTRACT
What chief executive officers (CEOs) need is an organisation where customers, employees and investors share an integrity of meaningful values and an equity of outcomes that are fair for all. Good CEOs naturally embrace a practical synthesis of moral philosophies. But as someone who has been a corporate CEO, and as someone who now teaches ethics both in business and in a business school, my experience is that what CEOs get, but definitely don’t need, is the prescriptive list of ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ seen in so many codes of conduct. Good leaders of good organisations will use the language of values, engagement, culture and quality; and they also understand in very pragmatic terms, what we mean when, in discussing ethics, we use the language of virtue, dialogue, community and excellence as the core themes discussed in Part II of this book.
