Prince Harry’s new book Spare and the wave of publicity attendant to it raises an ethical question that applies to non-royals, too: Why do we have a duty to keep private things private? Let’s take a look. Respect: A crucial principle of ethical intelligence Aretha sang about it. St. Vincent and Dua Lipa celebrated it at the GRAMMY Awards . Parents tell their ...

Good-mouthing is the practice of saying something good behind someone's back. If it seems like a strange term, it is. Googling "badmouth" yields over 4 million results. "Goodmouth" produces a mere 1 million, most of which are about dentistry. It's great to have a healthy mouth, but it's also good to speak well of people when they're not around. It's even better to do it when ...

Trust But Verify Did the banks and hedge funds that dealt with the crook Bernard Madoff have an ethical obligation to look more deeply into Madoff's business? In this video (under 2 minutes), I explain why your duty is to trust but verify. If you're a CPA, this duty is clear and unambiguous. It also applies, however, if you're an HR professional. It's hard to imagine ...

Ageism: The Last Socially Acceptable Prejudice? Ageism is bias against people based on their age. It's usually applied to older people when, for example, a senior executive is let go for no good reason other than her age. Companies who dismiss older employees may use another reason for the dismissal, but job discrimination based on age cannot be denied. It's not only ...

How did thousands of Twitter employees learn that they were being let go? Some were notified by email . Others found themselves unable to log into the company’s systems . There are several ethical questions worth exploring. Was it right for CEO Elon Musk to fire employees this way? Was it right for those employees to be fired in the first place? Each is robust enough to ...

As Apple rolls out its latest edition of the iPhone, here’s a novel way of using your current device (Apple or not) to be more ethical. Let’s focus on how to keep our promises and avoid making promises we’re not prepared to keep. A disturbing but true story Years ago I gave a talk to a group of association executives in Quebec City, and a member of the audience—I’ll ...